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Social Media Still Dominates in the Beauty Industry, but Consumers Crave the Personal Touch of Email and Text

Our Most Compelling Data:

84%

of beauty leaders considered social media marketing important to drive sales and interest in their businesses.

82%

of beauty leaders said it’s important for their business to create educational initiatives to inform clients about at-home beauty and wellness practices.

64%

of consumers worldwide valued alerts and notifications from beauty salons and spas they patronize.

Social media marketing is still
vital, but …

For many in the beauty industry, their TikTok or Instagram pages might as well be their resume.

So it’s not much of a surprise that social media (48%) is the top way beauty leaders said they encouraged customers to come back to their businesses.

Using social media to connect with and to retain an audience can look different for every business. For example, 82% of beauty leaders said they use educational initiatives, like how-to videos, focused on at-home beauty and wellness practices to help their clients in between appointments.

Creating content for beauty consumers, like online beauty tutorials, helps establish trust with your customer base and can position you as a leader in your industry. Plus, this kind of educational outreach helps you connect with and show prospective and current customers what you care about.

… Email and text remain important touchpoints for consumers

We know beauty business leaders are putting most of their marketing energy into social media, but consumers told us they still want one-on-one communication.

Sixty-three percent of consumers said they’d like businesses to communicate with them via email, and 44% said they preferred communicating over text message. Unlike other responses we’ve discussed, communication preferences are consistent across different age groups. In fact, 40% of consumers aged 60 and older noted that they prefer text messages for communication.

And while we’d never recommend beauty businesses skimp on social media, the chart in this section drives home how consumers feel about interacting with the variety of tools you have in your marketing toolbox.

Key takeaway:

Social media is still supreme in the beauty industry for many reasons, and we know there’s a difference between showing the world what you can do on TikTok to grow your customer base and talking to your clients over text before their afternoon appointments. Still, email marketing can be an overlooked revenue opportunity for smaller- and medium-sized beauty businesses that don’t have the time or ability to create something more polished. That’s because there are several industry-savvy software providers available to automate a lot of the work, whether it’s emails with upsell offers or simple appointment reminders and confirmations.

Pro tip:

It’s easy to think about marketing as a task that’s only important for this month’s bookings. But investing in tools and software that can reach your customers in a variety of ways, like Square Marketing, can make a significant impact on the next several years of your business.

How consumers prefer that businesses communicate with them:

Communication	2024	2023
Email	63%	63%
Text messages	44%	32%
Facebook	22%	36%
Social media direct messages	16%	23%
Instagram	15%	20%
Chat on website	13%	14%
TikTok	10%	14%
Other social media channels	4%	1%
Some other way	3%	3%

When COVID-19 put an unexpected hurdle in front of Sean Stafford’s growing trim.co app, which powered haircut bookings at salons in offices around Louisville, KY, he knew he had to pivot.

That’s when TRIM NuLu was born. Stafford and team shifted their business model by opening a new full-service salon in Louisville’s vibrant NuLu district. And they used Square to do it. “We evaluated every salon software on the market,” Stafford said. “And none came close to Square in terms of the automation and customer experience we were looking for.” With award-winning services, a stellar business plan, and the right tools to support it all, TRIM NuLu was included in the 2024 Salon Today 200 in the growth category.

Our rapid growth over the past few years has largely come down to marketing that creates virality, and the built-in Square Marketing tools have unlocked that. One of our most popular marketing campaigns is our annual gift card discount for Black Friday. Last year we sold $17K in gift cards on that one day alone.”

Sean Stafford, CEO and co-founder of TRIM NuLu, Louisville, Kentucky, USA