Week 14

In my profession, ads are so important. Being that there are many options of barbershops for people to choose from, I want mine to stand out. I want to stay relevant to the community and ads are a great way to do that. I have created many ads for the shop and below is a screen shot of some of them. 

Through trial and error you can have some great success with Facebook ads. I have tried many different kinds of ads and finally I was able to hone in on the ones that were really working.

I usually run my ads for a $10 New Clients Special. It is a great way to stay relevant and also an opportunity to recruit new clients. And as you can see from the above picture, my ads are reaching a lot of people. But more importantly, people are actually engaging with these ads.

In conclusion, I would just like to add how cheap Facebook ads are. For a new business on a budget, you can really have some success in bringing in some new business with these ads.

Week 13 Part 2

Ads on Facebook are the reason I love Facebook so much for my business. There are so many different ways you can choose to advertise your business! You can set up offers, boost single posts, set up an event, or just do an average ad for a local reach. This is what I do most often with my business. If I am running a special, I choose this method of advertising so many will know. I usually do a $5-$7 a day budget and only run the ad from Wednesday-Sunday. The reason I don't advertise on Monday or Tuesday is because people aren't thinking about needing a hair yet because the weekend just passed. I figure about Wednesday people start thinking about the weekend and start planning on Thursdays. they way I advertise seems to be working well for my shop. The last ad that I ran, it reached 3,904 viewers! That's not too bad.

Week 13 Part 1

To be honest, a lot of the local barbershops don't advertise much. I'm not sure if that's because they are already well established and don't need to advertise or if they just don't have the money for it. However, there are a few that I tend to see when I'm on Facebook.

Lately, Sports Clips is all over my feed and it's really annoying. It's probably annoying because they are one of my competitors. I have also seen commercials, heard their advertisements on the radio and seen ads in local coupon books. Sports Clips being already highly established, I wonder if all of this advertising is due to their declining clientele?

Now, Google and Yelp are where I see the majority of barbershops advertising. But, they are the same few shops every week that are running ads. One of them in particular is American Deluxe. My husband used to work there before opening our shop and he knows the owner. The owner wants to monopolize the area with his several shops so he always has an ad up. I don't believe money for advertising is a concern for him. I must say though, he is doing a great job at it.

I feel that old time advertising and new time advertising have had about the same outcome. I mean I don't know this for a fact, it's just my guess. Back in the day everyone relied on newspapers and commercials for advertising. Nowadays people stare at their phones all day. I just don't think new or old times is better than one another, I just think it's the new way of advertising. I must say though running an ad on Facebook is probably way easier and faster than running an ad in the paper.

Week 12 Part 2

As stated in my past blog post, there are a ton of tools that you can utilize for a business. Facebook, Instagram, Google, Yelp and more. But there are so many more that some may not have thought of. When owing a business you need to think outside of the box. You need to be one step ahead of your competition. This is why I am also on about 35 local Facebook groups. I am able to post any specials that I may have that week and it's also a great way to get your name out there to hundreds of people at one time. And, these people are also able to tag their friends which means even more eyes on your business. Being a part of Facebook groups has ultimately been my runner up as far as getting noticed. My advice to any business owner would be to get on some of these group and really up your followers or at least it'll help to get your name noticed by so many. 

Week 12 Part 1

When you own a business you need to utilize every tool that you can get your hands on. But those tools also need to make sense for your business. Owning a barbershop, there are many tools for me to choose from, but with trial and error I have narrowed it down to the ones most useful for the welfare of my shop. Besides Facebook, Instagram and my website I also use Yelp and Google.

Yelp

First, I must say that Yelp has a lot of flaws. I have many reviews that Yelp chooses not to use for whatever reason. I know that they try to weed out the suspicious ones to give every business a fair shot, but I can honestly say that every single one of my reviews is legit and I did NOT ask anyone to write one. So that's a total bummer for my business. But with that said, I guess I am thankful for Yelp's caution. Yelp is also a great tool for my business because people can actually read all of awesome reviews and feel secure when they come in for a cut. Plus, most everyone uses Yelp for one reason or another.

Google and Google Maps

These two tools are perhaps the most important to me. Everyone uses Google., from reviews to directions. When surveying my clients and where they heard about us, I get tons of "I found you on Google". Google is a total win for me. It is an all around great tool and I feel as if I owe a lot of my business to Google searches. Google will automatically gives you the nearest things that you are looking for and that is great!

Week 11 Part 2

Wow, there are quite a few people that haven't completed this assignment. So, I just went with the first three classmates I could find to comment on their blogs. I commented on: Donald Burks, Stephanie De Souza and Alisa Detwiler.

Week 11 Part 1

After reading the Email Marketing Newsletter I found some very valuable information. First, happy birthday emails are awesome. I think if I were to incorporate those, I would also add something like a $5 off coupon towards a haircut. I know I love receiving special offers when it's my birthday.

And I would definitely add a section on that newsletter for upcoming events that my shop is hosting. Things like when I have $10 haircut days or if I am running some sort of special on product. This would be another great way to get the word out about just how awesome my barbershop is.

I think another great section in this newsletter would be about product knowledge and hair styling. A lot of people don't know what types of products are good for their type of hair. Another thing that sets us apart from other shops is that we teach you how to style you new cut rather than just let you walk out the door without any knowledge on how to care for this pompadour that your have requested.

All in all, I think a newsletter would be a great idea. If I decided to create one for my business, I believe that sending one out once a month would good. I feel that anymore than that may becoming annoying to some.

Week 10 Part 2

Writing a blog is very new to me. To be honest, I had never really thought about writing a blog until this CSIT class. I can definitely say that when  I am writing a blog post, I am able to really let my personality come out and write almost exactly what I'm thinking, minus the F-Bombs. Well I don't know, I'm sure there are many blogs out there that use cuss words, but I'll refrain from it because this is after all, a classroom setting, lol.

After being introduced to blog writing I have realized that this is just another tool that I can use to my advantage for my barbershop. I can separate my blog into different categories to not only stay organized but to also let my readers choose what category they want to open and read. For my blog I could separate my content into three different categories. My first category would be about the specials we run at the shop. The second would be pictures and a description of my barber's work. Like a portfolio. And the third category would be the personal section. Things that I feel my readers would like to read. Things like the news of Oceanside.

I think by maybe adding categories to my posts, people can pick and choose the content the want to see and read. I believe it would also benefit the growth of my business by word of mouth. Like people would spread the word that not only do I have an awesome barbershop, but I also have a kick-ass blog! Okay, okay, I used a tiny cuss word. But hey, I bet you like reading my posts :)