Matthew and Taylor Phillips, IMAGE Studios Marketing Manager, Unveil 2024's Smartest Marketing Trends & Strategies for Salon Suite Pros

In this episode of The VIP Suite, Matthew Landis, IMAGE Studios Industry Expert and certified business coach, engages in a compelling conversation with Marketing Manager, Taylor Phillips, specifically crafted for independent beauty, health, and wellness professionals. Dive into a wealth of insights tailored to salon suite professionals, hairdressers, aestheticians, nail artists, and other personal care experts. The dynamic duo explores the critical significance of crafting authentic and valuable marketing content, drawing on Taylor's extensive experiences, industry insights, and her fervor for creative marketing strategies.

Listeners in the beauty, health, and wellness industry will discover invaluable advice and strategies, from harnessing the authenticity of Instagram to effectively engaging with local businesses and optimizing their Google presence. This episode is a must-listen for professionals aiming to enhance their brand visibility, establish connections with their audience, and adeptly navigate the dynamic landscape of digital marketing.

The episode's focal point is a forward-looking exploration of trends anticipated in 2024, with a strong emphasis on creating meaningful, relevant, and informative content. Taylor emphasizes the importance of engagement, fostering community collaboration, and staying vigilant with analytics for a prosperous online presence. For salon suite professionals and personal care experts, this podcast offers a comprehensive guide to staying ahead in the competitive beauty and wellness sector. Tune in for practical insights that resonate with the nuances of independent businesses in this vibrant industry.

Transcript

Matthew Landis: 0:00

Welcome to the VIP suite. The podcast exclusively designed for independent beauty, health and wellness professionals. Brought to you by image studios the luxury leader in the Salon Suite industry. I'm your host industry expert and certified business coach Matthew Landis. Each episode will bring you insightful interviews with solo entrepreneurs who forge their own path to greatness. From sharing inspiring stories of triumph to practical tips and strategies for growing your client base and building your brand. This is the place to thrive and take your business to the next level. You know, listeners I coach a lot of Salon Suite professionals and the two most pressing issues that come up our pricing and marketing. Our image pro marketing course is something that we offer three times a year. It's our most popular course and that course is CO facilitated by a friend of mine who I just happened to work with and her name is Taylor Phillips. Welcome to the VIP suite Taylor.

Taylor Phillips: 0:58

Thanks, Matthew. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

Matthew Landis: 1:01

I'm excited to know Taylor is our marketing manager here at image studios and as a creative specialist she uses her skills with experience in marketing and social media to help the image collective develop their digital brand presence. She has a passion for content creation and graphic design. She grew up in Michigan and moved to Utah after graduating from college to enjoy the mountains and the beautiful landscape of the state. She has a dedicated dog mom to a rescue pup named Remy. And in her spare time, she loves hiking, skiing, attending music festivals and spending time with friends and family. Okay, first of all Taylor, I want to talk about Remy, let's talk about the dog. Oh

Taylor Phillips: 1:40

My god, I'm obsessed with him. It's funny because I I moved out here in 2020 in Utah. And of course, once you get out here all alone, you're like, I need a special friend, a buddy. And so I was scrolling on Facebook one day and I just saw a post and it was like a rehome situation. And I just immediately went and got him and my life has forever been better. Like he's the best dog ever little Remy companion. He's like a little golden mix. I don't know what he is. But he's he's so cute. That

Matthew Landis: 2:11

Just warms my heart. You know, I'm a dog person myself, Steven and I have two, we have Ruth and Bruno. And I also volunteer on a weekly basis at the Palm Springs animal shelter, which is such a wonderful place. And I'm so lucky because every week I get to play with puppies. I'm on the puppy team. So

Taylor Phillips: 2:26

I would have like 50 Puppies if I worked there.

Matthew Landis: 2:30

Oh my gosh, it's so hard. Because you know, we all sit around me and the other volunteers we sit around and dreaming of like if we just had all the money in the world, how we would just buy a giant ranch and have all the puppies in the world.

Taylor Phillips: 2:41

I've thought about fostering before, because but then I'm like I will get attached. There's no way there's no way I could do that. I would end up with so many dogs.

Matthew Landis: 2:50

Well, you know, it's funny, because I'm not allowed to talk about my volunteer job with Steven because he it just would break his heart. Yeah. Don't ask them to help. But I want to say it's a great thing. The animal shelter here is great, because it's such a wonderful place for I think if it is a waystation for these puppies and these dogs, hopefully it's a better place than where they were before. And they're on their way to someplace really wonderful with a loving family. So I tried to think of it that way. So it helps me from being less sad. So I just want to say that's so wonderful. I'm glad that you found Remy. That of course you're in love for sure.

Taylor Phillips: 3:29

Yeah, it's just it makes you kind of like go outside more and do more. And I feel like I wouldn't be more active without it without having him because I have to go home and walk him in and take him up in the mountains and not have to but I want to it's a very, it's a good time.

Matthew Landis: 3:46

I always say my first dog Fernando, he was a chihuahua as well, Fernando grounded me to the earth in a way that no other person could. Because then suddenly, I had a reason to come home every day from work. And yeah, he really sort of made me be present because that's how sharks are right? All right, people probably aren't listening to talk about dogs. So let's, let's talk about you. And then let's talk about some marketing strategy for our image pros. For our Salon Suite professionals, you have been an amazing addition to image studios, I just have to say you have great vision. And you've made all the difference in our image pro Success Program because I don't know if you know this, but participation in our program in 2023 was up nearly four fold. And I have to credit you and our marketing team in large part for helping make that happen. Because it doesn't matter how good something is, if nobody knows about it. Thank you, to you and to Lizzie and to our other marketing people at image studios. And I just want to know why did you choose to go into marketing?

Taylor Phillips: 4:49

I started my marketing adventure in high school so I took those marketing classes run school store did all that and of course like learning about it super really, for me, it was one of the things that fueled me to go into that. And I love being creatives, I've always been into graphic design and digital marketing, I kind of grew up in that era of social media starting when I was probably in like eighth grade. And so I've always had that platform to, I started that probably around high school. And then I decided to do in college communication and marketing major at Michigan State. And then I did a minor in graphic design. So I had a lot of classes on art. And I actually worked for the Michigan State like called the Red Cedar Log, which was a publication and they do the yearbook and stuff. So I had a lot of experience with designing the pages and the layouts and the spreads, that was really cool for me to kind of get my foot in the door. And then yeah, I've always just loved like expressing myself through art and being creative on lines. Obviously, this was a perfect position for me to expand that because I get to create all the marketing campaigns for all these different locations and help people create their own print assets and things that will help them locally. So it's been really great.

Matthew Landis: 6:08

And one of the things I've always loved about image Studios is the branding and the marketing, our founder, Jason Olson, from the very beginning really paid a lot of attention to the design of the spaces, but also the branding and making everything feel sexy and sleek and modern and very fashion forward. And you have taken that and elevated that and taken it to new heights. And so I think that's it's really exciting to watch, and you turn out a lot of good stuff. And you co facilitate the image pro marketing course with me, which is our three week marketing course. Yeah, what do you enjoy most about that?

Taylor Phillips: 6:40

I think it's really fun to connect with professionals. So I'm not a professional myself, I don't do hair, or I'm not an aesthetic, I have always been very in that world. My mom works at a hair salon, she's always been around that too. So I feel like being in the beauty industry is something that I have always related to I've always been interested in, it feels to me that I get to connect with these people. I feel like I relate to them a lot. I learned from them, but it's a mutual things. When I listen to our pros, they all have this passion for what they do. And the skill that they want to share with the world. And when I talk to them, one of the big questions is How do I get more clients? Our Pros are people that have experience, I think they feel confident in their skill set. So then the question becomes how do I sell that? And how do I make sure that I'm making the kind of money that I want and getting the kind of clients that I want, you have a finger on the pulse of what's going on out there. And when you look at the marketing that's happening, what do you think is working for our pros? What do you see that is really working for them. Instagram, and all those social media apps, I think the most valuable thing is authenticity. I think that works really well for anyone that's trying to market themselves online. Over the past like five years, we've seen so many changes in Instagram kind of shows you a lot more ads and things like that, where people are, they're scrolling through and they want valuable content, they want things that will educate them and, and bring value to their life. They used to be like, let me just get these quick posts up. Let me post every day even though it's just a photo and a silly caption that doesn't have any meaning people are looking towards like valuable content and things that they want to like learn from now, those authentic posts that are that show that they're a human, they're not just a brand online that is gonna post random stuff. It's bringing value. It's educating people, their audience,

Matthew Landis: 8:40

I love that. So people really aren't interested in perfection so much.

Taylor Phillips: 8:44

No, and I think people are actually more attracted to not being perfect. And having that through side show like we see with like Alex Earl, I don't know if you know who that is. But she's like a social media icon now. And she has like a really authentic style and the way she she talks and even on her like podcasts and stuff. She's just very authentic. And I think people really embrace that. They welcome that authenticity, and obviously love it. So I think that we're returning a page and like the fake, this is me. This is my perfect life type of Instagram or page that you want to put on my into more of like a relatable atmosphere.

Matthew Landis: 9:28

Because really the whole point is to get more clients and build your brand, right? You want to get more clients your you also want to build up your reputation you want to and let's admit it, let's let our egos be honest. We want to be seen as experts in our field. So when potential clients are looking at our social media, they want to get to know who we are. They want to know, will they be comfortable with us in our studio? Yeah, and most importantly and I want everybody to really hear this, and listen, it's not about us. Yeah, selling what we do and marketing, what we do isn't actually about us. That's the sort of irony of the whole thing. The irony is that it's really about them. What can we do for them? How can we solve a problem for them? What is it that we can do for them? And why would they book an appointment with us? So I think that we need to ship this mindset of I need to show the world how amazing I am in everything that I can do, and shift that mindset to thinking, What can I do for them? What do I have, that will help them what kind of tools and resources do I have that can help solve their problems and give them what they want?

Taylor Phillips: 10:46

So I obviously, I'm not an esthetician. But when I'm looking at an estheticians page, and I see that they're posting educational content and things that I actually do want to learn about, and I know that they have this knowledge, and I, it does bring value to me to learn about skincare, and what vitamins and things like that, that you can take. So I love learning about that, I will stop and engage with your post if you're posting about that kind of stuff. Because it does bring me value. So I think that people are using their knowledge to put into their content, somehow, like carousel posts of knowledge, like how to three ways you can improve your skin or three vitamins that will help you with your glowing skin or something those little like carousel posts, things like that. I lovethat stuff. Educate me.

Matthew Landis: 11:34

I had an esthetician and she was concerned about privacy. A lot of her clients didn't want their photos taken. And you know, she was having challenges coming up with inspiration. And she did this really specialized type of facial. And I said I don't know what that is, why don't you educate your potential customers on what this is and what it does.

Taylor Phillips: 11:59

And it doesn't have to be anything crazy. Like we we talked about this in our marketing course we're taking videos of you can be broken up throughout the whole month or a year like you're you can have one content day where you're you're filming yourself, maybe you're doing like a time lapse, if you will in the studio or doing something with your your services, and then you have a bunch of content for the rest of the month, because you can break it up into pieces. And you can use it in different ways. That's another thing too, is not spending so much time on your content, but spending more time on the value of the what's in the content, what points are you trying to put across on your posts? And how are you going to bring value? So I think looking at those things with a little bit of a more focused ones like what do I want to educate? What is my niche service that I'm providing?

Matthew Landis: 12:52

There are clients out there that are looking for you, this goes back to reframing that mindset. It's not about you looking for them. It's about helping them find you. Yeah. And helping them solve their problems. So how do those potential clients know where you are? How do they know what you do? How do they know who you are? So we know that authenticity words, genuine stories, also, just being entertaining, people want to be entertained. So what do you see that isn't working,

Taylor Phillips: 13:20

I would say, you got to grab people's attention as fast as you can. Now with video content, I think that's the king on all these platforms. So anything that can grab your attention within the first three seconds is what's going to be the most successful in in your content. If you're posting stagnant post without maybe something super valuable, you can always showcase your work, but maybe bringing something to it where it's like a carousel post or some something else where it's not just something that that people can't really interact with, I think is is what's going down recycling content, where it's like I posted something like very similar to this before I've seen it before I'm gonna scroll by it, that kind of thing. So anything that isn't grabbing your attention in three seconds or less.

Matthew Landis: 14:17

So when people are filming videos, and they spend six seconds saying hey guys, I am standing here doing this thing and then I'm like, Oh, I've already gotten past.

Taylor Phillips: 14:33

Yeah, hey guys, I'm gonna talk to you today about this. Like the big intro people are gonna scroll by that in two seconds. Yeah, to the point and a lot of that is to I will say like I think texts on your videos will help to with you. If you're posting something maybe educational like how to something or putting that kind of text on your on your videos tool will help. Same thing with like, if you're a Talking in video, just make sure to like add a caption or something. Because a lot of people will scroll through Instagram without their sound on. If you have like at least the captions or something on there that they can read, that will help to,

Matthew Landis: 15:13

I think having captions to help people that are hearing impaired.

Taylor Phillips: 15:17

Instagram can automatically do this for you. So they can do all your closed caption and you get anything if it needs to be. But it's, it's really intuitive now. So it's easier than ever to make your content accessible for everybody.

Matthew Landis: 15:31

I was told also that the algorithms sort of pick up on the text to give your posts more chance of being seen when you have the captions on.

Taylor Phillips: 15:41

I think that is true with Instagrams algorithm, there are definitely changes to the meta algorithm, as we've seen in the past the captions, and the hashtags that we used to see aren't as valuable as they used to be, I guess I should say hashtags, specifically, aren't as valuable in a single post. So people used to do like a bunch of different ones like 100 hashtags on a post. And it's really more what you're putting in the caption to so you could any phrasing that you're using in your captions is what's used in the algorithms. It's not just a hashtags. Now, it is a good geo tag. And people can, in fact, they can find your posts from that. But the wording and everything, the text that is in the caption is actually just as valuable. And I don't think people understand that to anything that you're typing on your page, try to use those keywords that will get your posts viewed by maybe an audience that doesn't already follow you.

Matthew Landis: 16:34

So what else isn't working? What do you see that you would recommend?

Taylor Phillips: 16:38

With engagement, I think the number one thing that isn't, is just the worthiness of the post, I don't know, I think anything that isn't shared or tagged or has some way to engage further, and that posts for example, like when you're posting a photo, and you have a client maybe in the photo, and you want to tag that client or have it show up on their page as well trying to get your content to be on different pages. So tagging, even if you tag like nearby places or places that maybe you want your posts to be seen, like no shame in that, like, tag people invite the collaborators on to your posts, get your posts on as many pages as you can. And same thing with your location. So tagging your location is valuable. So people will go through if you all are tagging the image studios, but hell location tag, then people can click on that and they can It's like another business page for people to see your work. So I think having those tags in your posts is really valuable. And people can obviously engage with your posts further,

Matthew Landis: 17:39

If you tag another business, let's say subway, it Yeah, in the same parking lot that you share, somebody's not gonna hate the extra marketing either.

Taylor Phillips: 17:48

No, it's mutual. Like, and I think this is, this is what's great about having different kinds of professionals in the same space as you so when you're in a salon suite, and you're you can tag their accounts and and kind of cross market each other. So I like that. And I think people need to be more open to it like I don't know, I think it's great to repost stuff and having and having that tag and being able to promote other businesses like I run the image Studios 360 account on Instagram. So I love when people impose tag us. So I just have to repost that, like I would love to obviously share everything, like the content that the pros make is incredible. But I feel like they are very good at tagging me or tagging the brand. And I just applaud that I think more people should focus on tagging. And yeah, not just tagging image studios, but tagging other businesses, other salon pros in your area.

Matthew Landis: 18:45

And if listeners do not follow our corporate Instagram page, follow it. It's@imagestudios360 on Instagram. So a couple of things that I see people relate to other people, People Magazine is one of the most popular magazines of all time, because it's called People and it has lots of pictures of people in it and stories about other people. So when I'm looking on Instagram, for example, and I just see a lot of photos of empty spaces, or real text heavy posts, and I don't see any person in it, I don't feel like it's that relatable and people are going to spend that much time looking at it.

Taylor Phillips: 19:25

I think that's a great point. In all of my experience of marketing I've seen photos of people be the best in terms of like the metrics so engagement to IT people like to envision themselves in people's shoes. And that's how I think a lot of people that goes back to their authenticity and relatability I'm so you're looking for those peers that are like you and in posting people is something that will get a lot of engagement for sure.

Matthew Landis: 19:56

And if you're gonna post something with a lot of tags posted over a picture of People.

Taylor Phillips: 20:00

Don't just have like a black background and then text like that. I totally agree. I think the more you post people and videos of people or that thing that will draw you right in, you're going to be sailing away.

Matthew Landis: 20:12

What are some trends that you're looking forward to in 2024? What are some things that people should be aware of in the year ahead?

Taylor Phillips: 20:22

I think understanding the meaningful content relevant and informative content. So we want to make sure everything that we're posting really stands behind those three things meaningful, relevant and informative. Because you're you got to understand your audience's needs. You got to understand their unique interests and their behaviors online, whatever you like, online, try to portray that on your page, because that's how I look at it. Like if I spent a lot of time on a post, I'll save that post and be like, Okay, I like this post. What did they do that I liked? And when did wildlife say on it? Why did it mean so much to me, so I will say post that I think are meaningful, and then try to recreate that on my own page. People value anything that's not looking misleading, or selling salesy or spammy. Obviously, we see a lot of ads online, and people are desensitized by so trying to really find where you can be authentic online is important. And then I think the fact that we've always had real will stick I think reels is going to be number one, though, but trying to make that video content is high quality as eye catching as you can, and then maybe to like engaging with your audience this year. Like I think we do have like a lot of tools for that online, you can post polls, you can do lives, you can do all these interactive things. And I think we kind of steered away from that. And I think it's going to come back this year, I think a lot of people are wanting that. And then looking at your analytics, the number one thing I think people don't understand is how meta builds the algorithm to really like showcase how your posts are doing and how to track that and use it to your advantage they offer up in the meta business suite, they do show you like, When is your audience most active and these times when to post and things that people overlook. And they'll just say like, oh, I'll just do this. I think scheduling your posts and having like a plan based on your metrics is important.

Matthew Landis: 22:13

I love that you said engaging more commenting more on other people's posts and supporting other people I think is important. And one thing to remember is that Instagram is global. But in a service based industry, your customers are not global, they are local, and they are within driving distance. And so I would even say engaging more with the people around you physically, geographically that are going to actually support your business by showing up the yoga studio near your your business, the market or some of the shops and boutiques and the other especially locally owned businesses around you that you can support that will also support you.

Taylor Phillips: 22:59

I think as you grow your brand online, you your algorithm will automatically kind of know what type of business you run online, but the the way you can use it, like you said, like having those other local businesses around you that are like yoga studios, photography studios, or things, things that other people are going through that are like minded, maybe tagging those businesses and getting your work on their page is incredible.

Matthew Landis: 23:24

Not only does it make you feel better, but people start noticing when you are engaging in your community, you are a part of your community show up for them. And they will show up for you a lot of our

Taylor Phillips: 23:34

Foothill Pros, host events at different little jewelry places and things like that we have like all these little boutiques in places that would love to collaborate, I think and it's worth a shot, like why not send them an Instagram, DM and do something together where you promote each other. Like that is the goal, then just being there and being present and meeting other people in person can go so far.

Matthew Landis: 23:58

This reminds me of something, when we're talking about geography, it's really important for pros to keep their Google pages up to date. And that is something that people often overlook.

Taylor Phillips: 24:09

We talked about Meta's algorithm a lot. But Google's is just as important, if not more important, because you're having anyone that's searching for what you do when you're not managing that page. Google will not showcase your page for us having a good time on that. And having your friends and family write you reviews and having people engage with it will boost you up on that rankings. Having like updated photos, videos, there's so much that your Google is saying can do for you. And especially with now that you can put your entire schedule you can put your website, everything that you need right on that listing like any other page that you have. And keeping updated is really important too. So making sure your page is up to date and has the best photos and videos that showcase who you are, who your businesses what you do and interacting back with those people that review and interact with you is important for sure.

Matthew Landis: 25:02

How do you help your clients find you, if I'm looking for highly specialized thing, I'm gonna go to Google first, because it's also going to show me what is the closest to me. So that's where I'm gonna go first. And, you know, in my coaching, I look at a lot of people's Google pages. And here's one thing I'm just gonna throw out there. If you don't have a photo of your location, Google Earth, that little car that drives around with a camera on it, they're gonna put a picture of your location for you. And let me tell you, they're usually not cute. If you don't put photos of where you work on Google, Google's gonna do it for you. And it ain't pretty. Picture of a stop sign. Yeah, it's a picture of a stop sign in a parking lot. It's not going to look cute. Update the photos.

Taylor Phillips: 25:43

And you guys know, like, if you're searching for somewhere, and it has one, maybe zero reviews on it, how real do you take that? Like, how do you like no one wants to buy something, if they don't see maybe like, a couple posts on the page, you know, like, they don't know anything about your business? If you don't, if you're not updating that, how do we keep it from being overwhelming, just having a set plan is really important, you'll see that your life will be so much easier if you just plan out your month or your next two months of content and then schedule it all in takes like one hour or maybe a month. And then you can be set you don't have to worry about you don't have to sit there and stress like did I post this week that I posted? Do I need to do this that kind of thing that you don't need that you don't need that stress that having like a set plan going through it and all your captions, everything set up in one place, and then you can just hit schedule, and then you don't have to worry about that again.

Matthew Landis: 26:36

Now our image pro marketing course is only $99 For anyone outside of the image network. But for image pros, all of our courses are provided at no additional cost. It's an exclusive IMAGE Studios benefit and where can they register for our courses?

Taylor Phillips: 26:50

If you're on Instagram, which I know you guys are, go to the link in our bio. You guys can go register there, it will send you a calendar invite to your email, and then they'll be able to add that to your calendar and join us.

Matthew Landis: 27:02

Fabulous. And one of the things that we offer in our IMAGE Pro Marketing course is a digital workbook, which helps you plan the type of content that you want to create, where to post it, as well as links to different resources that are available to you to for inspiration for planning purposes for calendar creation and central before we go. What are you looking forward to in the year ahead?

Taylor Phillips: 27:26

I'm looking forward to expanding my knowledge in wellness. I love that you're offering a wellness course this year to the pros. I really want to focus on me and self care and just have like a very zen year. I want to have a very easygoing happy year. So I think a lot of the past three years. It's a lot so you don't want to take a step back and appreciate everything. Have a healthier year.

Matthew Landis: 27:51

I like that. I want that too. Well Taylor, thanks so much for joining me today.

Taylor Phillips: 27:56

Thanks, Matthew.

Matthew Landis: 27:59

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The VIP suite. I'm Matthew Landis and I hope you found the insights and inspirations share today truly valuable for your journey as a solo entrepreneur, and independent beauty, health or wellness professionals. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at image Studios 360 And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to the VIP suite on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an opportunity to connect with our vibrant community and to discover more incredible stories and strategies. We love hearing from our listeners. So if you have any questions, topic suggestions or want to share your own success story, feel free to reach out to me at Matthew at image studios three sixty.com Remember to your listener you are the heartbeat of the beauty, health and wellness industry. Your dedication and passion make the world a better place one client at a time keep shining, keep growing and keep making a positive impact. We'll be back with more engaging conversations and valuable content in our next episode. Until then take care stay inspired and continue to create your own VIP suite. For more information about becoming a part of the image studios luxury Salon Suite community, visit our website at image studios three sixty.com