Today’s digital signage offers a host of benefits for modern salon operations. By investing in digital displays and cloud-based content management platforms, salons have the opportunity to:
- Enhance The Client Experience | Digital displays provide salons with vivid, engaging screens to communicate with customers. They can showcase promotional offers, display real-time waitlists, and highlight service menus and pricing – leading to a more seamless, informed experience for clients.
- Optimize Business Operations | Digital signage enables centralized messaging control for salon owners and managers in a fast-paced environment. Rather than printing new menus and promotions, content can be updated instantly across all screens, saving significant time and labor costs.
- Control Branding Across All Locations | With cloud-based management platforms, salons can remotely publish content to any number of locations from a single dashboard. Adding new sites is also straightforward. This supports scaling the business while maintaining consistent branding and messaging.
Overall, digital signage is an innovative solution to take salon workflows, branding, and client experience to the next level. Here are six ways salons (that embrace this technology) can optimize operations while standing out from the competition:
1. Display Real-Time Waitlists
A big pain point in salon operations is the confusion that comes when customers aren’t sure who is next to be served. If a customer feels overlooked, this inevitably leads to frustration. Digital signage provides an elegant solution – displaying the real-time waitlist from the salon’s appointment booking system.
Rather than requiring staff to call out the next customer verbally, digital displays can easily showcase upcoming appointments. This reduces confusion and anxiety for customers.
With a simple glance at the screen, everyone can see where they are in line. It also minimizes disruptions for staff and other customers from repeatedly hearing names called aloud.
Overall, a digital waitlist screen improves the salon experience by reducing uncertainty. Customers can relax knowing their turn is coming soon. The system also encourages punctuality, as customers can see if an appointment is running behind. Digital displays bring transparency to the waitlist process.
2. Update Menus and Prices Instantly with Digital Signage
One significant benefit of salon digital signage is the ability to update menus and price lists – across all screens – instantly. Rather than manually printing and replacing paper menus every time a change is made, digital displays can retrieve updated pricing in real time from the salon’s booking and POS system.
This provides advantages for both salon owners and managers:
- No wasted paper and printing costs when prices/services change.
- No employee time spent replacing menus across the salon.
- Pricing is always up-to-date and accurate on every display.
- Specials and promotions for services can be easily updated – and shown immediately.
- Changes across multiple locations can be made from one central software dashboard.
With dynamic digital signage tied to a salon’s backend systems, managers have the flexibility to make same-day pricing adjustments for promotions and/or to keep up with competitors. Customers will always see accurate prices that reflect the salon’s current offerings.
3. Show Promotions + Ads to Boost Revenue
Digital signage provides an excellent opportunity for salons to show promotions and advertisements that help drive revenue – specifically during slower business hours.
Targeted special offers can be programmed to display only during identified “slow times” to help increase customer traffic and appointments during those periods.
For example, salons may want to offer 15% off any service Monday – Wednesday before 11 a.m., or $10 off any color service on Friday afternoons. The ability to instantly update and display real-time promotions lets salons easily adapt offers based on business needs.
Offering time-sensitive discounts or incentives helps entice customers who may be on the fence about booking an appointment.
In addition to promotions, digital signage allows salons to showcase ads for specific services, brands or products they want to spotlight. Highlighting new service offerings, makeovers or featured retail products can boost awareness and sales.
Salons can also analyze traffic patterns and revenue data to identify slow hours, and develop data-driven promotions to increase visits during those periods. With the flexibility of digital displays, promotions can be scheduled in advance – or adjusted in real time as needed.
The revenue-generating potential of targeted digital promotions and ads is an excellent advantage for salons investing in signage technology. They allow for nimble messaging that adapts to drive traffic and sales.
4. Enhance Brand Image
A key benefit of digital signage is the ability to enhance and control your salon’s brand image. With digital displays, you’re no longer limited to old-school posters and static flyers. You have a dynamic platform to showcase custom visual branding elements like your logo, colors, and imagery.
Digital signage presents a clean, upscale and professional image for guests when they first walk in. Sleek modern screens are polished and clutter-free – compared to paper flyers taped on the wall or chalkboard menus, which can look messy or too “homemade” over time.
Dynamic digital visuals catch the eye with movement and color, showcasing your brand aesthetics.
Ultimately, you get full control over the salon experience, from the visual ambiance to the messaging and promotions shown on the displays. You can also ensure brand consistency with corporate layouts, graphics and font templates across all locations. With digital signage, your salon’s image is entirely within your power.
5. Keep Your Content Consistent and Updated
Cloud-based digital signage platforms allow salon owners to easily update content across all locations from a single centralized dashboard. This makes it simple to remotely manage displays in multiple salons and save significant time – especially compared to individually updating each screen.
With centralized content management, owners can instantly push new promotions, menus, announcements, and more to all their locations. There’s no need to drive to each salon or manually upload files to each display. Changes made in a cloud-based platform are automatically pushed out to the designated screens.
This streamlines operations and ensures every location displays consistent, up-to-date messaging aligned with the brand’s initiatives.
It also allows salons to implement temporary changes – like happy hour specials – quickly and seamlessly. Everything can be scheduled in advance, too, so there’s no need to scramble at the last minute.
Robust centralized management capabilities make multi-location management much simpler than traditional signage. Salon owners gain greater control over their visual communications, which in turn enhances the customer experience across all sites.
6. Upsell Products and Services
Digital signage provides salons with an excellent opportunity to increase revenue by highlighting their most profitable offerings.
Unlike static posters or printed menus, digital displays allow salons to actively promote specific services, retail products, or promotions that boost the bottom line.
For example, screens can rotate through eye-catching imagery of signature facials, hair treatments, nail services, and other high-ticket offerings. Data analysis can determine which specific services customers purchase the most add-ons and upgrades for, and then target ads that showcase those money-makers.
Likewise, sales teams can coordinate with marketing to feature luxury retail products with the highest profit margins – especially new arrivals or limited-time exclusives.
With real-time content updating, high-profit promotions like flash sales or seasonal specials can be activated on all screens simultaneously. Happy hours, buddy referrals, first-time client discounts…the opportunities are endless.
The key is to analyze sales data regularly, identify the most lucrative offerings, and keep your digital signage content fresh and focused on profit optimization. This allows salons to maximize revenue while providing an exceptional guest experience.
A Few Last Tips From the Experts
Durability and Hardware Are Key
When implementing digital signage in a salon it’s important to choose commercial-grade hardware designed for continuous operation. Consumer TVs and monitors are not made for all-day business use.
- Commercial displays offer higher brightness, better temperature control, and advanced image processing. Using consumer screens risks premature failure and a poor viewer experience. Commercial displays also have sturdy metal enclosures, whereas consumer plastic cases are prone to damage.
- Opt for professional, commercial-grade panels. Choose high-definition 4K resolution for crisp text and images. Pick display sizes based on the intended viewing distance. Wall mounts, ceiling rigs, or floor stands securely hold screens in place.
- Keep the salon’s specific needs in mind. Will displays be used for waiting areas, service menus, promotional ads, or all three? This determines ideal screen sizes and placement.
Proper deployment of commercial-grade digital signage creates an elegant salon environment while enabling robust operations and marketing. With quality hardware secured, salons gain a dynamic communication tool.
Conclusion
Digital signage offers so many benefits for modern salon operations. By displaying real-time waitlists, menus, promotions, and branding, salons can enhance customer experience, as well as streamline operations.
With centralized cloud-based management, updating content across all locations is simple. Digital displays can also present revenue-driving opportunities through targeted upselling.
Digital signage allows salons to control messaging, reduce perceived wait times, quickly update offerings, and create an upscale ambiance. If you’re ready to learn more about implementing an effective digital signage strategy at your salon, contact Skykit.
Our solution experts can assess your needs and recommend the optimal setup for you. Let’s work together to make digital signage a way to effectively modernize your business and transform the way you engage with your clients.
