How To Write Emails That Help You Book More Clients: A Crash Course For Salons, Spas & Barbershops

When it comes to running a hair or beauty business, your success largely depends on nurturing good relationships with your clients — both current and prospective. To attract new business and retain existing clients, you need to build a good rapport with the people and communicate your value in a compelling way.

This is one of the reasons why email marketing is a powerful strategy. Unlike other forms of marketing (e.g., social media, SEO, etc.) your email marketing efforts and initiatives are fully within your control. You’re able to take ownership of your audience, so your brand’s reach and visibility aren’t defined by a third-party algorithm.

When implemented properly, email can be a game-changer for your marketing efforts. Yet many establishments shy away from it because of uncertainty over how to write emails and use language that results in more appointment bookings.

In this post, we’re going to put those concerns to rest by explaining how you can craft compelling and convincing email communications that command attention from both current and potential clients.

Why Email is Still a Relevant Marketing Tool

In the age of social media, it’s easy for email to feel a little old-fashioned. With the powerful messaging tools offered by Facebook and Instagram, many businesses have pretty much-abandoned email writing altogether.

While we’ve gotten used to seeing a lot of really bad examples of email marketing, this doesn’t mean it’s dead in the water. In fact, it offers some major advantages that our favorite social media platforms, sometimes lack.

It’s fully customizable 

When you’re disseminating content through social media, you’re effectively playing by someone else’s rules. You only have the ability to structure your content within the limits set by a platform’s API, such as character limits, photo attachments, and link sharing.

By contrast, email gives you the freedom to structure your email templates however you like. You can design communications that are unique to your business far more easily, which allows you to foster brand awareness faster.

You’re in full control of your list

You might have thousands of social media followers, but this doesn’t mean that thousands of people are actively viewing your content. On the contrary, the majority are only going to interact with the occasional post.

Why? Because social media algorithms often make it harder, not easier, to get in front of your followers. And with organic social media reach dropping further over time, businesses are growing more dependent on paid ad spending to get their content in front of potential clients.

Meanwhile, email continues to receive very high engagement, with open rates sitting at an average of 21.33%, according to MailChimp. Best of all, your email list is entirely your own data. When nurtured properly, your list only becomes more valuable over time!

You can segment and nurture your clients

At any given time, both potential clients and loyal repeat customers will be in varying stages of the sales cycle. While some are ready to hit “book now” on that appointment, others still want further information on your salon or spa’s offerings.

This is very complex to juggle on social media, where you don’t have the ability to segment organic content in a cohesive way to nurture individual clients.

Email is a highly valuable tool for tailoring your content according to data that you capture over the course of the customer relationship, such as:

• What services/products they are interested in
• What is their regular appointment schedule is
• How long they have been a client

With these capabilities, it’s not surprising that marketers who use segmented email campaigns experience increases in revenue as high as 760%.

And the good news? Email segmentation and personalization are becoming easier and more accessible. You don’t have to be a large enterprise to launch tailored and sophisticated campaigns. With the right email marketing solution, you can slice and dice your email list and ensure that people receive content that’s relevant to them.

How to Write Emails That Convince and Convert Clients

Let’s dive into how to write a convincing email.

As we all know from being email recipients ourselves, getting a message from a company that’s genuinely engaging doesn’t happen every day. The majority are either lackluster in their delivery or don’t feel as though they’re tailored to our interests.

You can avoid falling into this trap by taking the following steps.

Use second-person language

When your client opens their email, you have a very narrow window of time — just four seconds on average — to grab their attention and direct them to your CTA. This makes it vital that your copy speaks directly to the recipient.

One of the simplest ways of doing this is to write in the second person, wherein you’re addressing the reader. When writing from a second-person point of view, you’re constantly using words like “you” and “you’re.”

This is a powerful technique because it situates the reader at the center of your value proposition, which makes your content much more engaging.

Conversely, writing an email in the first person can come off as self-centered. While it’s okay to use this point of view from time to time (e.g., “We have a special surprise” or “Our salon is going through some changes”) make sure you’re still tying the message back to the reader.

Remember, no one likes conversing with someone who only talks about themself, so minimize the first-person point of view when writing.

We also don’t recommend writing messages in the third person because it makes the reader feel detached from the content. You want your messages to connect with your recipients, so write them like you’re speaking directly to your clients. 

Personalize where possible

Consumers are aware that email marketing typically goes out to very large email lists. And if we don’t feel that communications are intended just for us, we are a lot less likely to give them our full attention.

You can overcome this barrier by addressing your clients on a first-name basis. The use of someone’s name personalizes an email communication that’s sitting in their inbox, they’re far more likely to open it and engage. According to Experian Marketing, personalized emails receive 29% higher unique open rates than non-personalized emails — and 41% higher unique click rates.

Here is a great example from the skincare company Proven. In addition to having the recipient’s name in the subject, the body of Proven’s email contains the customer’s name and specific skin concerns.

Use actionable verbiage 
Ultimately, you want your email writing to guide the recipient into taking a certain action — i.e., to book an appointment. To this end, you need to make sure that your use of language is geared towards encouraging this. See to it that your clients know what they should do next.

This means using powerful, directive words and phrases in your subject line and throughout your copy, such as “book now”, “claim your discount” or “find out more” which gives consumers clarity over the intent of your email. 

Craft a compelling subject line
The hardest part of email marketing? Getting your emails opened in the first place.

When the average office worker receives 200 emails a day, it takes a solid subject line to entice people to click.

Your subject line plays the exact same role as the headline of a blog post; it needs to be informative, relevant, and concise. In fact, research shows that subject lines between 6-10 words see the highest open rates — well below the average of 11-15 words.

This subject line by Glendale Salon Spa promotes an exclusive promotion for their loyalty program and does so successfully in just five words.

Keep it readable 
The best email communications enhance readability by minimizing verbal fluff and sticking to the point.  

This also applies to how you format your copy. On the web, the way that we read and digest text is very different to how we would read a print magazine. Big, block paragraphs are very difficult to read on-screen, and we’re more likely to navigate away from the page than struggle through it which means losing a valuable sales lead.  

A good rule of thumb is to keep your paragraphs to a max of 4-5 lines. Try to make them even shorter if possible for maximum punch.

Check out this email from Maelove which introduces the brand’s new retinoid serum for softer and smoother skin. The email explains a quick story behind the product, and it does so using 5 short paraphs.

Let your personality shine through
Hair and beauty is a fun and extroverted industry by nature, so the last thing you want is for your writing to sound stilted. Your emails should capture the same feelings that you want clients to experience when they visit your salon or spa — warmth, friendliness, and fun.

Moreover, providing a human-centric reading experience goes a long way toward fostering deeper customer relationships that inspire business loyalty. So, don’t be afraid to share some more casual, informal content in your emails in addition to promotions and news updates, such as:

• Pictures of your stylists at work
• “Before” and “after” client transformations
• Compelling quotes/life advice
• Entertaining hair/beauty memes

The following email from Function of Beauty is oozing with personality. The language is super casual, reflecting how the brand’s customers actually talk. Plus, it uses a colorful design that you can’t help but notice. 

Create a content plan

Compelling emails don’t just happen. Implementing email marketing well takes time and planning. For busy salon or spa owners, it’s important to set yourself a schedule for how often you will be sending emails and what topics you’ll be focusing on.

While you don’t have to pencil this out months in advance, looking just a few weeks ahead will help you to identify good marketing topics and refine your messaging.

For example, it’s a good idea to pull up your calendar and see where there could be an opportunity for a strong email send, such as:

• Seasonal events that would be a good time for a promotion e.g. the holiday season, Mother’s Day, and getting “ready for Summer”.
• Loyalty program updates e.g. points summary, product/service suggestions for redeeming, limited edition offers.
• Key milestones that are noteworthy e.g. salon anniversary, a new stylist, a new location, offering a new service, etc.
• Beauty tips/trends for what is “hot” right now in your industry.

Crafting an email editorial calendar can also help you combat writer’s block. There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank page and having no idea of what to write. A content plan or calendar gives a great starting point, so you can kick off the writing process with ease.

Proofread and edit carefully

Typos and grammatical errors can ruin even the most well-written messages. So, make sure you have processes and tools to help catch any content mistakes. Ideally, you’ll want someone else to proofread and edit your messages. Often, writers are too close to their work to effectively spot spelling and grammar mistakes, so it’s best to hand off this task to someone else.

If this isn’t possible, the next best thing is to step away from your work for a day or two, and then come back to edit it with fresh eyes. You can also use a tool like Grammarly, an online writing assistant that offers grammar checks and automated suggestions to improve a piece of content.  

Bonus: Use automation software

Running an ongoing email marketing strategy takes a lot of time and effort, so using some form of email automation is very helpful in eliminating repetitive tasks. This is an especially good idea if you’re planning on segmenting your email list regularly and sending different offers/content to different groups of clients.
 

Final words

Although no longer the new kid on the block, email offers some fantastic capabilities to salons and spas wanting to foster stronger relationships with clients, as well as nurturing new customers into committing to that first appointment.

Now that you understand how to write convincing emails that engage and inspire people to check out your business, it’s time to put your new skills into action and start booking those clients.

And if you don’t want to spend excess time designing your emails, Booksy's Marketing tool allows salons and spas to choose from a wide range of ready-to-use email templates. From a change in pricing to communicating waitlist availability, these ready-to-use templates save a ton of time for busy entrepreneurs.

These connect directly with customer data to generate targeted emails for promotional opportunities such as birthdays, VIP programs, and ‘time to rebook’ reminders for timely and valuable content.