In the age of the internet, the number of people online is growing at a rapid rate. The internet is a treasure trove of possibilities. It can be used for research purposes, to post on social media, or set up your e-commerce shop. The internet has allowed businesses to grow their reach and educate potential customers on their brand.
Having a strong online presence is equally important for business owners who own traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Especially since the start of the pandemic, many people have been more active online than ever before. As a result, now is the perfect time for business owners to re-examine their marketing plans. Including a strong digital strategy is a great idea, even if you are not planning to run an online store.
Importance of Online Presence
While many lash businesses operate out of physical stores, you should still consider growing the company’s reputation on the internet. Remaining competitive in an increasingly digital world allows your brand to stay relevant. By opting out of promoting in a digital space, businesses lose out on a lucrative market to promote themselves. Furthermore, having a strong presence online develops a company’s legitimacy and allows customers to feel confident in its services.
A brand’s online presence is incremental in distinguishing itself from competitors, educating customers on products and offerings, and driving sales. The need to have an online marketing strategy becomes more apparent. Each day, the number of companies that choose to operate online increases.
Building Brand Recognition
Having an online presence makes it easier for customers to learn more about your company and offerings. A 2019 study found that 81% of shoppers research their products online before making any purchase. This finding shows how proactive customers are when it comes to pre-purchase research on companies.
When it comes to the marketing strategy of a lash business, an online presence allows customers to research your company. Customers are influenced by the things they see online. It could be to learn about your lash services, read up on clientele reviews, or understand the history of your business. A strong brand image allows for your business to build legitimacy over your competitors in the eyes of your customers.
Driving Sales
An indirect benefit of having a strong online presence is the ability to increase sales. The internet acts as a bridge, closing the gap between consumers and businesses. This shortened reach allows for businesses to connect with more customers. This, in turn, allows prospective clients to learn more about your product offerings, which translates to more sales. Furthermore, many online platforms allow companies to gauge the reach and popularity of each product.
Online Platforms
Knowing what is said online about your company is important. What better way to control the narrative of your brand than to connect with your clients? This way, you can stay relevant in a competitive space like the eyelash extension industry. By utilizing online platforms, companies are able to better connect with their customers and bolster their brand’s legitimacy. Furthermore, potential customers are better able to conduct research and familiarize themselves with your company.
One way to build a strong digital presence is by using a professionally curated homepage and a strong email list.
Official Company Channels
Many potential clients conduct research on a company before committing to their purchase. Customers think about companies the moment they use the search bar. Your credibility can be called to question if it is not one of the first links to show up. Creating an official website is the first step in competing in the digital space. The next phase is to use the many useful tools to build your legitimacy. Using these tools will help your business remain competitive in a rapidly growing industry.
Homepage
An official website is a powerful channel for many businesses. There are many things that businesses can do with their own website. You can use it to inform: providing updates, promoting new products and services, or educating through blog posts. The website can also be an extension of your shop: helping you book appointments or setting up an e-commerce shop.
A simple, user-friendly website is the easiest way to emphasize brand legitimacy in the lash extension space and shows professionalism. Once you have the design of your website down, the following mediums are great tools to grow your website’s reach:
- Blog posts – A great way to build your online presence by showing your expertise in the lash industry. It can be used to share the most recent updates about your company. You can also use blogs to position yourself as a lash expert. This way you can also attract consumers to your website. Coupled with the use of SEO keywords, blogs are a powerful method to draw even more interested readers.
- Appointment bookings – Rather than waiting for customers to come to you, why not have them directly book lash extension appointments themselves? Having an online booking platform shortens the distance between your company and customers, which allows for easier conversion.
- E-commerce shop – For any lash business owners selling products in addition to services, having an e-commerce shop is a good idea. Hosting an online shop directly on your website can bring in shoppers who are only looking for a specific product. Once those individuals are on your site, the previous tools can be used as a hook to convert them into clients.
Email List
An email list is a collection of customer emails that a company has. You can use it to send out anything from blog posts, announcements, or sales directly to your customers’ email inboxes. A Forbes study has shown that email lists can have a 4300% return on investment for businesses.
An official homepage is great for attracting new or interested customers to your business. However, an email list is a tool that will be retaining your existing clients. A study in 2018 found that email campaigns are 6 times more likely to get higher click-through rates compared to tweets. These email lists can also generate 6 times more revenue.
To retain your existing customers, some ideas you can consider when launching your email campaigns are:
- Sign-up bonus – A sign-up bonus is a great hook to entice readers to join your email list. You may want to explore giving a discount for a specific service or product for any new recruits.
- Calendar – Like any email owner, your customers may not be fans of receiving an endless amount of mail in their inbox. Consider setting up a calendar to spread out the number of emails you send out. Rather than sending emails frequently, the occasional email with meaningful content can be more impactful.
- Email list-specific promotions – To retain the size of your email list, you may want to consider sending out personalized customer offers. Perhaps offer a free lash fill for their birthday or give them a product discount for being a regular client. Customized promotions show your clients that you care about them.
Social Networking Sites
It is important to have an official homepage for your lash company. However, it is also essential to not neglect external social media platforms. Third-party social networking sites are important to engage with your customers and remain relevant in the competitive lash industry.
Furthermore, it is important to know what the audience is saying about your company. Using social media is the best way to gauge the reaction. Monitoring public awareness and the conversation around your brand is important. This is a good metric to know to manage your reputation properly.
As with anything on the internet, an endless number of social media sites exist. However, we will only be focusing on the sites that are relevant to your lash business.
As a social media platform for networking professionals, LinkedIn is a great way to build your online presence. Most users use LinkedIn as a method of connecting with people in the same industry. Although the site is also used for other purposes as well. LinkedIn can also be used to join offline networking events, and write articles showcasing your expertise. It can also be used to post pictures of your products and services.
LinkedIn is a great tool for businesses as like-minded industry professionals are more likely to connect with each other. Studies have found that LinkedIn is the highest-rated platform for B2B lead generations. Businesses can take advantage of LinkedIn’s ability to connect with other businesses by sharing brand posts on their feed.
How can you use LinkedIn’s powerful ad tool to grow your brand presence for your Lash business? Find and connect with targeted customers. LinkedIn is a platform for professionals to connect with each other. This makes it easy for companies to narrow the focus to a specific industry. In your case, it would be the lash industry. Stay on your connections’ radar by providing status updates on your lash business. New leads can be generated by engaging with your connections. This can be through updating on recent promotions, new information, or problems you’ve solved while running your business. Create high-quality content to sponsor posts. A well-written post can position you as an expert in your field. By sponsoring these posts, you can expand your reach while also targeting your audience.
TikTok
TikTok is a short-form video hosting social networking site. It hosts user-created content ranging anywhere from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. Content on the platform includes dance challenges, tutorials, and story times. The platform includes built-in editing, audio, and special effect options. This allows users who may not have prior editing skills to easily create video content.
TikTok is currently the fastest growing social media on the internet. A study conducted by Forbes found that TikTok was the most downloaded app of 2021. This is a title that the platform held for 4 quarters in a row. The same study found that TikTok users spent $2.3 billion dollars on the app. This is up from $1.3 billion in the previous year. This shows the strength of TikTok users’ buying power.
Because TikTok hosts short-form videos, you can consider creating creative videos promoting your company. This can be anything from introducing your services or tutorials on how to properly care for your eyelash extension. In recent years, TikTok has been popular for video challenges. Any user can participate in these viral challenges. By doing so, you can expand your reach beyond your TikTok followers. Another marketing tactic you can engage in is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is a marketing tactic where companies partner with online influencers to market their product or service. You can collaborate with TikTok influencers to promote your lash business. Perhaps consider providing the influencer you partner with a promotional code. This code can be a discount for your lash services for the influencer to share with their followers.
As the internet’s biggest image-sharing website, Instagram is entirely built on sharing images and videos. One of the benefits of Instagram is that it is a great tool to connect businesses with customers. A brand’s voice can be elevated through Instagram stories and reels. In recent years, companies have also opted to use Instagram questions to answer any inquiries that customers may have. This is used as a method of closing the gap between consumers and their brands.
Instagram is one of the biggest social networking sites on the internet, with over a billion registered accounts. It is also the 4th most used platform on the internet in 2022. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone not using the site nowadays. Such a large userbase shows a great potential to market your brand.
How you can use Instagram to its full potential by using to provide any new updates with your company. Post any sales, promotions, new products, and services to keep your customers in the know. Instagram users are big on curating their feeds. It is a good idea to plan your layout ahead of time. This way new followers will be visually stimulated by your brand’s Instagram profile and continue following you.
As an image-sharing social media service, Pinterest helps users find and discover new interests. A unique feature of this site is Pinterest boards. Users can curate these boards according to their interests by saving or ‘pinning’ images, infographics, or videos. For example, a user with a Pinterest board focused on recipes will pin their favorite recipes.
While Pinterest may not be as well-known as a social media platform, it is still powerful, nonetheless. It is largely dominated by female users with strong disposable income. A self-study conducted by Pinterest found that 76.7% of its users are women. Out of its entire userbase, 45% of Pinterest users have a household income of $100,000 USD. This highlights the serious buying power the Pinterest users have.
The first step you want to take to grow your digital presence on Pinterest is to create a business account. A Pinterest business account grants you access to analytics, ads, and resources. The next step is to create boards to promote your products or provide eyelash extension inspiration. Finally, you will want to interact with other users. This is because engagement is the best way to bring awareness to your brand. Use the search bar to look up images of eyelash extensions. You can pin those pictures to your board to draw attention to your company.
Crowd-Sourced Review Sites
Review sites like Yelp and Google Customer Reviews are a great way to gauge what your clients are saying. Potential customers will also be reading these reviews to determine which lash salon they will go to. It is increasingly common for customers to leave a review of their experience on online platforms to share with others.
As part of customer research, many people are curious about past experiences before going in for a lash extension session. Review sites are a great medium for this type of research. Furthermore, if clients do see a negative review, they would also like to see how a company solves the problem. Review sites are unlike traditional social media sites where you can interact with your customers. However, it is still a powerful tool.
To use crowd-sourced review sites to your advantage, try to narrow your focus to one or two websites. Yelp and Google Customer Reviews are popular choices. You can encourage customers to leave reviews by offering them a discount when they do. That way you can increase the number of reviews you have on a public platform. If a customer leaves a negative review, reply respectfully with an explanation of your side of the story. Do not forget to include how you plan to rectify the situation.
Conclusion
For any business owner, including lash preneurs, a solid online presence is increasingly important in the digital era. With the rapid growth of internet usage, social media has become integral to the marketing strategy of many businesses. As more and more businesses move online, it is easy to get left behind. In recent years, a good business strategy is for any business owner to consider building and growing their online presence.
