Introduction to Digital Marketing

Term 1 Portfolio Report

Portfolio: 2110 words
References: 191

37 James Street Hairdressing

37 James Street is an independent hair salon based in Cambridge and is owned by an
experienced hairdresser, David Bidwell. The salon uses products bought from local
wholesalers such as The Obee and they provide a range of services such as colours, perms,
treatments, cuts, etcetera. 37 James Street is a single brick-and-mortar store that only has a
Facebook account so currently, their marketing is mostly through traditional methods like
leaflets. Compared to other salons, 37 James Street is one of the cheapest salons in
Cambridge with the average price of a standard haircut and blow-dry being only £35. Even
though they are cheaper than most places, they still offer cheaper prices to family members
and staff can get their hair done for free. For this Christmas, they are offering gift vouchers to
try and encourage more customers to choose their salon as they can gift a haircut/colour to
their friend or family member. Sometimes, customers will tell David Bidwell (the owner) that
they are paying for another customer’s service however, by introducing gift vouchers, the
process is easier and appears more professional. The salon has posted about their gift
vouchers on Facebook but only 23 people liked that post which suggests it either didn’t reach
many people’s feed or people are seeing it and aren’t interacting with it suggesting it isn’t
engaging enough. Currently, only one staff member oversees the social media, but she is a
hairdresser so doesn’t have time to focus entirely on the media nor does she have the media
background to provide effective digital marketing. The clientele is predominantly in the older
demographic and have been customers for decades. Having older customers does mean there
may be some resistance to digital marketing methods as many of the customers may not have
access to the internet. When customers want to book an appointment, they can either walk in,
call the salon or directly message the salon on Facebook. All of these methods are time-
consuming for the customer as they have to wait for a response, or they have to travel into
Cambridge to speak to the time face-to-face. All the colours are mixed up for everyone which
means no two clients get the exact same formula. Also, each cut is done to fit the client, so
the process is very personal to the customer. 37 James Street has a 4.8-star rating on Google
with reviews including “best hairdresser in town”, “David a master of his craft” and “friendly
staff”. (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=37+James+Street&ie=UTF-
8&oe=UTF-8#lrd=0x47d8709206598b41:0xd4a658c8a3967799,1,,,)

37 James Street currently use predominantly traditional methods of marketing but over the
past few years, they have begun to look at digital marketing methods. To help improve their
marketing, it is important to understand marketing and what the point of marketing is.
Marketing is the process of trying to promote “the buying or selling of a product or service”
(Twin, 2021). In order to have a successful marketing strategy, the salon needs to build a
good relationship with the customers so they can achieve repeat business and maintain high
customer loyalty. Marketing can either be traditional through newspapers, radio adverts and
leaflets or through modern methods such as social media, influencers, pay-per-click or email
marketing. It is important to use a combination of the 7Ps: product, place, promotion,
people, physical evidence, process and price to create a successful marketing strategy for a
business. Marketing plans vary from sector to sector as they a personalised to fit the
individual business and the SMART objectives a business has. For 37 James Street, it will be
more important to focus on elements such as promotion, physical evidence and people as
these will help draw in new customers. The product won’t change for the salon as they will
still provide a hairdressing service and the place itself will still remain a brick-and-mortar
shop.

At the moment, the reason for 37 James Street using mostly traditional methods is because
the owner is a slightly older gentleman who isn’t “familiar with newer technology” (Bidwell,
interview, 2021). However, they do have a Facebook page and are beginning to start looking
into more digital marketing methods as COVID meant they, unfortunately, lost a lot of
customers. This means that 37 James Street now need to attract new customers to increase
business and keep the salon open.

(Google Trends, 2021)

In April, there was a spike in searches for salons, hairdressers and related keywords. This is
likely to be because lockdown restrictions had been lifted so people were desperate to get
their hair done as a first sign of normality after COVID. Since then, there’s been a consistent
search for hairdressers meaning 37 James Street have an opportunity to expand their
customer base again. With the mention of another lockdown and the Christmas period getting
closer, 37 James Street are currently in the perfect position to start using digital marketing
methods to attract new customers. COVID caused a decline in sales revenue for the salon as
they were closed due to lockdown for most of 2020. During this time, a lot of the older clients
either passed away or are still at high risk of catching the disease which means they are
unable to now go to the salon. Whilst Mr Bidwell will do home visits for some of his “older
customers who have been (going) to the salon for decades” (Bidwell, interview, 2021), it is
not feasible to do that for every client unable to travel. This has led to the salon looking more
into digital marketing methods in an attempt to increase footfall and start earning more sales
revenue again.

The hairdressing trade is a competitive industry to work in with over 300 salons in the
Cambridgeshire area and over 100 salons in Cambridge itself (Google maps, 2021). This
means each salon should be investing time and effort into their marketing in an attempt to
achieve a good market share percentage. In the industry, digital marketing is becomingly an
increasingly used method of marketing with ‘35% of hair professionals (thinking) growing
their social media profile as offering the biggest opportunities for business growth’ (Vousden,
2021). Overall, in April 2021, a survey by SimplyHair showed that 89% of salon owners said
that a client’s choice of the salon is strongly influenced by the social media and presence
online of the salon. 78% of the professionals surveyed agreed that a ‘strong social media
following’ (Vousden, 2021) will help increase the number of high paying customers and
allows salons to increase prices without resistance. The general opinion from the survey
showed most of the salons wanted to focus on developing an online presence on platforms
such as Instagram and only 9% had the sole focus being to develop a website. This shows that
whilst digital marketing is becoming more important, it is only specific digital marketing
channels that are seen as most effective in the hairdressing industry. However, businesses
such as Hairdressers Journal International still use traditional methods of marketing such as
posters in salons to advertise Salon International and their monthly magazine. On the other
hand, all of their traditional marketing also has a digital version as they move into the digital
world.

This image shows examples of the

current magazines from HJI that you
can read online. In the hairdressing
industry, traditional marketing is
dying out as it becomes a
competition of who can post better
videos of hair colour being washed
out or the smoothest cut. This means
that 37 James Street should start to
look at developing their online
presence in order to gain a
competitive advantage in the local
area.
Local competitors have already started to build their own presence through platforms like
TikTok. In 2020, Tiktok was downloaded 850 million times and was the ‘seventh-most
downloaded app of the 2010s’ (Iqbal 2021) which makes it a good platform to promote small
businesses and build a following. However, with over 900 million users, it is easy to get lost
in the algorithm if a Page stops posting regularly or their content doesn’t reach the desired
target audience.

Since this increase in TikTok users, several hairdressers and hair colour brands have made
their own accounts with varying amounts of success.
These images show the first thing you see on the business’ TikTok account. From my
research, whilst Toni&Guy, RUSH and SeanHanna are all chain brands like Crazy Color,
TikTok is not the most suitable platform to use to promote the business. This may be due to
lack of posts, lack of interaction with the audience or another reason, however, the three
salons all have less than 100 followers which means something in their marketing plan isn’t
working effectively. The hair brands on TikTok with higher followings are all hair dye
brands like Crazy Colour that are international chains and not just national. Looking
specifically at 37 James Street, it wouldn’t be the best method of marketing to promote the
salon as to build a Tiktok following they’d have to post frequently and use TikTok analytics
to find the best times of the day to post. The salon would need to invest a lot of time and
effort into creating 30-second videos that highlight the best bits of the salon and show the
high-quality service they provide.

As a business that currently has little online presence, using a social media platform like
TikTok would have many challenges, however, the salon should look at using social media
marketing that works alongside their existing Facebook page. 37 James Street Hairdressing
should start up an Instagram page to engage with their younger clients as well encourage
users to become new customers. Over 60% of Instagram users are between 18 and 34 which
falls into roughly 50% of the demographic that get their hair done at 37 James Street. This
means the salon is likely to get a higher reach on Instagram if they start by investing in paid
ads. Instagram is used by brands to create a portfolio of what that company does. For 37
James Street, they could use an Instagram account to post pictures of all the hair colours and
cuts that they do on clients. It would be a good way to showcase the talent and range of
services available. Another
strength of Instagram is the
salon would have the ability
to post highlight stories.
This would be beneficial as
they could create a highlight
story for each member of
staff that provides the
service and users could get
to know more about the
staff such as the service
they specialise in, how
many years they’ve had in
the trade, how they’ve
progressed and similar
topics. It would be good as
potential customers could
get a better understanding of the atmosphere to expect in the salon. To start with, I
recommend hiring a separate staff member specifically to handle social media marketing.
This would be beneficial as currently Misha King handles social media but being another
hairdresser means she doesn’t always have time to focus on posting frequently.

A weakness of using Instagram is that some of the older clients won’t necessarily have
Instagram but still want to see what the salon posts. Therefore, having a Facebook page is
also beneficial for the salon. Their Facebook currently consists of a combination of hair posts,
posts about former staff, posts about the current staff and their families and other topics
unrelated to hair. The Facebook page acts as a personal space for David and the team to
interact with their customers. However, if they choose to keep their Facebook more personal
then, they should keep their Instagram page professional for newcomers. Another good
strategy would be to use an influencer such as Sophie-Kate Blogs to get their done at the
salon and then post about it. This would be a quick and easy way to gain customers and
create awareness about the salon. This would be most effective if 37 James Street find a local
influencer with a relatively large following. A final option for the salon could be to create a
website with set price lists and service lists so new customers could research the salon and
then get in touch. The website could have links to the social media pages and use synergy
across the sites, so customers recognise the style as 37 James Street. A website would also
mean being able to use SEO (Search Engine Optimisation to maximise their exposure and
ensure they end up in the top results in any search engine. Additionally, a website would give
customers the ability to book online making the booking process easier for both staff and the
customers.

References:
Bidwell, D. (2021). Whatsapp to Sinead Bidwell, 20th November 2021

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=37+James+Street&ie=UTF-
8&oe=UTF-8#lrd=0x47d8709206598b41:0xd4a658c8a3967799,1,,, (Accessed 20th
November 2021)

King, M. (2021) 37 James Street Hairdressing, [Facebook] Available at:

https://www.facebook.com/37-James-Street-Hairdressing-146938812011739/ (Accessed: 20th
November 2021)

Twin, Alexander (2021) What Is Marketing? Available at:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketing.asp (Accessed: 20th November 2021)

Bidwell, David (2021) Salon Owner. England. 20th November 2021. He is the owner of 37
James Street Hairdressing.

Google Trends (2021) Available at: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=GB-

ENG&q=37%20James%20Street,37%20James%20Street%20Hairdressing,37%20James
%20Street%20Cambridge,Sewells%20Hairdressing (Accessed 21st November 2021)

Google Maps (2021) Available at:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/hairdressers+Cambridgeshire/@52.2043508,-
0.0105666,11z/data=!4m2!2m1!6e1 (Accessed 25th November)

Vousden, E. (2021) ‘44% of beauty salons view social media as biggest opportunity for
growth’, Professional Beauty, (April) pp.1
Hairdressing Journal International (2021) Magazines Available at: https://mag.hji.co.uk
(Accessed 25th November 2021)

Sean Hanna (no date) seanhannasalons. Available at:

https://www.tiktok.com/@seanhannasalons? (Accessed: 8th December 2021)

Crazy Color (no date) crazycolorltd. Available at: https://www.tiktok.com/@crazycolorltd?

(Accessed: 8th December 2021)

Toni&Guy (no date) toniandguyworld. Available at:

https://www.tiktok.com/@toniandguyworld?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 (Accessed:
8th December 2021)

RUSH (no date) rushhairbeautyuk. Available at:

https://www.tiktok.com/@rushhairbeautyuk?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 (Accessed:
8th December 2021)
Iqbal, Mansoor (2021) TikTok Revenue and Usage Statistics (2021) Available at:
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/ (Accessed 25th November 2021)

Pally. (2020). The Average Age of Instagram Users Worldwide [online]. Available from:
https://pallyy.com/learn/the-average-age-of-instagram-users-worldwide. (Accessed 02
December 2021)