We may have only just started summer, but I’m here to remind you that now is the time to start planning for fall. Typically, spa business will begin to slow down in fall, and if you don't have a solid plan to bring in more revenue, it's easy to slide into reactive brain, making it very difficult to problem-solve.

Preparing your fall marketing plan is not just about the plan though, it is also about analysis. If you are jumping into the planning phase, you’re missing a whole bunch of information like…what happened last fall? Did you launch new products or bring in a new piece of equipment in hopes of enticing new clientele? Did you run a few Facebook ads to increase your profile and *fingers crossed* maybe get a few new spa clients out of it?

However, more importantly, you need to know; How did it all work out?

I would recommend that you block off a few hours next week to do a business analysis of last fall. And yes, I do mean NEXT WEEK. The earlier you start this process, the better. You do not want to be sorting through all of this information during the first week of September while madly trying to come up with a marketing plan for the fall.

The Business Analysis Process

Gather Information From Previous Year

• Any offers or promotions

• Number of employees

• Business metrics

  • Service sales

  • Retail sales

  • Combined sales

  • Retail sales ratio

  • Average ticket

  • Pre-booking

  • Client retention

  • First visit retention

  • Existing client retention

• Facebook and Instagram insights

• Email metrics

  • Open rates

  • Click-through rates

• Your personal situation at the time

Once you have all your data, you need to look at what worked and what didn't work. There will be places where you see weak links and great strengths. That is the information that we are looking for.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats

S.W.O.T is a simple worksheet that allows you to take the data you collected and put it on paper.

In this worksheet, you will list all of the strengths (or things that worked) that you identified in the data analysis of your spa business last fall and under those strengths, you list the opportunities that you could repeat this fall to leverage your results.

You will do the same with the weaknesses you found in your analysis from last year and list what could be possible threats this year underneath. This process will help bring to light what you want to avoid and get clarity on how you can change the situation to an opportunity instead.

Once you have all this valuable information, you can start to see the bigger picture and begin to create a strategy. Watch the video for specific examples of what a SWOT looks like for hiring & new team members.

As a leader and spa business owner it’s critical that you are able to zoom out to the "Eagle View" when you do your business analysis. This big picture view is the space where you can start making strategic decisions about your fall marketing plan. If you are stuck the daily grind of your spa in "Hummingbird View", flitting around seeing everything in close up focus, you won't be able to see the bigger picture. Yes, there are times when you want to zoom into your spa business and focus in on specific areas, but you can't stay there all the time or you’ll lose track of the direction you meant to go in your strategy.

If you are stuck in “Hummingbird iew” and having a hard time seeing the big picture of your spa business, contact me. I can help you complete your business analysis quickly (I’m pretty dang good at shifting between Eagle & Hummingbird views!) and create a stellar marketing system for fall.

Or, if you don’t have time (or want to!) my team & I can create and manage this task for you, including all of your Social Media Management.