- Have professionally designed coupons made. Model them after the glossy color coupons you see in Valpak mailings. Ensure that the coupon deal is tempting, such as 50 percent off the first cut. Hire an energetic and trustworthy street team to canvas the area within a 10-mile radius of your barber shop. Try this out for two weeks---if you start to see people come in with these coupons in hand you know your campaign is working. Create a new deal every month and expand your radius to attract new customers.
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Sign up for a Yahoo Featured Listings account. This is a paid directory listing similar to what you would find in the phone book. When people do online searches for barber shops in your area your shop listing---including address, phone number and website---will pop up near the top of the page.
When the customer clicks on your featured listing, be sure that there are positive reviews about your business listed. Encourage your satisfied customers to visit your Yahoo listing and make five-star comments. Click "Edit Info" next to your listing to make updates to the description.
Yahoo also has a search marketing program as well that allows your barber shop's website link to be displayed whenever someone searches for that service in your area on Yahoo and other very popular websites (See Resources). - Because the majority of barber shop clients are men, it makes sense to focus your advertising efforts around events that are frequented by men, such as sporting events. Take your small advertising campaign, including your coupons or fliers, to the parking lots of sports events in your town. Place them on car windshields--as long as this activity is not frowned upon by the management. Stand outside of the arena, in an area that does not prohibit solicitation, and strike up conversations with potential customers while passing them coupons. This is an inexpensive, simple and effective way to capture the interest of new customers.
