Branding for Your Spa
Posted by Diana K. on Nov 2nd 2022
In this article, we'll provide you with an overview of what branding is, the difference between brand and branding, how you go about branding your business to give you the best advantage possible, and why it's so important to establish your brand in the marketplace.
WHAT IS YOUR BRAND?
Your brand is your identity. It's everything that you project from your business - it's everything from your logo to your décor to your brand colors, brand fonts, and the entire experience your clients and the general public has with you, including:
- The way you speak to clients (even the way you answer your phone)
- The services you provide
- The way your spa looks inside and out
- How you appear to the public outside your spa including brand colors, fonts, logo, where you advertise, etc
WHAT IS BRANDING?
Branding is the (preferably well-thought-out) purposeful personifying to the public everything about your business and your brand - this means everything you do in how your spa represents to the public.
This is a complicated topic so let's consider an example. Think about your favorite brand of shoes. Every time you purchase a pair of that brand's shoes, you have expectations of those shoes, right? Examples of these expectations for your shoes could include how they look, how they feel, and how long they'll last.
Where do those expectations come from?
- Personal experience from the brand
- Recommendations from others
- The company itself (and their authorized retailers), from the BRANDING that has been done!
HOW WOULD A COMPANY BRAND ITSELF?
Consider the ways your shoe brand and its retailers have branded the shoes. Packaging is a very integral part of branding. The influences they have within the industry are part of branding. This includes social media posts, television, radio, newspaper, and magazine ads - these are all part of the branding.
Can you guess now why you'd want to brand products and services? If you said identity, trust, and image, you're right! It gets right to the heart of the people that do or could or would use your products and services.
Branding is the magic that separates your company from your competitors in people's minds.
BENEFITS OF GOOD BRANDING
What are the real-world benefits of good branding?
1) Establishes familiarity - people do business with people and products they know and like
2) Establishes trustworthiness - people do business with people and products they trust
3) Cements the brand's image in the minds of the public for the purpose of attracting new business
4) Increases the business's actual monetary value (when it comes time to sell)
WILL BRANDING AFFECT ALL PEOPLE?
Does everyone care? No - not everyone will care. This is called brand loyalty, or lack thereof.
Question for you - how loyal are you to the brands you use? Would you buy a different brand of shoes? How about deodorant or coffee? It really depends on the product, right? It seems the more personal the brand is to us, the more loyal we are to it. The happier we are with a brand, the more loyal we are to it.
The better the brand differentiates themselves from other brands on the market with IMPORTANT real-world benefits unavailable from other brands, the more loyal we will be to the brand.
That last paragraph should've sparked some thoughts in your mind about what makes people care and what makes them more brand-loyal to some products and services than others.
Now - let's consider how your branding could work better for you than it is now.
HOW CAN BRANDING WORK FOR YOU?
First, EVERYTHING you do for your clients should be branded. Your services - every service you offer should have a name that's proprietary to YOUR business. Which sounds better - "Brazilian" or "Peggy's Bitchin' Brazilian" Crazy, right??
So every single service you sell should be branded for your spa. Everything should be proprietary to you! Your name should be up in LIGHTS in your spa! For example, you could get a neon sign with your brand's name and put it in your store window. Maybe another one inside.
Your décor should reflect your brand, too! Your brand colors, fonts, logo, and all other aspects of your brand should be reflected inside.
What about the street sign? Well - what you do is much more important than your brand on a street sign, unfortunately. If you can fit both AND it's readable in a car going the speed limit in front of your store, then GREAT - do THAT! But if not, your service MUST be on that sign - most people are more concerned with the service that's offered than the brand. The branding experience then begins when they pull into the parking lot with your pendant sign and window signage/decorations.
SPECIFIC WAYS TO BRAND YOUR SPA FOR SUCCESS:
1) Your brand name should be prevalent in your spa. Everywhere your clients look, they should see some form of your branding - signs, décor, color scheme, etc. - everywhere you advertise your brand, your brand colors/logo/fonts should be present.
2) The way you service your clients is a part of your branding. Do something special for them in every service. Examples: you could provide coffee, treats, give them a short but meaningful massage (even with a vibrating massager), etc
3) If you don't sell retail products to your clients, why wouldn't you? This is a GREAT way to extend your branding outside your spa with high-quality products that you'll be remembered for AND appreciated for.
4) If you do sell retail products to your clients, be sure to white label them from your supplier. That means that your name, logo, and other info are on those labels/bottles, not the actual manufacturer. When clients take those home, your brand is still with them. DID YOU KNOW? Honeycomb Wax Company has a WHITE LABEL PROGRAM (aka Private Label)? Click that link for more info!
5) Provide a free specialty item for them to take home when they visit. Magnets (such as magnetic calendars) are inexpensive and fantastic branding items because clients see them every time they go to the refrigerator or where ever they stick them! TIP; get the 4x6 size because your info will be much more prominent on them than on smaller sizes. Also, this is a PERFECT gift to clients for any new year!!
CONCLUSION
Your brand is your identity, and it will stick with everyone that sees it, if you make it memorable (in a good way!) and display it everywhere you can.
Becoming a member of a manufacturer's white-label program is a big step toward branding your spa for the absolute best chances of ongoing and increasing success!
We hope this blog has been very helpful to you and that you got some great information from this blog article! Let us know if you have any questions at all by emailing us at support@honeycombwaxco.com!