Today’s blog delves deep into one crucial question I see popping up over and over again within the spa industry: what is broken about spa marketing? 

If hearing that feels like a bit of a slap to the face, I can’t blame you— while you’re marketing to your ideal audience, there are people out there marketing to you and feeding you myths about how to best market your spa business. 

The biggest myth of all? The squeaky wheel in spa marketing? That you can rely solely on social media marketing for increasing sales.

The Problem With Spa Businesses Relying Only on Social Media Marketing

Firstly, I wanted to preface this blog with the following: social media marketing is essential. It is a vital part of brand awareness, showcasing your expertise as a spa, your spa business’s culture, and for both your existing and potential clients a place to stay connected with you and your brand’s identity. In fact, social media marketing is one of the most critical forms of done-for-you online spa management and digital services I offer my clients. I know spa owners don’t have the time or mental bandwidth to showcase your social well.

With that being said, however, I see lots is wrong with how the majority of spa businesses strategize and implement their digital marketing— namely expecting social media marketing to be a miracle worker when it comes to increasing sales. That strategizing and implementation mistake is eating up the time, energy, and money of spa owners without the return-on-objective they’re expecting.

So what are the problems with putting all your spa business marketing eggs in the social media basket? I’m glad you asked!

• Spa owners not knowing enough about the nuances of general digital marketing. Why is this a problem? Well, because this typically results in spa owners directing their marketing actions at a very shallow audience… which, as I hear about often in my free spa-owners only Facebook group, Spa Business Mastery, isn’t actually their ideal clientele! Talk about wasted time and money galore. 

• Spa owners mistakenly focusing on one marketing strategy due to a lack of experience. In this case, spa owners in general want to only use social media marketing (and, on top of that, typically only one social media channel) to funnel their marketing through. The result? Only reaching a quarter (or less!) of their intended audience!

• Spa owners believing that organic content will have the same reach as paid promotion. Did you know that your average post (no promotions, no Boosts, no nothing) reach only 5.5% of your audience on average? The social media marketing sphere is tightening its reins on how far your organic content will go, so expecting staggering results from organic content alone, without other channels of marketing or promotions, will largely result in disappointment. 

• Spa owners compiling messy follower lists. On that note, another problem that prevents organic social media posts from being 100% effective for spa business marketing is that many spas have “messy” follower lists… meaning that they consist of mainly other estheticians and spa owners or paid followers. While having a high number of followers may look good, the reality is that those numbers mean nothing if they aren’t made up of existing and potential clients; in fact, they actually negatively skew your analytics away from your ideal audience, meaning that any paid advertising you run won’t be targeting the correct people. “Messy” follower lists are duds that need remediation before refocusing social media marketing efforts to paid advertising. 

• Spa owners don’t acknowledge their lack of social media “real estate”. In short? No one owns anything on the internet! Something we all don’t think about enough is that our social media accounts could be shut down or hacked with no recourse, meaning that if you rely only on social media marketing for your spa business you could be left out in the cold.

“So Kirsten, How Do I Diversify My Spa’s Marketing So I’m Not Relying on Social Media Marketing to Drive Revenue?”

The short answer: diversify your marketing so that your message is being delivered, seen, and understood by the consumers who matter; the consumers interested in your expertise, experience, and brand who are likely to either stay on as long-term clients. 

The long answer?

• Diversify your spa business marketing channels to include ongoing strategic growth for your website, blog, email, paid advertising, and social media channels (including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest as the most popular channels amongst spa owners). This is typically done either by the spa owner herself or via outsourcing.

• Don’t just set up your website and leave it to collect dust; a good website is updated frequently and SEO-optimized, most popularly with blogging. Blogs are a streamlined answer to bolstered SEO rankings, attracting new traffic, and solidifying your place as a trusted spa source

• Engage in consistent email marketing, which is ideal for reaching existing clients who already know and trust your expertise as a spa owner: I recommend sending content-based emails at least twice a month, once at the beginning of the month as a newsletter format and a mid-month email as an educational tid-bit with a CTA to book or buy online. What’s also recommended is to add an email opt-in to capture new traffic: a discount on the first visit to lower booking resistance is the most common!

• Purge your social media follower lists to ensure that your followership is made up of profitable existing and potential clients, not paid followers and other spas!

Kirsten Foss Coaching’s #1 Quick-Start Tip to Expanding Your Spa Business’s Marketing

My fast-action tip for diversifying your spa business’s marketing starting today? Repurposing your best monthly social media content to your email. 

Ready to ramp up your marketing diversity even more? If you do a Live video on social, create a vlog on your website and embed the video as well as create a YouTube channel and upload Live! Video not your thing? No worries; blogging is equally great and can be cut up into snippets that you then use as part of your bi-weekly email marketing. You can even go full circle and have your blog be used as captions for social media posts!

One thing is for certain when it comes to marketing your spa biz: expanding your visibility means either A) at least integrate paid advertising if you choose to stick to organic social media marketing only (which isn’t recommended!) or B) expanding your brand messaging across more than one digital marketing platform.

My top recommendation? Keep things easy on yourself by leveraging what you already have, whether that be the written word or video! Having your messaging be consistent across all marketing platforms is golden for reeling in your ideal clientele. 

Not sure where to start? Book your one-on-one chat with me today so that we can ensure that you're doing your spa business’s marketing the right way.