Best swag ideas for hair and nail salons (including helpful tips!)

In this 6-minute read:

  • What’s swag and how can it help?
  • Best swag ideas for salons
  • Tips for best use of salon swag

Marketing has tons of different facets that can be utilized and bring success to your business. One of these facets that a lot of brands don’t take advantage of is swag. This branch of marketing can increase customer loyalty and brand awareness. Keep reading to learn how. 

With Womply Email Marketing, you can turn customers into regulars and get more repeat business with targeted emails that send automatically when customers transact with you. Learn more when you sign up for Womply Free!

What’s “swag” and how can it help your salon?

Swag is basically promotional merchandise. You purchase things like pens, t-shirts, water bottles, and more, put your logo on them, and give it away or sell it. In the world of salons, the swag possibilities are endless. More on that to come. 

So, how can swag help you market your salon?

Swag has two large purposes, as mentioned previously: increase customer loyalty and increase brand awareness. 

First, let’s talk customer loyalty. When you give away free items to your customers, particularly items that they enjoy and find value in, they feel appreciated as a customer and more loyal to you as their stylist. Plus, who doesn’t love getting free stuff? 

Second, brand awareness. As your customers are out and about in the community sporting your swag, whether that’s a t-shirt that they purchased from you or a free bumper sticker with your logo on it, that gets seen by other people. These can be great conversation starters if someone asks about the cool logo your customer is wearing and it gets your brand out there so people will recognize it when they are looking for a new stylist. 

Make the swing to get a few swag items going and let them work for you. 

Best swag ideas for hair and nail salons

There are tons of swag ideas that your hair or nail salon could start doing. Check these out to get an idea of what might work well for you. 

Beauty supplies

Think about the supplies that a customer might use on a regular basis and turn it into swag. You can provide this fun free item to them that they’ll enjoy and your branded swag will be a reminder when they need to get that next haircut or nail fill. 

Here are some great examples of inexpensive beauty supply swag:

  • Nail files
  • Personal care kit (nail file, nail clippers, cuticle trimmers, etc.)
  • Compact mirror
  • Comb
  • Hair ties

You can start your search for these items at 4imprint.com and AnyPromo.com. 

Beauty products

Outside of beauty supplies, you can also provide products for your customers to use, like lotions and lip balm. Wrap them in your logo and, again, provide that regular reminder that you’re still around and ready when they need their next trim or nail style. 

Give some of these beauty products a try and see how your customers take to them:

  • Lip balm
  • Hand lotion
  • Sunblock
  • Hand sanitizer
  • Nail polish

Check out 4imprint.com and AnyPromo.com for your branded beauty products. 

Apparel

Apparel is definitely one of the more common swag items, and with good reason. It gets seen more by other people and really help with the brand awareness side of swag. Depending on what you choose, apparel can start to get expensive, so these might be items that you choose to sell to your customers or at the very least use for a customer rewards program. Maybe after trying three different services, the customer gets a t-shirt. 

Here are some fun apparel items that you can try:

  • T-shirts
  • Hoodies
  • Robes
  • Hats/beanies
  • Aprons (especially for employees to use at the salon)
  • Face masks

Again, get started at 4imprint.com or AnyPromo.com for some great bulk discounts on these items. 

Bumper stickers

Bumper stickers are another item that has the potential to get seen by a lot of people. If you have customers that are loyal to your salon (and let’s be honest, salon customers are some of the most loyal customers you can find), then you can bet they’ll sport your bumper sticker, especially if you have an attractive logo/sticker for them to show off. 

At 4imprint.com you can get bumper stickers starting at $0.15 each. 

Pens

Everyone loses pens. Thus, everyone needs pens. As your customer is checking out or signing their receipt, give them a pen to keep in their purse. It’s a small gesture that will remind the customer of your business every time they see that pen. 

Plus, you can find awesome pens like these nail polish pens from AnyPromo.com to make it more fun. 

Pop socket or other phone accessories

Think about your ideal customer. Are they on their phone for hours each day? Maybe they’d benefit from some cute phone accessories like these:

  • Pop sockets
  • Ring holder
  • Adhesive wallet
  • Phone stand
  • Earbuds
  • Chargers

Check out the plethora of phone accessory swag at AnyPromo.com

Tips to make the most of your hair or nail salon swag

You need to be thoughtful about how you purchase and use swag for your salon. It is a marketing strategy after all. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you get started. 

Keep your brand top of mind

Get swag that really helps represent your brand. Unless you’re that quirky, touristy salon that got Instagram famous, then you probably want to keep your swag items in the salon realm, like the items mentioned above. 

Swag items like shot glasses or coasters that work great for a restaurant may not do as well coming from a salon. 

Stick to a couple of options

Limit your options to a couple of items (or even just one) to start. You don’t want to dive all in with a ton of different swag items only to be left with the hundreds of freebies that no one wanted. Start small and see how your customers react to them. Then, if the response is positive, consider adding a new item now and then and test that out. 

Have a purpose for each item

Make sure each item you give away or sell has a purpose, whether that’s bringing in additional revenue (if you are selling it), increasing customer loyalty, or increasing brand awareness. Don’t purchase swag just to have it. 

Use a customer rewards program

Make the most of your swag with a customer rewards program. You could reward customer referrals with a t-shirt or give a customer goodie bag of beauty supplies and products with their third visit to your salon. These types of reward programs encourage repeat business and word of mouth referrals. 

Increase customer loyalty with email marketing

As you work on ways to up your marketing game, keep email marketing in your plans. Email marketing can help get the word out about new products, services, or swag that you have and it helps build and maintain customer relationships as they stay informed about your salon. 

Womply’s automated email marketing engine can help you get started. Schedule out messages that are tailored to your customers and keep your salon on their mind at the opportune moments (like when they need a new haircut).

Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!

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