Three consecutive days of education this week meant the Paul Mitchell Signature Series was back for 2018, hosting salon owners and hairdressers in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, offering networking, brand intel and social media tips.
We showed up to the Andrew Boy Charlton Pool with a stunning view of Sydney Harbour to take part in the middle event, gaining both knowledge and lunch-time canapes in the process. Brand representatives John Pizzey, Managing Director of Paul Mitchell, Stephanie Gelston, Director of Education for the brand, and Carmen De Souza, Paul Mitchell Marketing & PR Manager, spoke about what’s next for Paul Mitchell, including covetable new products and electric tools such as Neuro, the Tea Tree Extension trio and the Invisiblewear range.
John spoke of the brand’s evolving ideology, with constantly updating technology and R&D offering inspiration, variety and innovation to Paul Mitchell salons. As the trio presented, this is true for more than just the newly launching products, also extending to their all-new consumer-driven imagery and marketing material (pictured here), bold education offering and Creative Team pursuits for 2018 and Color Outside The Lines Competition. This year, the competition will take the financial component out of the equation entirely, requiring hairdressers to simply take salon selfies and enter by tagging them on Instagram. The winner will be the person to capture beautiful, commercial hair for social media, with the Australian victor winning a trip to The Gathering in Vegas.
In the theme of Instagram, social media expert Steph Johnson delivered the feature presentation, giving insider intel for salons to maximise their social media in order to see real financial results. Steph spoke about the ‘sales funnel’ and how to use Instagram campaigns and Facebook advertising to take clients from the starting point to a booking, often all in one Internet search.
Steph outlined that user journey in full, starting with social media interactions that beget brand awareness, and ending with an online website booking by the client. She began her presentation with Instagram, which has 15 per cent more engagement than Facebook, and is a powerful tool in your prospective clients’ hands. She encouraged salons to use a business profile, to always geo-tag and, importantly, to engage with other users to increase their following. Details around posting, image quality and hashtagging were also pivotal to creating the ideal feed. More generally, she warned salons against seeming too ‘advertorial’ with text in images, or seemingly trying to hard to sell to their audience. Engaging, quality content, set amongst five or six ‘content pillars’ or styles that salons can publish and use to represent their business, will draw followers to you.
Talking about Facebook ads, Steph explained the Ad Manager function and how to maximise the target demographics and targeted offer capabilities. She implored salons to install a Facebook pixel at the backend of their accounts, which has the ability to track those that have visited the website and re-target them in ads to convert them to a sale. Offer these lurking prospective clients a special deal and it may the final straw to tip them into a booking.
The session as a whole taught salons how to capitalise on social media, new innovations, competitions and marketing to truly boost the salon and each hairdresser’s career. With these business tips added to the salon arsenal, attendees left knowing they could maximise everything in the Paul Mitchell wheelhouse (as well as utilising social media in entirely new ways) to push their salons forward. A day well spent.
For more information visit paulmitchellaus.com.au
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