How to Keep Your Spa Clients Coming Back

When it comes to spa marketing, a frequent question is how to keep your clients coming back. We’ve all seen frantic, frazzled customers entering a spa and stress-free, softly smiling angels walking out. We might even remind them to look both ways when they cross the street because clearly they’re walking on air rather than asphalt. How to retain spa clients certainly requires a customer experience of enhanced mind, body, and spirit. In addition, you can leverage promotional tactics that encourage your clients to treat themselves like they deserve they deserve to be treated–not once in a blue moon, but rather at every moon phase!  

Regular clients promise recurring revenue that helps flatten out seasonal ups and downs. Those familiar faces who realize the benefits of ongoing spa treatments open up additional opportunities for new client referrals. Finally, repeat massage clients are open to cross-selling among other products and services. Some spas see an uptick in client visits or gift card sales as the holidays approach, followed by a slower period as budgets tighten after holiday spending. When the summer comes, spa owners can see another slower period as regular customers head out on vacation. These seasonal fluctuations can make staffing and budgeting a challenge. Below we unpack how to get repeat massage clients throughout the year and well beyond. Strategies to attract and keep customers include giveaways, seasonal incentives, and a customer-centric approach to business. Check out the best practices that will make them choose you whenever it’s time for a spa day: 

Start with Service

We have some tried and true spa marketing tips and spa giveaways below, but the way your customers feel during their time with you is the most important factor in customer retention. Here are some winning approaches to How To Retain Spa Clients through the best service they’ve ever seen:  

• The physical and spiriting experience starts with the first step inside your spa. Clients should feel they are entering a new physical space and head space right away. That starts with sensory triggers such as relaxing aromatherapy scents, soft lighting, and soothing colors.
• Give clients massage options based upon their preferences. Even if you specialize in only one type of massage, let clients know you modify pressure and areas of focus to suit their needs.
• When you’re confident and comfortable your customers will feel at home in the environment you’ve created. This is key to a return visit.
• Ensure fresh and healthy snacks and special drinks are plentiful and easily accessible to your customers. Your customers should feel taken care of from head to tummy to toes.

Advertise

Your spa marketing plan should include advertising that works easily within your budget and your brand. Focus on what you’re good at, like variety of services, special amenities, affordable prices, or training of massage therapists, estheticians, and other spa staff. Give customers a good reason to come in, like a birthday, holiday, or special event. Trusted ad tactics for your local spa include: 

• Step Right Up: Just like foot massages, foot traffic is real—and with a cost to acquire that’s close to zero! Leverage spa promotional ideas that let you speak a captive spa audience: that is, the pedestrians, cyclists, and car drivers who are passing your massage business on their way to the grocery store, bank, school, or office. Emphasize quick or inexpensive spa treatments like a 10- minute scalp massage or a quick-dry manicure so would-be clients can easily envision popping in.
• You’re Local and It Shows: Maintain an ad schedule within your community including direct mail, local print media, and locally targeted online media like neighborhood apps and sub-groups. In your ads, tie coupons and special offers to your town’s history and city-specific occasions, like a marathon, parade, or historical event. Offer a discount to local customers to incentivize business among year-round customers.
• Let the Scent of Cucumber Water Span the Internet: Keep your online house as chill as your brick-and-mortar spa experience with a website whose colors and design mirror the soothing in-person customer experience.  Make small, simple seasonal adjustments to your website. This helps to engage new and existing customers when they happen upon your website. It sends the signal that you are open, active, and ready to serve them.
• Referrals Are the Best Advertising Ever: Let your best customers know you value them and want to service more folks just like them. Rather than offering a reward once a referral has been made, ‘pay it forward’ by frontloading the incentive ahead of time. For instance, hand your awesome first-time or long-time regular customer a customized tea mug and ask them to spread the word by sharing it with a stressed-out friend.

Giveaways

Let no one leave your haven blissed out but empty-handed! Customized spa giveaways and gifts with purchase are not only a good marketing tool for you, but also a great souvenir for your clients—a reminder of the relaxing and restorative time they enjoyed in your hands. These spa giveaway ideas promise to keep the chill vibes flowing and your spa top of mind: 

Lip Balm Giveaways

Lip Balm: Leave them with smooth lips, SPF 15 sun protection, and your name in their pocket or bag.  

Lip Moisturizer Slider Tin: Luxurious ingredients like rosemary extract and almond oil, plus a pleasant tin with sliding lid leave your customers feeling special and protected. 

Nail Care Gifts

Vinyl Manicure Set: Choose a pink, indigo, or clear pouch and customize with your logo and contact information.  

Reflections Manicure Set: This set features a large mirror mounted on the inside of the lid and comes in a variety of colors to accent your logo. 

Glass Nail File In Sleeve: Attach your logo to a product that says both “customer pampering” and “environmentally responsible” with this glass nail file. 

Work, Home, and Travel Gifts

Mineral Alpha Soft Touch Pen with Rose Gold Trim: A perfect match for a luxurious, pampering spa environment. Check out the satin, rubberized finish and matching stylus top. Notice the rose gold trim and chrome colored accent rings. Elegance!  

Mineral Soft Touch Note Caddy & Pen Set: Pair with a pen and slip both in a metallic tote for a spa goodie bag that’ll send them home on ‘Cloud 9’.  

Metallic Accent Addie Tote Bag: Help spa customers keep their belongings handy during their spa day and for years to come. Give them a little glitter and a little glamour and keep all eyes on your branding.

18 oz. Florence Stemless Wine Glass: Serve cucumber water in a luxurious glass they can take with them. Offer this stemless wine glass as a special gift for a second booking or gift card purchase. 

Re-Bookings at Time of Service

The cost of securing a second booking for a first-time customer is next to nothing compared to securing those two bookings through two separate customers. In addition, a client who comes back for a second service is much more likely to become a long-term customer. In strategizing how to retain spa clients, be sure to give your blissed out customer a clear and irresistible incentive to book their next visit before they leave your spa. This could be a discounted package of multiple services, a special price for booking during an historically slower time, or a gift with booking their next service or massage. The next section contains great giveaways to distribute to prospective customers, first-time clients, or as a “gift with next booking” incentive. 

How to Get Repeat Massage Clients? A Little Bit of Everything!

Some folks need a Swedish massage; others go for hot stone, deep tissue, or pre-natal. Similarly, there’s no guaranteed strategy for how to keep your clients coming back. Some will respond to a gift with purchase, others to a sidewalk sign, still others to an extra 20 minutes in a bath. If you’re experimenting with a selection of the spa marketing ideas above, you’re sure to find the perfect combination to appeal to your customers, feels true to you, and works within your budget. 

For more, check out our blog on salon promotional ideas!