So you want to grow your business with email marketing? You’ve just made one of the best decisions you can for your beauty or wellness business!
Many beauty and wellness service providers focus their marketing efforts on social media and they’re missing out on one of the most effective ways to increase client retention. Email marketing, if done right, is an easy way to communicate with clients that are more likely to book appointments, purchase products and engage with your business.
Just like most things in business, creating an effective email marketing strategy requires planning. But before you jump into creating email content you need to decide what platform you’ll be using to send your emails. There are many different options to choose from so we don’t blame you if you get overwhelmed when researching email marketing platforms.
In this blog post, we walk you through three different types of email marketing platforms, the pros and cons of each type, and examples of each type. By the end of this post, you should have a good idea of what platform is best for you and your business.
Types of Platforms for Sending Marketing Emails
We’ve broken down the types of platforms based on the needs of a typical beauty and wellness service provider – booking platforms with marketing features, marketing platforms with booking features and email marketing platforms.
Many booking platforms you’re probably familiar with have evolved over the years and now offer impressive digital marketing features like email marketing and website development. On the flip side, many marketing platforms that originally were created to build websites now offer other features like email marketing, appointment booking and ecommerce. The third option is traditional email marketing platforms that have been around for awhile and offer powerful features to send more advanced email campaigns.
Pros and Cons
The three different options each have advantages and pitfalls that are important to take into account. Not all beauty and wellness businesses are the same as well, what might work for a lash studio might not be the best option for a hair salon with multiple locations. Think about how big your business is, how many services you offer and what the future of your business looks like when thinking of the pros and cons.
Booking Platforms with Marketing Features
Pros
Email lists are easy to build, emails are automatically gathered when clients book appointments and all client contact information lives in one place.
Easily track bookings made from emails sent and see if you’re emails are working.
Easily send emails to your staff.
Cons
Design features and customization are limited for both email and websites.
Email marketing features are not as robust as traditional email marketing platforms (audience segmentation, a/b testing, analytics, email workflows).
Marketing Platforms with Booking Features
Pros
Easily create beautiful websites with any type of content – blogs, online stores, testimonials, portfolios, etc.
Manage email marketing, appointment booking, website design and online store all in one place.
Cons
Booking features are not as powerful and there may be limitations compared to true booking software.
Email features may be more limited than an email marketing platform.
Email Marketing Platforms
Pros
Powerful email marketing features like A/B testing, email workflows, audience segmentation, email subject line suggestions, best time to send and automations.
Cons
Everything is done on a separate platform.
App integrations with booking or website software are limited so gathering emails may be more difficult.
Booking Platforms with Marketing Features
As a service provider, the number one thing you need to do is book appointments. Using booking software to also send your clients emails can be a match made in heaven! If you’re a solo practitioner or have a small business, then this is probably the best option for you. Below are a few of our favorite booking platforms that also offer impressive email marketing features.
Square Appointments is very easy to use and has a seamless workflow of booking appointments, checking customers out through POS software and hardware and applying promotions sent through email campaigns.
Target specific clients with segmented lists and send emails to new customers, lapsed customers or regular customers. The Square Marketing Assistant automatically uses your smart email lists to suggest campaigns and sends you tips for maximizing your email marketing efforts.
Mindbody and Booker are two popular options for booking software that meet the needs of many different types of businesses. Both platforms offer the same marketing services (Mindbody owns Booker) like automated emails, customized email campaigns and analytics to track the effectiveness of your emails.
Another popular booking software is Vagaro. Similar to Square and Mindbody, you can set up automated emails and track bookings made from the emails you send. This software is not as robust as the other options discussed but is less expensive.
Marketing Platforms with Booking Features
If creating content and having a beautiful website is important to you, then choosing a marketing platform that offers booking and email features might be the right choice for your business. The top email building websites have evolved over the years to offer powerful features that can make your website the hub of your business.
Wix is an easy to use website building software that has a suite of apps that can be added to your website to create the perfect combination of digital marketing your business needs. Through wix, you can book appointments, chat with clients, send automated emails, sell products and display your portfolio of work.
Squarespace is another top option similar to Wix. You can create a fully customizable website and choose from a variety of features like online stores, appointment booking and email marketing. Squarespace also has many beautiful, modern templates to choose from for your website and email campaigns.
Email Marketing Platforms
Traditional email marketing platforms like Mailchimp have the best email marketing features. This option may be good for your business if you are interested in selling products through your online store as much as you want to book appointments.
With Mailchimp you can create customer journeys to send clients emails based on their online activity, test email subject lines with A/B testing, create segmented lists to send different types of clients different messages, and set up automatic emails. Mailchimp also integrates with third party apps to automatically collect emails and grow your email list.
Constant Contact is a similar option to Mailchimp with features like audience segmentation, reporting and app integrations. This platform has less features than Mailchimp but is also a cheaper option.
Although there are many factors to consider when choosing an email platform, go with your gut and choose something that you feel comfortable with. There are pros and cons to each choice but at the end of day, whatever comes naturally to you will be the best option.
Stay tuned for more fun email marketing tips in our next post in the series all about email lists!