Top 28 salon marketing tools to boost your business

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Traditional salon marketing tools, such as word-of-mouth and referrals, used to work well for salons in bringing in a decent amount of customers. However, modern digital marketing platforms, such as social media and email marketing, are proving more effective in getting more leads and managing sales. 

With such tools, you can create more targeted marketing, book customers seamlessly, generate quality leads, improve customer experience, and boost client retention. 

In this post, we’ll explore some top hair salon marketing tools to grow your revenue, market your salon better, and build customer relationships.

28 best salon marketing tools

A solid digital marketing strategy is key to ensuring the success of your salon business. Salon marketing tools allow salon owners to expand their reach and customer base.

How we chose the best tools

We chose hair salon marketing tools based on certain factors. This includes features specific to the needs of a salon, their popularity based on customer reviews, ease of use, pricing, and integration capabilities. Considering all of these, we selected the best tools within various budgets that suit your business needs. 

Booking and scheduling tools

This type of salon marketing tool makes it easier to manage client appointments, improving efficiency. 

1. Mindbody

Mindbody is one of the top booking and scheduling tools for beauty and wellness businesses. It allows customers to book from multiple avenues, including your website and social media pages. 

You can send automatic updates to customers and enable your team members to control their schedules. Other plans include a marketplace to get your brand in front of more customers, manage leads, and more.

Pricing

The software offers four plans for fitness and wellness and salon and spa businesses. You need to contact the sales team for the pricing of each plan.

Fitness and wellness

Starting at $169 USD/month per location:

• Starter
• Accelerate
• Ultimate
• Ultimate Plus 

Salon and spa

Starting at $139 USD/month per location:

• Starter
• Accelerate
• Ultimate
• Ultimate Plus 

2. Acuity Scheduling

With this salon marketing tool, you can schedule clients and control your appointments, including sending automated reminders and receipts to customers. You can also customize your intake forms to attract more leads.

If you have multiple salons, this tool allows you to easily manage them from a single platform. Acuity Scheduling also provides loyalty tools to encourage customer retention.

Pricing

No free plans are available. Here are the paid plans:

• Emerging: $20/month
• Growing: $34/month
• Powerhouse: $61/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

3. Booksy

Booksy is an all-in-one automated scheduling, booking, and marketing software. To help with your hair care marketing campaigns, this tool allows you to collect customer reviews and build a positive brand image. 

You can also access this software through a mobile app and manage bookings on the go. It provides several payment processing capabilities, such as card readers and a tap-to-pay option. 

Pricing

Booksy offers one payment plan that costs $29.99/month for a single user. You can add more users for $20/month each. 

4. Schedulicity

Schedulicity is an app for scheduling salon appointments. It features a color-coordinated calendar for ease of use. With its automated reminder tools, you’ll stay on top of recurring appointments and waitlists. 

Your customers can schedule appointments through social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Schedulicity also provides numerous payment processing capabilities, marketing tools, and customer support.

Pricing

Schedulicity offers an unlimited plan starting at $34.99/month for a single user. 

Customer relationship management (CRM) tools

An ecommerce CRM software allows you to easily collect and manage customer details, improving their overall experience. 

5. Salon Iris

This UK-based CRM provides robust customer management capabilities. Salons can keep a database of their customers, their preferences, and appointment details. This helps you personalize your service offerings. 

Other features include a point of sale, inventory management, marketing automation, communication, and robust analytics. 

Pricing

• Solo: £49/month 
• Standard: £89/month
• Professional: £119/month

If you have multiple computers or locations, Salon Iris offers a Multi Computers package from £169/month and a Multi Location package from £269/month.

6. Rosy Salon Software

This is a booking and scheduling software with CRM capabilities. Besides collecting customer information, Rosy Salon Software allows you to communicate with customers through email and text.

Its easy-to-use personalized dashboard allows for quick monitoring of customers and bookings. This tool also allows salons to manage inventory, track financial data, and manage performance.

Pricing

The standard subscription plan starts at $39/month per user. To include premium features, the price starts from $53/month. 

7. Vagaro

Another one of the top salon marketing tools with customer management capabilities is Vagaro. With this software, customers can book sessions from any device. 

Vagaro also provides an AI tool to streamline client communication, marketing, and lead generation. It helps you create the perfect bio for website booking, as well as quizzes and surveys for customer feedback.

Pricing

Vagaro has two pricing plans: 

• One Location: $30/month/user
• Multiple Locations (Enterprise Business Software): Custom

8. Zenoti

Zenoti is an AI-first salon marketing tool. It includes AI-powered phone lines to track caller details, send automatic messages for unanswered calls, and record phone transcripts. 

Zeenie, the tool’s AI assistant, also helps simplify the site for easy navigation. Other features include checkout, business management, payroll, reports, and analytics. 

Pricing

You need to contact the sales team for pricing.

Email marketing tools

For the best email marketing strategy, you need easy-to-use tools with great integrations within your budget. Here are a few top ones:

9. Omnisend

Omnisend is an ecommerce email and SMS marketing automation tool that can help you grow your salon business. 

Its multichannel marketing and automation capabilities allow you to send automated updates, appointment reminders, and email and SMS confirmations. 

Omnisend also offers other marketing capabilities, such as signup forms, product reviews, integrations, and award-winning customer support. 

Pricing

Omnisend’s pricing plans are based on the size of your email contact list: 

• Free: $0
• Standard: $16/month
• Pro: $59/month

10. HubSpot

This powerful marketing and CRM tool is best suited for larger businesses. However, HubSpot has free marketing tools for smaller businesses as well. 

With this salon marketing tool, you’ll get AI-powered lead generation, email marketing automation, and sales management. You’ll be able to drive revenue, gain quality leads, book appointments, and build your sales pipelines.

Pricing

Along with free tools, there are different pricing plans:

• Marketing hub starter: $20/month/seat
• Starter customer platform: $20/month/seat
• Marketing hub professional: $890/month
• Marketing hub enterprise: $3600/month

11. ActiveCampaign

Salons can use ActiveCampaign to create amazing automated marketing campaigns. This tool comes with robust segmentation features for effective communication.

With its AI-powered personalization features, you can improve engagement and retain your client base.

Pricing

ActiveCampaign offers a free 14-day trial with four pricing plans:

• Starter: $15/month
• Plus: $49/month
• Pro: $79/month
• Enterprise: $145/month

These prices include 1,000 contacts and go up as your list grows.

12. Mailchimp

Known for its user-friendliness, Mailchimp is an effective salon email marketing tool with comprehensive features and an interactive interface. 

Some of its features include email automation, audience segmentation, and analytics. With these, you can grow your client base, keep them engaged, and build long-term relationships. 

Pricing

Mailchimp offers a free plan and three paid plans:

• Essentials: $13/month
• Standard: $20/month
• Premium: $350/month

These plans include 500 contacts. Prices increase as the number of contacts increases.

Social media management tools

Social media is an effective tool for salons to attract and engage clients. Integrating email marketing with social media ensures optimal results for your hair care marketing campaigns.

13. Hootsuite

Hootsuite allows you to manage all your social media posts in a single dashboard.

Its social listening tools help you track and manage brand mentions. Moreover, its AI tools help you create content and suggest optimal times to post for the most engagement. You can also schedule posts to publish in the future. 

Pricing

The three paid plans include: 

• Professional: $99/month, one user
• Team: $249/month, three users
• Enterprise: Custom, five users and above

14. Buffer

Buffer turns your salon marketing ideas into compelling content to increase customer engagement. 

It also suggests social media hashtags for brand growth. When you’re out of content ideas, its AI tool generates some for you. 

Buffer also features in-depth social media analytics to help you track and improve campaign performance. 

Pricing

Buffer’s pricing plans are affordable and include a free plan:

• Essentials: $6/month, one channel
• Team: $12/month, one channel
• Agency: $120/month, 10 channels

15. Sprout Social

Sprout Social helps you turn your salon marketing ideas into engaging content. It provides tools for social media content scheduling, analytics, and engagement. 

This allows you to streamline your customer engagement across social media platforms and track each post’s performance. Other key features include influencer marketing, social listening, and personalized customer care.

Pricing

Its pricing plans include:

• Standard: $249/seat/month
• Professional: $399/seat/month
• Advanced: $499/seat/month
• Enterprise: Custom

16. Later

For streamlined social media management, Later provides a single platform for managing your socials. It allows you to visually plan, schedule, and publish posts, monitor hashtags, and analyze performance. 

It also helps you refresh and organize existing content to drive more traffic. Moreover, Later includes an AI caption writer for easier posting. It’s especially useful for businesses that heavily rely on Instagram for marketing.

Pricing

Pricing plans include:

• Starter: $25/month
• Growth: $45/month
• Advanced: $80/month
• Agency: $200/month

Review and reputation management tools

Salons must manage online reviews to maintain a positive reputation and respond to customer concerns. Here are some of the top salon marketing tools for reputation and review management:

17. Podium

Podium is an AI-powered lead-generation tool for online review management. This tool allows you to set up AI replies to online customer reviews on sites like Google, Facebook, and more.

It allows businesses to create personalized interactions with customers and drive repeat business. You can also engage your leads via calls and SMS. 

Pricing

Podium comes with three paid packages, including: 

• Core: $399/month
• Pro: $599/month
• Signature: Custom

18. Birdeye

This salon marketing tool offers reputation management tools for review monitoring, review response management, and gaining insights into customer feedback. 

It also comes with social media management capabilities and allows integrations with other platforms.

Pricing

Birdeye offers three pricing plans, namely Starter, Growth, and Dominate. To check the prices, you must sign in and provide your business details. 

19. Reputation

As the name suggests, Reputation helps your salon manage its online reputation. It ensures accurate business listings to enhance visibility. It also comes with tools that allow you to track, manage, and respond to reviews. 

You can also create and share surveys to collect customer feedback. Along with this, Reputation’s competitor analysis feature can help you track your competitors’ performance. Plus, the platform doubles as a social media management tool. 

Pricing

For prices, contact the sales team.

20. Yext

Yext provides solutions to enhance a business’s online visibility and customer engagement. It allows you to manage your online information and ensure consistency across platforms.

Manage your online reviews by collating them from various sites into a single dashboard. Yext also provides tools for crafting personalized responses to customers. 

Pricing

The following are Yext’s pricing plans, which are all billed annually: 

• Emerging: $4/week
• Essential: $9/week
• Complete: $10/week
• Premium: $19/week

Loyalty and referral program tools

These salon marketing tools help your salon business retain customers.

21. Belly 

The loyalty program by Belly offers several features to help your business enhance customer engagement and retention. Its digital loyalty program allows customers to sign up, check-in, and earn points through an iPad at the point of sale, simplifying the process.

Belly also enables salons to create unique custom rewards for their loyal customers, and it integrates with social media platforms. 

Pricing

Here are its pricing plans:

• Lite: $129/month
• Elite: $179/month
• Enterprise: Custom

22. TapMango

TapMango is a powerful customer loyalty and marketing tool designed to help businesses attract and retain customers.

The tool offers branded key tags that can be used as both gift cards and loyalty cards. TapMango also provides branded apps for customers to track their loyalty points, available offers, and deals.

It also includes an automated referral system, POS integration, and salon email marketing capabilities. 

Pricing

For pricing details, you should contact sales.

23. FiveStars

FiveStars allows salons to set up points-based or visit-based rewards. It integrates seamlessly with existing point-of-sale systems to ensure accurate reward tracking.

Customers can easily track their rewards and receive personalized offers through the FiveStars mobile app. FiveStars also includes automated marketing tools that allow salons to send targeted messages, promotions, and birthday rewards via SMS and email.

Pricing

FiveStars offers three pricing plans, including:

• Essentials
• Pro
• FiveStars Pay

You need to contact sales for the pricing details.

24. Perkville

Perkville offers a specialized loyalty program ideal for salons, where they can customize their loyalty programs with points for various activities. This includes appointments, referrals, or retail purchases. Customers can also easily track points and rewards via the mobile app or website. 

This tool integrates with salon management software to ensure seamless business operation.

Pricing

To get pricing details, you can contact the Perkville team.

Analytics and reporting tools

These salon marketing tools help salons track their performance and make data-driven decisions.

25. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a powerful reporting tool that provides detailed insights into website performance. It tracks and reports website traffic, user behavior, conversions, and more.

This helps businesses understand their audience, optimize marketing strategies, and improve user experience. 

Some key features include real-time data monitoring, audience segmentation, conversion tracking, and detailed reporting. 

Pricing

Google Analytics is a free tool. 

26. Tableau

With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, Tableau helps salon owners connect to various data sources and analyze data. 

This salon marketing tool supports powerful visualizations like charts, graphs, and maps, helping businesses gain actionable insights quickly.

Its key features include advanced analytics, real-time data collaboration, and the ability to embed visualizations into websites and apps. 

Pricing

Tableau and enterprise software package offers three pricing plans:

• Tableau Viewer: $35/month
• Tableau Explorer: $70/month
• Tableau Creator: $115/month
• Tableau+: contact sales 

27. Looker

Powered by Google, Looker is a free data analytics platform that offers powerful insights for websites. It enables businesses to create and customize data models, transforming raw data into actionable insights. 

Looker’s unique modeling layer supports SQL-based queries, real-time analytics, and collaboration through interactive dashboards and reports. It’s popular for its scalability, flexibility, and ability to integrate with various data sources. 

Pricing

Like Google Analytics, Looker is a free tool.

28. Domo

This cloud-based analytics software sources data from multiple platforms into one interface, allowing businesses to analyze it easily. 

Domo also offers data integration with various systems and applications. This tool is easy to use and scalable, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes. 

Pricing

Domo offers a free 30-day trial. Its paid plans include:

• Standard
• Enterprise
• Business Critical

You’d need to contact sales for the prices.

Essential salon marketing ideas

Here are some effective hair salon promotion ideas to boost sales and retain customers:

• Referral programs: This involves incentivizing clients with discounts or free services when they refer friends
• Email marketing campaigns: Regularly send newsletters with salon updates, promotions, and beauty tips to keep your customers engaged
• Loyalty programs: Such programs allow customers to earn rewards for their loyalty to your brand, encouraging them to stay longer
• Seasonal promotions: You can offer special discounts or packages tied to seasons or holidays
• Partner with local businesses: Collaborate with related businesses (e.g. clothing boutiques or spas) for cross-promotional events or package deals
• Online booking incentives: Offer discounts or exclusive promotions for clients who book appointments online

Conclusion

Providing excellent salon services is just the beginning. With the right salon marketing tools, you can optimize your outreach and keep your customer pipeline flowing. 

From email marketing to loyalty programs and analytics, there’s a tool for every step of your customer’s journey. Pick the tools that will help your salon business succeed and grow. 

Luckily, some tools offer free plans, perfect for small businesses with a limited budget.

FAQ

What is the marketing strategy for a hair salon?

Some effective marketing strategies for salons include a social media presence, an optimized website, email and SMS marketing, and loyalty programs.

How do I attract more customers to my salon?

Some ways to attract customers to your salon include: 

• Offering great services
• Collecting and sharing customer reviews
• Creating loyalty programs
• Showcasing your skill and process on social media
• Partnering with local businesses for promotions

How do salons promote sales?

Salons can promote their sales and deals via email and SMS marketing, social media posts, their official website, and physical salon signage. 

How do salons get clients fast?

Just like any other business, online reviews and customer feedback help salon owners attract clients. Positive reviews can influence potential customers to use your services.