SMS Marketing Ideas for Spas

Thanks for visiting.  I first discovered SMS marketing in the UK where I was managing campaigns for an agency over there. They had been successfully running such campaigns for spas for nearly six years… and the spas were making a killing doing this.

If you’re not familiar with SMS marketing, it is the practice of sending promotional messages via SMS to recipients that have asked to receive them.  In the case, of spas SMS marketing also includes sending appointment reminders via SMS.

For a more detailed explanation of the process click here.

What Spas Are Doing in the U.K.

Having seen the amazing results spas were getting with SMS marketing in the U.K. I was a little surprised to return to Canada and discover that nobody is really doing anything similar here.

Here are some of the ways they’re using SMS marketing:

1. To announce product sales, special events or limited deals on specific services
2. To fill slow periods or last minute cancellations
3. To remind clients of upcoming appointments (usually sent 1-2 hours prior to the appointment)

The beauty of this approach to marketing can be attributed to speed and effectiveness.  Because text messages a) get read immediately b) get acted upon c) get forwarded to friends and d) are so cheap to send the results my clients were seeing were pretty impressive.

Typically, 97% of messages were read and actual response rates (percentage of recipients that took action on the messages sent) would range between 15% to as high as 45%.

Ideal for Customer Retention

SMS campaigns are ideal for building VIP lists.  Because it is so easy to opt-out of an SMS list, only your best customers will remain on.  These are the 20% of your customers that normally account for 80% of your revenues.  They love your business, they return often and they tell their friends about you.

When my clients also leveraged text messages as appointment reminders they found that the rate of their “no-shows” plummeted and more often than not, the savings in lost revenue per month more than covered the costs of the SMS campaign.

Using SMS to Get New Customers

That said, the smarter spa owners were also savvy enough to use SMS to find new customers as well.  They would advertise their campaigns on their website, social media channels (Facebook and Twitter) as well as through any other marketing they would be doing for their business.  As more and more new customers joined their list, obviously the campaigns became more profitable.

It is All About Return on Investment

Speaking of profitability, this is where these campaigns become so appealing. Small business owners the world over want to see results for any kind of marketing that they pay for.  This was true in the U.K. and I’m sure it is true for you as well.

There is always a small setup fee to cover the costs of registering your keyword(s) and for the initial marketing materials to launch a campaign.  After that, the monthly cost to maintain the list(s) and send out messages was usually only between $50 and $100 per month for the average spa.

When costs were compared to the extra revenue generated AND the saved revenue from kept appointments, SMS marketing usually became a no-brainer.

I’m still in the process of ironing out the details with an SMS service provider for Canada but it looks like costs here will be similar.  That is pretty exciting.

My name is Eric Haaranen.  I can be reached at 604-564-2571 if you would like to talk about setting up a text message marketing campaign for your spa.  Thanks.