The TanWall Blog

What is a brand?

A brand is the identity of a specific product or service, which could be a name, a sign, a symbol, a combination of colors, a slogan, or a combination of those elements such as the Coca Cola brand and its classic red lettering or Apple with its apple icon.

The term “brand” came from the practice of branding cattle. Ranchers would brand their name on their cattle to mark the cattle as their property. In the 1800s certain companies started branding their crates and barrels of goods to designate their product and the practice expanded into the huge marketing science that is branding today.

Brands serve as symbols that embody all of the thoughts and associations that go with a certain product.  

As time goes on, the sum of all of the consumer experience that goes into dealing with a certain business becomes equated with that business’ brand, and the brand becomes a collection of everything the company means and stands for in the consumer’s mind.  

A brand becomes a source of familiarity and trust for the consumer. The more a brand occurs in the marketplace, the more the consumer begins to recognize and become familiar with the brand. Familiarity builds trust. If a consumer sees a brand constantly coming up in the market place, he/or she is going to assume that the company behind the brand is doing something right and must be relatively stable to be around as much as it is. The more familiar with a brand a consumer is and the more trust a consumer places on a brand, the more likely it is that the consumer is going to continue to buy that brand and stay with the brand.

A good brand will become a seal of quality for the product. Brands that last over time are brands that have become associated with a quality product. The brand itself will represent quality in the consumer’s mind. As long as quality is maintained in the product, the brand will continue to represent that quality and the consumer will know where to buy whatever it is that they need when they need it.

So now we have a better grip on what a brand is. In the next post, we will talk about why you should build your brand and what that brand can do for your tanning business.

The Overview

Have you built a solid brand for your tanning salon yet? Are you working at creating one? If you haven’t, you could be missing out on a huge portion of potential customers who are being attracted to other competitors that might have good brand names themselves.

A lot of tanning salons don’t focus as much on branding. They focus on their tanning products themselves or just rely on their location and hope business comes their way.

Now think of the psychological effects of a tanning salon storefront that just says “Sun Tans” or something else similarly generic: you’re going to drive by that place – which features the same architectural characteristics and appearance as the rest of the buildings in the local strip mall – and think, “Oh that’s interesting…tans,” and then you’re going to forget all about that place. You’ll do business at the next salon that’s convenient for you. 

If you’ve settled with a generic salon name such as “Sun Tans” or “Spray Tans” (which is getting very generic, but you get the idea), your business is missing out on market presence and potential business. All of your customers are going to leak out to other generic salons until eventually they settle with a company that has built a brand.

The key to having a growing, successful business in today’s crowded marketplace is being unique and having something to offer that differentiates you from your competitors. You have to find a niche in the market and stand out among the others. One of the best ways to do this is to develop your brand.

A brand will elevate you as a tanning salon “personality” in the tanning market and give your customers a memorable impression to retain when they walk away from your salon. Your personality will gain you customer loyalty if your customers like you and what your business stands for. Branding is a great way to do this.

Coca Cola stands as a giant in the soft drink industry because of the great branding they have done. Same with Starbucks and McDonalds and other huge names. These companies have developed a personality and a unique presence in the market and they have instilled that in their brand.

In the next post we will go over what branding is and in the following weeks we will continue with why you should brand, and how you can build your brand into a marketable personality.

If you own a tanning salon you probably know how important it is to have a friendly and engaging employee at the front desk. They’re essentially the face of your tanning salon as far as your customers are concerned.

A large part of customer retention has to do with the customer’s comfort level when they come into your salon. A combination of clean, visually appealing tanning environments with personable employees goes a long way in securing the loyalty of your customers.

If customers come in to find the person at the front desk texting or talking with other employees or altogether ignoring them, they might not come back the next time if they don’t turn around and leave on the spot! A customer always wants to be the subject, not an object.

If you have your employees get to know your customers by name, your customers will feel welcome when they come into your salon and will most likely return. Tailor your services to each customer based on their habits. Do they have a favorite bed they always go to? A favorite lotion? Do they feel that their visit is a social occasion and not just something to “get done?”

It is the little things that keep your customers coming back.

Tanning salon businesses across the nation will feel the effects of the new health care insurance bill as early as July 1, 2010. Indoor tanning salon patrons will soon be charged a 10% tax to help fund the $940 billion health care overhaul.

President Barak Obama signed the new law into effect only yesterday, marking a pivotal, and surely controversial, moment in our present history. The controversy is mainly fueled by unclear, and seemingly miscalculated—or at least under-estimated—budget cuts and tax increases; not to mention measures to impose insurance coverage on those who choose not to carry any, the banning of insurance companies to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, the banning of insurance companies to drop coverage of an individual due to severe illness, and banning limits on lifetime or annual benefits. Read more…

One of the biggest mistakes that any salon owner makes is to not understand their customer.  The most successful salons understand what’s important to their customer.  The things that you may think are important are not. We all heard the saying “the three most important things in business are location, location, location.  Although the location is important I don’t think it’s the most important in most cases. I will talk further about that at a later time.

Knowing your audience’s likes and dislikes is extremely important. The simplest of questions never seemed to get answered when a business owner opens their salon.  One of the questions you need to ask your self and your customers are

What makes you choose one tanning salon over another? 

There are several answers that can come with that question.  You need to know the answer in order to be successful.  Some of the answers that you may receive are comfort, security, cleanliness, price, location, appearance, and how the staff treats me.  These are just a few of the answers that you may get from your clients.

How do you get this information?

There are several ways to obtain this information from your clients.  If you’re a new store and have not opened yet, you can visit other salons in the area and put a flyer on each one of the cars in the parking lot and asked them to fill out a survey online.  There are many survey companies online that are free.  You can use companies like survey monkey.com to develop and track your surveys.  In return upon opening your provide them with the first month free for providing you with survey results. Just so you don’t break the bank on the first month you can limit it to the first 10 who do the survey.

If you are an existing salon owner, you can do something similar however you can distribute this flyer in your store.  If you have a large chain you can select 10 customers and put them all in a customer board. What is a customer board you ask?  This would be a group of your customers that could meet once or twice a year at your cost at a local hotel ballroom where you could feed them lunch and listen to their feedback.  They could recommend changes likes and dislikes and could build your business into greatness.

When you get the answers the next step is acceptance.  One of the hardest parts for a business owner to grasp is criticism.  Always accept the criticism no matter how much it hurts.  Your denial of reality from your customer’s perspective can be devastating.  We all have an internal button to make excuses for other people’s opinions.  These are the people that are giving you money or could potentially give you money. Listen to what they say and accept it.

Putting criticism for action is vitally important.  After you’re finished being hurt, and insulted, take action, instead of making excuses.  Capitalize on the things that your customer does like and work on the things that they don’t like. Most of the criticism will be simple to solve. For example, one of the things that you’ll hear most is “the person working the front counter is not very friendly”. That’s a pretty easy one to solve, isn’t it?  It is unless it’s your wife’s sister who was working the front counter.  No matter who it is they need to be either properly trained or replaced. It’s never about the people it’s about the management of people.  Most people want to do a good job they just don’t know what that is.

We could go on forever about the trials and tribulations of any business.  But if you’re the owner, it’s all your responsibility.  If it’s not working, “it’s all your fault”.  Accept responsibility and make the changes necessary to make use business successful.