Spa Marketing With Delia: 8 Reasons Why Spas Struggle With Launching Events

This month’s spa marketing with Delia orbits around the 8 reasons why spas struggle with launching events.

(Yes, both in-person spa events and virtual spa events!)

What is causing so many events to flop in the spa industry? Here is what you can do to ensure that yours are a success, no matter their medium:

First: Why Kirsten Foss Coaching and Our Sister Company, Virtual Spa Business Management, Are Choosing to Talk About Spa Event Launches Now

My marketing manager, Delia, and I are officially Launch Event Certified!

Why? Because we’re cooking up something extremely exciting (and profitable for you) in our proverbial spa-centric kitchen. That means that, very soon, you’ll be able to come to us for hands-on event launch strategy and facilitation.

With both of us being former spa owners, going through this course while simultaneously building our own event launch has given us invaluable insight into what spa owners are doing wrong when it comes to their own launches

Without further ado, let’s jump into sharing what we’ve learned!

The Three Main Types of Spa Events

The three main types of spa events that are seen in the spa industry are as follows:

• New service or product events
• Client appreciation events
• Holiday events

While these may sound vastly different on paper, one commonality unites them: their end goal. And that end goal is to sell, increase your bookings, and bolster both your client acquisition and retention.

When done correctly, spa event launches are a fantastic and personable way to up your spa’s overall success and long-term profitability.

However, the feeling of overwhelm often kneecaps spa owners’ chances of success when it comes to launching an event either in-person or online.

To cut that overwhelm in half, take notes on these top 8 event-related failings… and heed our advice on what to do differently!

Spa Event Launch Fail #1: Treating Your Event as a Singular Task vs. An Ongoing Project

By treating your spa event launch as a singular task vs. a 8-12 week project, you aren’t able to take full advantage of its sales opportunities: strategic and efficient planning = more profitable events across the board!

“Do I need an itinerary if I plan to host my event online?” Absolutely!

Like a spa systems handbook, having your schedule and to-do’s neatly outlined in an itinerary, whether your spa event is online or in-person, lifts the burden of having to remember processes from your shoulders. Instead of having your spa event get derailed, run a tight ship in the direction of your goal by keeping your event well-paced and strategized.

We here at Kirsten Foss Coaching recommend planning your event launches eight to twelve weeks out in advance in order to get all your messaging, marketing, launching, and execution nailed down and out on time. The usual two-to-three weeks simply isn’t enough to nail your launch!

Spa Event Launch Fail #2: Not Having a Marketing Plan Surrounding Your Event (or Even a Marketing System in General!)

If you are looking to receive sufficient interest in the event and, at the event itself, enough sales to meet your goal, then we are going to be the ones to break this to you: marketing on just one social media platform? It’s not going to be enough! 

This also tends to speak to a larger problem of spas not having a general marketing system in place, meaning that the social media channels they are on (if they’re on any!) are not thought out and the messaging on there is not consistent with your event’s goals.

In short? Time gets wasted and money is left on the table!

If you’re reading this and thinking of your own event, we hope that this acts as the sign you’ve been looking for to either create (or overhaul) your existing marketing systems. Need help getting started? Reach out today for one-on-one coaching on the subject. 

Spa Event Launch Fail #3 and #4: Your Spa Event’s Offers Being Unclear to Your Audience… And Not Having a Strategy in Place to Fix That

There are three areas where I commonly see offers being unclear and, subsequently, going haywire at spa events:

• The messaging (how you’re communicating what’s for sale)
• Not connecting client pain points to your sales (why clients should want to buy this product or service)
• Over-giving (kneecapping your sales goals by giving too steep or too frequent of discounts)

That’s why these two points go together hand-in-hand! One of the things both Delia and I saw in recent spa event launch clients was their tendency to communicate their offerings unclearly and be too willing to offer discounts… which would have hurt their sales if they had gone ahead with their events before consulting us!

To nail down your spa event’s offers, circle back to our point about drawing up an itinerary. You’ll thank us! Always remember that, while a spa launch is a marketing tactic in itself, there needs to be supporting marketing pillars around it to ensure that it’s profitable for your spa business.

Spa Event Launch Fail #5: Not Accounting For Your Staff When You’re a Team Leader

Do you know who often falls to the wayside during the hustle and bustle of planning for a spa event launch?

Staff!

If you’re a team leader, be sure to account for each team member’s role, what extra time is needed to be allotted to them in order to execute it right, and ensure that they know what you expect them to do during the event in order to encourage upsells. 

In fact, Delia shared that she herself has been a part of spa events where she hadn’t known that she wasn’t getting paid despite working during the event until after it had concluded. Remember, spa owners: to be clear is to be kind! Get your team members onboard and in-the-loop before your event’s start time.

Spa Event Launch Fail #6: Not Considering Your Spa Event Launch a Numbers Game

Are you clear on what your goals are and what metrics you need to measure in order to gauge your success?

If not, then pump the brakes on your event and get this outlined ASAP!

Getting granular and strategic is the only way to make events profitable for your spa business, and that involves setting sales goals and working backwards to figure out which metrics to track.

These include:

• Client registration goals
• Sales goals
• Upsell goals

Something we talk about frequently in my spa owners-only Facebook group, Spa Business Mastery, is accurately and consistently measuring your metrics. If you’re not already doing that, take this as a fresh start and begin setting “Good”, “Better”, and “Best” goals today.

Spa Event Launch Fail #7: Not Prioritizing Email Communication Ahead of Your Spa Event Launch Date

If your email list is cold (meaning, you scarcely send emails out to it) then your audience, no matter how small, will be in for a shock if you suddenly bombard them with spa event launch date news.

Here’s how to avoid this: if you’re launching an event at the end of November and you’re planning eight weeks out, you’ll want to start warming your email list back up ASAP. Wake up that dormant audience! Re-familiarize them with you and your offerings through a blend of both promotional and educational emails.

Here at Virtual Spa Business Management, Kirsten Foss Coaching’s sister company, we advise to go with a cadence of one promotional/newsletter and one educational send per month. That’s what we do for our spa blog and email marketing clients!

Spa Event Launch Fail #8: Not Having an Opt-In On Your Website

Now, all of this planning, strategizing, and marketing would be for naught if you don’t have an opt-in on your website!

Strategic discounts, a value-added option, a PDF checklist targeting your audience’s pain points… all of these are tried-and-true opt-in ideas for building your email list and driving interest towards your upcoming spa event launch.

Have any of the points listed above struck a chord in you in terms of, “Oh, I could be doing ____ so much better”?  Let us know!