August 19, 2021
12 Best Practices & Lash Artists’ Advice About Pandemic
12 Best Practices & Lash Artists’ Advice About Pandemic
Discover over ten premium beauty brands and CEOs are doing to cope with COVID and 12 professional tips to get back to work as a lash professional NOW.
How To Save Your Lash Business During The Pandemic?
The last article talks about how the pandemic has affected the beauty industry and what business owners are doing about it. We are all going through a hard time and that’s why it’s essential to brainstorm, research and find out all that you can about it so that you can adapt and cope with the new challenges.
Today we will find out what exactly do lash salons and artists do to keep the fire going in the kitchen during the lockdown in their own words. I’ve also added a section on the top 12 tips to help you figure a way to keep working and earning money without turning COVID positive.
What Are Lash Artists Doing- With Real Quotes And Examples
You’ve all seen cosmetic companies that were once selling premium products now switching to sanitizers or upscale textile brands manufacturing and promoting their new inventory of face masks.
Before you jump into what you can do, take a look at what artists and business owners around the world are doing to cope with the loss due to the pandemic below.
Pearl Lash Extensions
“We saw most of our clients temporarily closing down their practices due to the state legislative orders. As we slowly begin to re-emerge from this pandemic, most states have begun allowing salons and barbershops to reopen their doors. This is great news for all of us!”
This lash extension business owner has set up clear instructions such as appoint-only consultation, no group appointments, mandatory masks for employees, and other precautions to operate safely.
The Lash Professional
“During these unforeseen times, we are using social media as a way to keep in touch with our lash community. We have focused our time on creating content that answers our customers’ questions about how to navigate their own beauty business during the pandemic”.
Vanessa Molica from this brand says it’s vital to connect with your community of followers and customers now more than ever. You can check on them by asking if they need help or improve engagement with awareness content about your eyelash extensions.
This eyelash brand is ahead of its time because they’re offering giveaways to clients. Such a generous offers help to convert customers and make them leads for life when it comes to the beauty industry.
Squared Away
CEO of this brand says- “To support my team and our network of 150+ clients, I’m committed—through the increased use of tools like Zoom and Slack—to keeping lines of communication open, to creating a ‘safe space’ for discussion”.
The CEO has shared his personal phone number with all the members and the clients so that they can get in touch at any time, even at 3 AM.
Playa Hair Care Brand
“There’s a real opportunity for leading online brands because a lot of consumers have always treated luxury beauty as something they want to see, touch, feel and sample in person before they invest in it”.
Clara, the spokesperson of the brand continues on to say that being compelled to make beauty decisions, customers make purchase decisions online due to the comfort of it.
Brands
That Switched To Other Products
– Not everyone is reinventing the wheel. Big players are switching to other products and inventories that are more useful to consumers during the time of quarantine as you can see from the seven premium fashion and beauty brands below.
1. Prada: Requested by Italian authorities, Prada produced 80,000 medical-grade overalls and 110,000 face masks
2. L’Oreal: With the help of its name brands Garnier and LA Roche-Posay, this company is manufacturing hydro-alcoholic gels for nursing homes, hospitals, and food delivery businesses
3. Estée Lauder: The parent company of M.A.C cosmetics, is producing hand sanitizers besides reopening its New York outlet for the same
4. Guerlain: This company completely transformed its perfume factories or Orphan and La Ruche to make sanitizers for health-care industry businesses and workers
5. Zara and H&M: The mother brand of Inditex is already producing medical supplies
6. LVMH: The parent company of Louis Vuitton, Sephora, and Givenchy is sourcing 40 million face masks for the healthcare industry in Italy, Spain, and France
7. Kering: This luxury brand that powers Gucci, Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent is producing 3 million face masks for France’s healthcare service industry, and 55,000 overalls besides donating 1.1 million face mask
12 Best Practices
According to Chris Ventry- As more and more people are wearing masks, they’re emphasizing other forms of makeup. In short, consumers are getting creative with how they accessorize their eyes.
So what can you do? A lot if you’re a makeup professional or a lash expert.
I am not kidding. If you were a lash artist before COVID, branch out into an aesthetician or eye makeup stylist. Avene’s hand cream 3x sales during the lockdown because people are handwashing too much. There are many ways that business owners in the lash industry are taking their chance at the COVID.
And, after rounding up the best practices in this market for days, I found the following that you’ll find useful. Get a notebook and start recording your favorite tips from the below RIGHT NOW!
1. Start a Blog
Everyone needs a blog in 2020. If you’re a lash artist or own a business, it’s high time you own one.
Get started with a free blog on WordPress without spending a dime or get started with a website hosting package like on Blue Host that offers a decent blog at a cheap monthly rate.
This is important because a blog helps you gather customers and expand your reputation when there’s nothing else you can do. The blog also helps you create a community of followers and target audience can that considers you an authority in your niche.
2. Switch To Brand Awareness
Were you selling lash extensions pre-COVID? Perhaps you were a popular and busy lash salon owner before all this. It’s not time to lose hope.
Instead, grow brand recognition starting now. Instead of selling eye makeup when there’s no one buying, you can shift the objective or aim of your business for the time-being to brand awareness.
Start creating an email campaign or daily posts via your official FB business profile to connect with your customers. Remove the intent of sales and focus on how to engage with your target audience so that you can tap into sales later. Put simply, direct your traffic to do other desirable actions.
3. Create A COVID-19 Lash Consent Form
When you’ve decided to start seeing clients for their routine lash extension treatments or sessions, it’s important to get a consent form signed from them.
Below I will explain all the things that must be on such a form so that you can make one on your own with a pen and paper or via your smartphone.
A title such as ‘Salon/Artist Name’ Service Consent Form For COVID-19 General introduction such as- As we want to stay safe and keep our beloved clients safe during this pandemic, please read the following form and indicate your confirmation with your signature underneath.
Mandatory details such as Your name, your client’s name and date besides signatures of both the parties
Medical details including assertation that they do not carry the virus or are associated with persons who may carry the virus
A list of protocols you follow so that they can be aware of what to expect at the salon or for the appointment
Click on the link to the PDF file and Docx file you can download and input your own name or salon name before working with clients. Yeah, I’ve made your search easy. Say thanks to biLashes for showing me the links.
4. Regulate The Maximum Number Of Customers In Your Salon
You’re all set to reopen the store but are you following the State mandates? Head over to the government website of your State after doing a Google search for ‘State-name Government website’. You’ll find out the protocols you have to follow in order to stay open here.
One of the most discussed mandates is social distancing.
In short, gone are the days of chatting with your favorite clients around the lash counter. You need to maintain distance with your client while doing treatments and ensure that lash stations are a distance of 5 feet or more from each other.
Depending on your store size, create a limit of clients and employees within the store at every given time.
5. Set Up Appointments And Follow Them
Another thing that’s a thing of the past is walk-in appointments. You need to create a roster of client appointments and ensure that you don’t let in strangers into the store to keep your clients, and the staff, besides yourself safe.
This is important because if one of you were to show symptoms, you should always be ready to turn-over details of clients and customers who visited the store. Hang a board outside the store that says ‘Entry With Appointment ONLY’
Home
6. Use An Air Purifier
Investing in a good air purifier that keeps the viruses and bacteria at bay within the salon is the most important equipment during the pandemic. You need a good one and on top of that, you need to specify this with a note on the door or within the salon so that customers and employees know you’re doing everything you can, to make them safe.
7. Wear Lab Coats or Jackets
8. Run Promotions With Huge Discounts
You might’ve seen the free lipstick from M.A.C on World Lipstick Day recently or the exciting discounts from luxury brands like Chanel. This is because most businesses are trying to cope with their losses by offering clearance sales and promotional offers.
Lash businesses and artists can slash the profits to offer discounts on products/services in order to attract new customers to their shops. As this is a time when valuable investments are preferred more than random buys, discounts will seem like an investment to most clientele.
9.Consultation Via Skype/Zoom
It’s true that lash salons and beauty parlors are the last to reopen after the lockdown in most States. If you’re in a state where salons are not permitted to open just yet, offer consultation sessions to your clients instead.
Log in to your Skype and send a request to your client after creating a message that extends your expert advice during this home-quarantine time for long-term clients and potential customers. This is a fine opportunity to connect with clients and ensure that you don’t lose then when everything springs back to normal.
10. Offer Online Courses For Students
Once you’re comfortable with online video calls, you can start video recording or create comprehensive courses via Master Class or Udemy and so on. This is especially useful for lash artists who are influencers or with a large following of students already.
This way, you don’t have to pay rent for space you conduct classes in and everything will work like clockwork with online classes. Make sure you create a good timetable that’s attractive enough to keep your students while attracting new students. If you’re a business profile, run a Facebook add three times a week for a few dollars and see the magic happen.
Alternatively, you can also set up a YouTube channel to post your video content.
11. Special COVID Training For Salon Employees
Another way to ensure that you get your customers to trust you and come back for lash treatments is by preparing your employees for the upcoming months. You can also advertise that all employees are trained specifically for the pandemic outside your store or via online/ offline ads.
When you create a training course for your staff, try to check the WHO protocols, State instructions, and tips from your favorite lash salon owners or artists so that you don’t miss out on anything vital.
12. Follow Sanitizing And Disinfection
Standard precautions are mandatory when it comes to staying open during the lockdown. Don’t forget to disinfect your hands when entering and leaving the salon.
You can keep a good sanitizer at the entrance to ensure clients and staff clean themselves before entering and leaving. Go a step ahead and offer disposable hand gloves and shoe covers for clients entering the shop.
If you don’t know already, take a look at our comprehensive blog article on disinfection and sanitizing for lash equipment whether you’re working solo or as a business.
You can adopt tips from that list or visit the famous salons to check out their regulations and recommendations.
In A Nutshell
In addition to all of the above, you can also create Special Eye Makeup Packages for your old and new clients who know the mask has made the eyes more prominent today. Another tip is to create surprising giveaways for your subscribers, followers, or clients. Spread some love in the age of pandemic starting today.
Stay safe and beautiful~
7 Little Things To Help You Grow Lash Business Without Money
7 Little Things To Help You Grow Lash Business Without Money
When you’re thinking of starting a lash business, money or capital is definitely the first thing to think about. But money is nothing but the means to buy something. Could you create money using your skills? You definitely can. In this digital era, you can start a lash business or brand with zero money, but if you want to build a good business with standard security protocols and responsive design, investing in a $100 per month can bring you a good turnover.
I am not making this up.
Here are the statistics from WPforms– over 19% of small lash business founders believe that their businesses grow more than 25% with a website. So if imagine if you were to start a business by connecting with clientele around your geographic location, without ever leaving your studio? Sounds crazy-good right? It’s not too hard, artists.
7 Steps To Grow Your Lash Business Without Spending Lotta Money
I will tell you the exact ways why you can grow your lash business online without spending lotta money below. It’s a good read and if you’re starting out, this will give you all the tasks and action plans for your long-term goals or vision board.
Ready? Start scrolling …
DISCLAIMER: This is a long post, guys. And, if you’re not prepared to give ten minutes to your profession now, you need to bookmark it so that you can do this later. Copy the link and save it somewhere if you don’t have time.
1. Create a Vision, Mission, and Goal
First thing is to christen your brand. When you’re doing so, ask the below questions. I’ve also added ways to find answers to it.
- Is the name easy to speak? Count the syllables in the brand name.
- Are there any other brands under this name? Check online and offline in directories or ask in forums.
- Is a domain available for this name? You need to find an affordable domain too.
- What does the name make a person visualize? Beta-test this with a target customer.
- Shortlist one name, then two backup names.
Once you’re done with the naming ceremony, it’s important to register the lash brand name you selected. This keeps you safe from fraud. I strongly suggest getting a lawyer to discuss legal compliances for a lash extension brand based on your location.
After this, you need a vision board. If you’re shy of a vision board, go old-fashioned. Get a pen and a pencil. Start writing down the answer to the following
– Your Vision:
What do you anticipate for the brand on a big picture? Write down everything that comes to your mind. You can filter it later.
– Commitment to your Customers:
What is your commitment as a lash artist to your clients? Detail it or bullet it with one-liner answers hooked on one word like integrity, quality, trust, or privacy.
2. Get a Good Domain
To host your website, you need a domain. There are free domains and paid domains you can select from. If you’re a beginner lash artist, I suggest you go for the WordPress free website. Weebly also offers a free website for all kinds of entrepreneurs including artists.
You can also get a custom domain from Shopify for $11 a year. Isn’t that just crazy-great? It’s the perfect time for investing in taking your business digital. But before you get your domain, there is a step that I missed. I didn’t technically miss it because you need to think about all these things about the Internet of Things (IoT) when you’re selecting your domain.
To build a good online reputation as a capable and awesome lash artist, it is worthwhile to find answers to the below.
– Define Your Niche
When you’re starting out as a lash artist, defining niche means figuring out a unique selling point for your brand. It could be your style, geographical location, or specializations. Ensure that your website speaks of your specialties.
– Do Keyword Research
Google Analytics is a helpful tool to do keyword research. Free extensions like Surfer SEO also help you find keyword search volumes. You can use this to determine the keywords you can use for attracting the search engines to your articles.
Keywords are like baits and you need the right bait to lure new customers and quality baits to keep the old customers going. Baits needn’t be bad. They are just a way to attract attention.
– Find Out About Your Target Audience
When you’re thinking of serving clients, what are the age, gender, geographical location, income, social affiliations, and demands you’re planning to take on? This also takes into account the nuances of making a menu ideal for your target customers. Think of the perfect customer signing up for your service and now describe them. You can describe them on the basis of anything as long as it helps your research.
– Get the Right Domain
Another thing that most people forget is about choosing the right platform to host their business. Go through lash artist forums or competitors to find out what domains are they hosted on. For example, if you’re selling products, a WordPress website won’t do.
You need to find out whether you need Shopify or Weebly on your own. Many web hosting services often provide free trials, just ideal for lash entrepreneurs. Going wrong can mean a lot of rework and time you might not have while handling a business.
3. Design Your Website
The next responsibility comes to designing your website. This includes everything to do with how your lash brand looks online. You need to take the help of a designer or research hours online to take inspiration from designers and competitors to find out what fits your brand the best.
Every brand goes through a serious stage of making and designing is one of the most important, especially for beauty and fashion brands. Think about your target audience, how they like to dress, their styles, and everything that you can use to find out a way to make them relate to your website. A fashionable person might like a black-and-white website, but that narrows down on the total fashionable people who might’ve loved a stylish or chic website design.
Let’s find out the three ways to design a lash extension artist website properly. Make something your customers can relate to. If you’re unsure, make separate designs and beta test it with potential customers. I do it all the time and there are FB groups just for beta testing things.
– Color Themes
Defining your color palette is one of the defining factors for every lash brand and artist. If your website is an appendage of your skills, you are not just selling your brand, but your skills and talents too.
You need a website that can highlight your style and the styles of your target audiences with different gradients of colors. From monochromatic to vivid and custom options, there are many ways to figure out a palette fit for your brand.
– Font Style
Next up is choosing the font for your website content to show up. Rather than sticking to one style and size of the font, create a revised list of main fonts, auxiliary fonts, and so on based on the styles you want to explore for the blog, sales page, landing page, and home page.
To choose the right font style, understand that there are two types of font styles- serif and sans serif. The strokes and artistic curves at the end of the alphabets are called Serif. There are fonts that are artsy called serif fonts and there are fonts that are formal and clean called sans serif fonts.
I wouldn’t suggest one over the other. The choice should be based on your brand and style.
– Graphics
From pictures to banners and videos, there are many decisions about the graphics strategy you need to outline when you’re thinking of growing your lash business online. For a lash artist, having a video of the services and results or professional photos is very important when doing business online.
You need prospective clients to find your services online. As online shopping comes with the risks that face-to-face booking eliminates, you need to make the clients feel in control. Provide videos and posters that clearly show your expertise. The best way to get started on your visual content is with the help of a graphic designer.
4. Create a Content Marketing and SEO Strategy
The content was King and it still is. I am writing so much to talk to you about eyelash extensions because content helps me express my thoughts. It helps me communicate with you. That’s all you need to think about. The rest of the nuances are easy to learn
– Content Strategy
First, you need a detailed content strategy for your content. Outline the topics you want to chase with your website. What makes you unique from other lash artists? How can the audience know more about your services? What are the safety and hygiene protocols you follow? Or even a photo-list of one-liners describing your recent eyelash extension sessions.
Decide on a content strategy guideline including format, tone, vocabulary usages, and restriction. This just means you need to figure out the type of articles you want such as how-to/ tutorial articles besides listicles, directory posts, and so on.
Publishing 1-4 blog posts per week regularly can attract the attention of search engines quickly.
– SEO Strategy
Now do keyword research and find out the content that is popular in your niche. This will give you an idea of the total people searching for your products, the things they are searching for, and the things competitors provide them with.
Open a google sheets file and add all the viable topics from competitors. You can also type ‘lash extension artists’ to find websites of your competitors and research their content. This will help you understand the type of uniquely valuable content you need to cover for attracting the attention of the audience.
Figure out a list of high-traffic and low-competition topics to start creating blogs.
5. Create Social Media Profiles
Connecting with the audience in this digital age is most possible via the internet. If you really want to know more about your target audience, create a social media profile that the audience can get to know you with.
You need not go spy-or-detective-mode. Create Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn profiles of your brand or self. An interested audience will follow you and your posts. All these social media options are viable for growing a large following easily.
Before You Go …
I wanna give you two more bonus tips before you leave us. Use email marketing to grow people who sign up for your newsletters via the website. It will help you make connections and get to know them better.
Ready to get started? Leave your doubts in the comments below.
Stay Pretty!
