With the launch date getting closer, my advertising wheels are in full motion. The poor little hamster in my head has not had a 10 minute break in months. I have been trying to come up with different ways of recapturing business (i.e. the clients from the nail salon that closed) and develop something different that will entice my current guest to take advantage of the upcoming nail department.

Since I am running out of time I reverted back to what works for us. The plan to recapture the prior nail facility local clients is to do a direct mail piece. Recently the postal service created the Everydoor Direct Mail Program, which is great because you can mail a postcard for less than 15 cents to everyone on a specific postal route that you choose. That means you can pick certain neighbors or streets by an income bracket to help narrow the focus on your marketing efforts without buying a mailing list. Some do not believe in direct mail, but, think about it for a second, who doesn’t go to their mailbox everyday looking for mail (bills!)? Our direct mail campaign will aide in putting the word out about our nail services, plus enhance our other marketing efforts such as our website, local newspaper ads, and the dreaded vinyl banner stating “We Now Offer Nail Services”.

I have not forgotten about our current guests. We are offering them a coupon for $10 off with an expiration date of December 31, 2011, to get them back into the salon before the end of the year.

OK, the reason you see the coupon with both the OPI logo and the CND logo is because at that moment I did not know what brand I was going with. At first I decided on CND due to the new Shellac everyone is raving over. The product wasn’t in any department stores that I would have to compete with in selling the products. Then I thought “Why not OPI! It’s a professional product. It’s in every store. You’ve questioned numerous people about the brand, and it should be an easy impulse sale at the register.” That self conversation put me back at square one. Hence both company logos on the offer.

--Ramar, True Envy Salon Spa, Orlando