Nothing is stronger than a die-hard fan and their love for their favorite brand. It’s almost an uxexplainable, nearly unbreakable bond. Except, when it comes to the finer details of developing your brand’s identity, then that love is explainable. And when you look closely at your competition in the same field? Enticement away from your brand is one of the greatest weak points in the bond. So how exactly do you build your brand identity into something people love and will stay loyal to in the world of hair styling?
There are so many factors to think through regarding brand-building. Some of them will have to do with you and your personal growth. Others have to do with understanding both relevant and non-relevant trends in the industry. Then there’s your business model and on-boarding with new technology trends to maximize efficiency in your salon. No matter what aspect of your brand identity you’re looking at, it’s important to stay true to yourself the whole way through. It’s the most effective ingredient to garnering the trust of your clients and keeping them coming back for more.
3 Steps to Developing an Authentic Brand Identity Starting with Personal Growth
1. Know your own writer’s voice.
This is the voice you’ll send in regular emails, write with on social platforms, and use to gain the trust of prospective clients. Ask yourself, how well do you communicate not only your overall vision for your services, but your intentions for the experience you want your client’s to have? They come in one way, but who are they when they leave? It’s important to take this one step further too and tap into the actual needs of each client in so far as it aligns with your own vision for your business. Stay consistent with an inviting voice, and the rest will follow.
2. Copying vs. Replicating with a Twist.
In the beginning or if you’re a new business or reinventing your brand’s identity, we all need a place to start. By looking at those we admire, possibly purchasing their on-line education, we can get a sense of who we want to be business wise. But it’s a fine line. Copying someone flat out that you admire is very different from learning from what they offer and making it your own. For clients to trust you, you’ll need to stay authentic and allow your clients to experience you, not someone else. I guarantee if you’re serving them your idol only, the system you’re trying to create won’t hold up well over time. So make sure you’re thoughtful in how you borrow from those you learn from, and remember, you are inherently amazing and deserve to be experienced by your clients in an authentic way. Your brand is worthy of this.
3. Personal Growth and Identifying Strengths and Weakness.
When crafting the vision for your business, it’s helpful to identify both your strengths and weaknesses. By knowing these two categories, you’re able to highlight what makes your company attractive. That’s going to be a focal point on your social media. Is it communicative engagement? Are you great a video content and reels? Are you savvy with understanding the algorithms and how their changes affect your business? Are you connected with an influencer like @girlbehindthehustle who can reveal tips and tricks and secrets of social media content production and how the algorithms work? Then when it comes to your weaknesses, it’s helpful to see them as clearly as possible so you can get the supplemental support you needs to strengthen them. Does running a business scare you? Does the back end make you nervous of feel defeated? Then lovingly let yourself know that’s ok. Because there is so much incredible educational content put out by gurus in the hair world. I’ll list these towards the end of the article.
Understanding Both Relevant and Non-relevant Trends in the Industry
For starters, styles trend differently now than they used to thanks to social media. Before, you’d have trends in New York come out say at fashion week and then over the next 2 years these trends would trickle down through magazine outlets, then get released to other large cities.
Eventually, one popular trend would reach and spread over 5 years, then hold for about a decade total before newer images started cropping up. There’s still some of this going on, but it’s not so clean anymore. We have immediate access to seeing trends not just in New York and other major cities, but all over the world.
Trends come out more in large groups, or mass quantities vs. in a simple trickledown effect. This means there are several relevant trends running at the same time and they can last longer than a decade or experience more rapid turnover as new ideas reach more people more quickly.
With mass quantities of trends running in fashion and hair, how do you sort through what to offer clients? The key lies in education. The most relevant trends will push you to expand your expertise. Expanding your expertise means raising your prices. In the end, keeping up with multiple relevant trends at once has the potential to earn you more money. No matter what it takes, make sure to purchase relevant education. Take a look at influential hair designers like Ulyana Aster for Bridal, Kristen Lumiere and Jaime Sea (Salt.Hair) for crafting a brand identity built on relevant trend techniques.
Things to Know About Your Business Model and Developing Technology
1. Upgrade your Business Model.
First, if you’re a creative and struggle with the backend of business development, you’re not alone. It’s a common theme and not one to be ashamed of. Steps towards adjusting this weakness start with education. Everything from accurately measuring every ounce of product, charging accordingly, and offering upsell items at the bowl effect your profit in ways that can be mind-blowing.
Take a look at Kristen Lumiere’s on-line courses on things like understanding your own pricing and best practices for choosing prices, how to break down your business costs in her Revive Course, and how to pay yourself and do your taxes the right way, plus everything else you need to upscale your business model.
2. Developing Technology.
- There’s not one area in our current experience not affected by developing technology. We have an ethereal block chain running, currency going digital, bionic limbs, and the wealthy going to mars. But what about hairstylists? How do technology trends affect your immediate business? Primarily you’ll want to make things like booking and payment as easy as possible. Ways to go about this would be, for example, to attach a booking tab to your Instagram profile connected through Square (for payments). It’s incredibly easy to set up, clients not only get a glance of your visual portfolio and video content, but they push the Instagram tab in your profile and can easily book. If you’re a salon suite operator, you can use text-based booking with a separate business phone and set specific hours for booking. What’s the advantage of this? If you don’t have a receptionist, sometimes having clients book themselves can be a headache. They don’t know what the services are called, how long to book for them, or what they need. There can be a lot of unnecessary mistakes. So if you are a solo artist, try text booking!
- Working your social media according to the trends is both important and it’s not. When the algorithm trends change, it’s important to adjust. Why? If you stay operating in the old ways, your hash tags and other relevant ways to be known won’t have the desired effects anymore. Right now, reels and short video content (under 15 seconds) is what will get you where you need to go. But photographs are important for those who already love you.
- For larger salons, booking software has improved drastically over the years. Types like Vagaro for example create an easy-to-use system for stylists to remain independent yet part of the larger salon when booth renting. Then there are innovative solutions for all your copy writing needs like Copy_ai on Instagram. It can help you write blog posts, thank you emails, has tons of easy website templates for persuading clients to purchase products, and so much more. Your marketing strategies just get better when using innovative AI.
3. Marketing.
Marketing strategies are shifting and relying on short, catchy vides or simple how-to’s to build your client base. Using what’s available like Tik-Tok and Instagram is a good place to start but investing in Salt.Hair’s Digital Marketing Masterclass can take profits the next level. Salt wants to give you the marketing tools that will actually land results when it comes to growing your social media and maximizing profits. It’s helpful to stay on top of the marketing strategies that compel you to stay relevant with technological advancements. Knowing how to use current resources and best marketing practices, keeps your brand identity sharp and clean.