Hope your season has taken off like others I’ve heard from. I’m still hearing sales are fluctuating up and down depending on the week or month. But, most are saying their session counts are up. So hopefully as client use up their sessions, they’ll start to purchase. As I said in the past, I’ve found every 2 to 4 years this happens, since the client accumulates sessions/points/minutes from previous years.

The one thing I’m finding is clients are coming in too late to create a complete base tan before a holiday, which we all know takes at least 4 weeks. This being based on the manufacturers recommended exposure schedule. The JCTA has added a new section on TanResponibly.ca to hopefully correct this. The JCTA marketing team added a new page, “Sunburn Prevention,” to educate consumers that it takes more than a week to get a base tan. We, as salon owners, need to make sure our clients are reminded of this every chance we get. This way, more clients understand the process and don’t sunburn on their sunny holidays. Sunburn Prevention is the cornerstone of our business.

Hopefully everyone has seen the JCTA Press Release, out in February, on the latest research on the benefits of sunlight and sunbeds, with the rebuttal against the WHO. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for a piece of research like this for 30 years. You need to share this information with your clients to show them that their risk isn’t what they think it is. As I was writing this, I told my wife about another piece of research just out on sunlight reducing the risk of flus. I said we needed to share this information. My wife said to me, our clients at D Tan Sunlight Centre say this: “I know it’s bad for me, but I still like it.” We need to change this attitude to grow this industry. We need to continue to share this type of positive information.

The JCTA, on its consumer Facebook page Tan Nation, boosted the press release and it reached over 50,000 Canadians. This was the largest response on a post we’ve ever gotten. We know from research: 7 out 10 Canadian want to sunbathe, but only 1 out 10 sunbathe indoors. This could be because of cost, but I believe it was all the negative press we’ve gotten in the past; thank god that’s no longer the case since the myopic under-18 problem is gone. It time to rebuild that positive side of sunbathing. We just need to continue sharing the positive message that is now coming out about sunlight and relate it to a sunbed. The Canadian Sunbed study that came out late last fall should help you out as well. Check out the Weather Network interview with Dr Kimball. The JCTA was also contacted this year from a director doing a documentary on the positive effects of sunlight. He was very interested in the Kimball research and filming at one of the salons (JCTA Member Salon) that was part of the research project. The documentary hopefully will put us in a better light with the public.

The JCTA Social Media campaign has taken off this year. For the first time, we almost had 1100 people a day going to TanResponsibly.ca. On average 400 to 600 people check the website out daily and these are all Canadians. Check out these stats.