As the tanning industry continues to adapt to modern consumer preferences, so too must our approach to attracting new customers.

Today’s young adult consumers represent the future of all tanning businesses. While their patronage may not be critical to our businesses financially today, it will become increasingly essential as the current primary customer segments age out of the market over the next few decades. The concern for our industry is that this demographic is viewed as being largely uninterested in UV tanning. But there are encouraging signs, as indicated by a recent bevy of mainstream media reports on “the renewed popularity of tanning.” Undoubtedly, there’s plenty of untapped potential in the older Generation Z and younger millennial age segments.

Raised with technology at their fingertips and immersed in social media, this generation’s perceptions and behaviors are more distinctive than the differences between older generations. To attract this segment, it’s essential to understand their specific concerns and desires. This demographic values healthy lifestyles, appearance, and authenticity. They seek experiences that align with their values and aesthetics. Therefore, tanning businesses must adapt their services and marketing strategies to meet these expectations. And, most notably from a tanning perspective, they have grown up amid a barrage of negative messaging about tanning, making it imperative for the industry to show them that we are not the same old tanning salons that have been vilified by tanning critics.

Because so many salons are already doing the right things to appeal to younger adult consumers – embracing state-of-the-art tanning technology, diversification, skin care, and more modern, attractive aesthetics – much of the additional effort revolves around effective marketing. If you’ve already done the hard part, why wouldn’t you want to show as many people as possible what you’ve accomplished? And, on a broader scale, every positive impression made by any salon contributes to changing the overall perception of tanning businesses.

Fortunately, technology and the habits of these young adult consumers make them easy to find. By leveraging modern digital marketing techniques and platforms, tanning businesses can reach these young adult consumers where they spend most of their time – online. And we have another significant advantage to embrace: Thousands of vibrant, talented young women working in salons around the country who know what their peers like and can function as ambassadors for our industry.

One Impression at a Time

Last year the ultimate example of the impact social media, and TikTok in particular, can have on international rhetoric about our services. When Kim Kardashian shared that she has a tanning bed and red light therapy unit in her office, it set off a whirlwind of articles and debate. While much of the conversation that ensued was critical of her choice to tan, there’s little doubt that the net result of tens of millions of people knowing that she UV tans is a positive for our industry.

Of course, few A-list stars, let alone anybody in the tanning industry, have the kind of social media reach and influence that Kim Kardashian does. But, as an industry made up of thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of employees, our combined reach is enormous.

That certainly doesn’t mean we need tanning businesses and employees on TikTok telling people that tanning is good for them – that’s exactly what we don’t need. What we do need is as many salons and employees as possible out there simply presenting a positive image, showing more people what the tanning industry is all about today, and that it’s no longer the tanning industry of the ‘90s or early 2000s. The more people that see any salon that offers advanced UV equipment technology, wellness and spa services, and overall attractive, modern and trendy environments and experiences, the better off we’ll all be in the long run.

As detailed in an article on page 9 of this magazine, Bridget Coe, owner of four salons in Pennsylvania, is in the process of a monumental effort to fortify her business for the long-term future by investing in more than a million dollars of tanning and wellness equipment and rebranding from Baja Beach Tanning to Baja Beach Wellness. She’s also hired an employee solely to manage their social media presence, knowing the importance of spreading word of their new image far and wide through their communities, and embarked on an aggressive social media push geared to cement her salons’ new image in the minds of her community members.

In the process, Baja Beach has done more than sell a whole lot of $299 all-inclusive memberships. They’ve made a huge deal out of every single step of the transformation and generated more and more hype along the way. They’ve taught their communities that the business is different than before. And people are loving the new wellness-oriented approach.

We all know that embracing spa and wellness services is a great way to appeal to new customers, but it’s about more than the services. While updating your equipment and adding high-end services like SmartSun Therapy, cryotherapy, or hybrid tanning is the biggest statement you can make, a large part of the appeal lies in presenting an overall more luxurious, professional, and appealing image that melds harmoniously with your service offerings. As more salons embrace a modern approach and brand image, memories of the tanning businesses of the ‘90s will gradually fade, and consumers around the country will begin to adopt a more positive impression of “tanning salons” as a whole.

“I think what’s going to happen as more salons do this is, when you get that game-changing piece of equipment, you gain that credibility from your guests and your tanners. You gain that respect because you have that, and now it’s making the whole tanning industry look better,” Coe says.

“We’ve also leveled up as far as our uniforms and education and training for staff. Personally, I feel I couldn’t have established [the new identity] this way without ‘going big or going home.’”

With a huge social media push as well as advertising on billboards and in local publications, Coe is showing her community that “We’re different now. We’re not just a tanning salon.”

That’s what the industry needs to do as a whole.

Cast a Wider Net

Of course, independent tanning businesses aren’t invested in the success of the entire industry and don’t have the resources to invest in propagating a positive image of tanning around the country. Maintaining a positive and impactful social media presence on a local level is the priority for any given business.

 Today, digital marketing is king, especially when it comes to reaching younger adult consumers, and it’s made paid advertising more efficient and affordable than ever before. Tens to hundreds of thousands to millions of local people are at your fingertips in any and every market in the United States. While word of mouth may still be the most powerful promotional tool for salons, social media and online advertising are the easiest and best way to extend your reach and show your community what you have to offer.

While TikTok is certainly the current craze, especially among younger consumers, it’s not necessarily the platform best suited to appeal to local consumers through organic posting or advertising. But that doesn’t mean TikTok shouldn’t be part of your social media arsenal. TikTok might not be your most valuable promotional tool, but it’s an incredible content creation tool that can help you enhance your Facebook and Instagram presence. Salons around their country are getting their younger employees involved in producing content or even running their TikTok and other social media accounts. They’re well suited for that role, it’s something they’re familiar with on a personal level, and they often enjoy the opportunity to express themselves to the salon’s audience.

As seen on Baja Beach’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, much of their content was originally created on TikTok. Videos can obviously be recorded without TikTok, but the platform’s features and tools make it easy to create more engaging content and also share it outside of TikTok.

“We use TikTok to create a lot of the content, but I feel that Instagram is for sure the biggest these days and honestly still Facebook. But really Instagram as far as reaching that new audience,” Coe says.

Facebook may still be the most effective social media for small business promotion, but Instagram is almost certainly better for reaching younger consumers. Fortunately, because the platforms are owned by the same company, you can set your Instagram posts to automatically post to Facebook. While some additional Facebook-specific content would be advisable, focusing mostly on Instagram and letting your posts there populate your Facebook feed is a sensible approach.

As always, it’s important to note that no matter how good your content is you’re not likely to reach a massive local audience on social media for free. But paying to do so is easy and affordable. Paying for promotion on social media is also helpful because you can ensure you’re reaching the intended audience. If you want to promote a specific message to younger clients, the ad will only be shown to people in the age group you select.

In the last 60 days prior to this article being written, one small Midwest salon chain spent just over $2000 on social media ads, primarily promoting their state-of-the-art hybrid and red light equipment. That spend helped them reach 80,000 targeted individuals in their local markets and generated more than 12,000 total post engagements. While many of their ads were promoting specific events and specials that are better suited to drive salon traffic, they all have a common theme: Without saying as much, the majority of content conveys the message that “this isn’t your mother’s tanning salon” and promoting their most impressive and innovative equipment and service assets.

If you’re looking to convey a simple message to a vast audience, Google Ads is likely an even better option than social media. Those who aren’t familiar with Google Ads might not properly understand the possibilities. If you think Google Ads are just to get your website to show up in search results, you’ve got it all wrong. Search Ads are great because they are served to people searching for specifically what you’re offering, but there are also limitations. While it’s the best form of targeting money can buy, it’s more expensive and you’ll only reach however many people are searching for your keywords. It’s Google’s Display Ads that allow you to reach a much larger audience at a low cost and target your local area and a variety of demographic options. Google Display Ads are served to viewers on millions of websites and apps. They’re easy to create, and you don’t have to keep coming up with new content on a regular basis.

“We’ve always wanted to maintain a strong presence on Facebook and Instagram, but you can’t ignore the numbers. When we can reach hundreds of thousands more people and get thousands more clicks for the same amount of money on Google, and people spend more time on the website, it just doesn’t make sense to keep investing as much in Facebook,” says Steve Gilroy, a salon owner and executive director of the Joint Canadian Tanning Association, which advertises the industry to consumers throughout Canada.

For the aforementioned Midwest salon chain, running one Google ad continuously has proven to be remarkably efficient. So far this year, the salon has spent just under $700 on Google Ads and generated more than 400,000 impressions and 6,000 clicks to their website. Which brings us to our next point: Social media and Google Ads are great ways to show new people what your business is all about, but your website is still equally important. With the main initial goal of your ads being to drive people to your website, the design and functionality of your site needs to match the image you want your salon atmosphere to create. The impression and information they get from your website is going to make or break the success of your ads when it comes to actually getting people into the salon.

When it comes to content for social media and ads, there are a million different options, but if you’re targeting the younger generation, there’s one topic in particular that’s worth keeping in mind: skin care. Younger consumers today are known to be obsessed with skin care. On one side of the coin, that’s likely a large part of why that generation isn’t tanning as much. They’ve had it drilled into their heads their whole lives that tanning is bad for their skin. But service diversification, new tanning technology, and the greater variety of multi-purpose tanning and skin care products in the market are giving us plenty of new ways to counter that thinking without saying anything you shouldn’t.

You don’t even have to try to sell tanning by using this angle for promotion. Focusing on your skin care products and self-tanning products in posts and ads is a great way to introduce new people to your business and start showing them that skin care is important to you, too. Also, your industry product manufacturers are social media experts in their own rights, and they have hordes of pre-made social media content you can use with minimal effort.

“All the products the manufacturers are coming up with will help tremendously. Just because you have a customer who doesn’t want to tan, doesn’t mean you can’t have them as a customer to buy products,” says salon owner Kimberly Ammons. “Sometimes my customers will tell me what some ingredients are. They already know about all of the ingredients and what they can accomplish.”

Human Resources

If it’s true that young adult tanners are few and far between these days – the majority of salons surveyed by Smart Tan said the 18-24 age segment makes up less than 10 percent of their current customers – then each and every customer in that age group should be treated as a valuable commodity. Not just because of their current and future purchasing power, but because they are assets you can utilize to reach more people like them.

Each customer you gain in this age range is a step toward reaching more of their peers. If your business is presenting the right image that appeals to younger consumers, you can, in effect, become part of their personal “brand.” These days, with the social-media obsessed youth, everybody has an image of themselves they want to promote to the world. For many young women, some elements of that image are valuing their appearance and having the money to spend on luxurious services. You want to be a place they want to be part of that image. More practically speaking, you should look for as many opportunities as possible to incentivize your younger clients to promote your business on social media and through the tried-and-true old-school method of referrals.

And, while young adult customers may be at a premium, many salons tend to hire mostly people in this age segment. Don’t overlook how powerful their influence can be. Incentivizing your staff members to promote the business on social media and through their personal networks is a no-brainer in this day and age.

Tanning businesses tend to employ young, vibrant individuals – the same type of people who thrive on social media. While you shouldn’t require staff to promote your business on their personal social media accounts, consider how you can make it worth their while. If you have a strong commission structure, that may be enough in itself. They can benefit personally by reminding their followers when they will be working and why they should stop in. You can also appeal to their vanity by organizing professional photoshoots and producing content that you can use on your business accounts and they’ll also be excited to share with their followers. Or, if you have staff members with more substantial followings, think about how you can motivate them more aggressively.

Try to get your staff to look at referrals as one of the best ways to make more commission. Incentivize them to post content from work and include a direct plug. Set up an online store where people can sign up for a membership at an impulse when they see your employee’s post and a deal associated with the employee’s individual promo code. They can even promote a deal you’d offer any new member, but you get the extra promotion for a small incentive to the employee – something like “Use code Sally50 for 50 percent off the product of your choice when you sign up for a membership.”

“I think having high school and college student employees out there representing and talking about the business does get [their peers] interested. I even have younger people coming in and just using red light and the Cocoon. They’re interested in the whole wellness side,” says salon owner Renee Edgren. “Employees get to spray tan or tan for free and they have referral cards for customers. We give each employee cards to give to friends to get them to come in. Then, some of them sign up after they have a positive experience.”

After all, who better to know how to relate to a certain audience than members of that audience themselves?

 Regardless of how you choose to promote your business, the main priority for success now and into the future is not just presenting the right image but actually embodying it with a modern service selection, new equipment technology, and an appealing aesthetic for your salon atmosphere and brand representation. From there, your marketing efforts and community outreach are the key to unlocking new possibilities by simply showing more people how far your business has come and how much you have to offer.