By Scott Nichols

As we are in the middle of the summer months, most tanning salons across the country have entered their slow season. Our goal today is to look for reasons for customers to walk through your doors during these summer months. For a lot of salons, our customers are outside receiving the tan you once gave them. Now is the time to find clever ways to bring them back. I recommend instead of trying to run sale after sale on your tanning services, that you acknowledge that your customers are tanning outdoors and find different ways for your customers to still need you.

The first way to get your customers to walk through your doors is by educating them about the importance of moisturizing. Find a low-cost marketing means such as social media to educate your customer on the importance of moisturizing your skin. Experience has told me that if you are the one educating the customer, they will buy from you. When educating the customer, make sure you talk about the features of the product and what benefit it will give your customer. They need a reason to walk through your doors.

Next, many customers are going to be heading outside for the weekend and, as stated above, you need to educate your customers. Find a way to educate the customer on tanning with you during the week before they head out for the weekend. Just like our busy season vacationers that come in before vacation, we need to treat them the same.

Lastly, it is summertime, and a lot of customers want to look tan. I would market a spray tan to your customers. A spray tan brings multiple reasons for customers to walk through your doors. Not all your customers have the luxury of heading to the beach each day. A good spray tan can give your customer the color they are looking for. The next reason is work. If your customers are working during the daytime indoors, there is also a good chance they are not getting the color they want. Look for ways to fit a spray tan in during their work schedule. Last reason, many of your customers just don’t have time. They have kids that maybe in soccer, baseball/softball or any other activity after work. By the time the activates are finished, dinner is made, kids are in bed and the sun has set. This is your opportunity to promote your spray tan. A spray tan can usually be done weekly and in only minutes – the perfect solution to your customer’s needs.

As we move from our busy season to our slow season, we need to look at marketing to our customers differently. Find ways for your salon to compliment the customers’ needs during the summer months. Have fun with this and make sure your message helps find reasons to bring customers through your doors.