As you know, your business is not only competing with other salons, but also with Mother Nature. The extreme disparity in revenue throughout the year isn’t seen in many other service industries. Even if you’ve compensated well during busy season, the dip through summer and fall can be disheartening. Thankfully, we’re on the tail end of the slow season, and salons are beginning to ramp up to full speed.

However, it’s never too early to think about how you can make your entire year better in 2018. You’re not going to improve your slow season by waiting until June and coming up with magical promotions that will drive flocks of clients into the business throughout the summer. Success in the latter half of the year starts now, when your membership numbers are soon to be highest, with a strategic approach that will help sustain membership counts throughout the entire year.

The conversation about customer rewards or loyalty programs in indoor tanning business is very much different than in most every other industry. Most retail business use loyalty programs – punch cards, point systems, etc. – solely as a means to incentivize you not to turn to their competitors. Whereas, because of seasonality and EFT-centered business models, indoor tanning businesses should be more focused on lengthening the duration of memberships.

Of course you want to keep your clients from visiting competitor salons, but there are other ways to accomplish that feat. Your primary goal for instituting a loyalty program should be to maintain memberships through the slow season. That’s why now is the best time to get your program in place. When new clients start memberships is December, they will be exposed to the program from the start and experience the benefits for several months before they’re likely to even consider cancelling.

An engaging rewards program that offers a gradual increase in benefits can be a more effective and efficient way to maintain memberships than other options like freezing accounts or applying start-up or cancellation fees. Offering freebies and discounting products will generally be worth the improved EFT draws, and you’re likely to make some dollars back via volume sales due to discounts for loyal clients.

It does seem that tanning business are beginning to grasp the importance of a strong loyalty program. In a 2015 Smart Tan poll, just 41 percent of tanning businesses said they have a rewards/loyalty program. In a 2017 poll asking the same question, more than two-thirds of businesses said they have such a program. That’s a substantial improvement in a short time but still shows that many are lacking in this respect, and most that do have programs likely haven’t optimized them for membership retention.

“Creating and implementing loyalty programs is one of the most under-utilized retention tools in most salons,” salon consultant and Sun Your Buns owner Grant Miller says. “You need to give your clients as many reasons as possible to keep using tanning services you’re your business. Since most businesses tend to take their customers for granted, a well thought out loyalty program signals to your clients that you do appreciate their business, and it will keep more of them engaged and doing business with you.”

While we’re just now getting to the end of JASON (woohoo!), now is the time to get your loyalty program in place, and get your current and new members locked into rewards that they won’t want to walk away from when the 2018 season ends.

Click here to read the entire article in the latest issue of Smart Tan Magazine online.