5 Salon SMS Templates That Fill Quiet Days
Part 5 of Booked Solid: the 6-week series on filling your salon’s calendar automatically.
Instagram wins you new clients. Your client list brings them back.
The people on that list already know you. They have sat in your chair, liked the result, and paid for it. Some of them have simply drifted, and most of those would come back today if something reminded them to.
That is what salon SMS marketing is for. Not blasting everyone. Sending the right short message to the right small group, and watching a quiet Tuesday fill in.
Below are five templates you can copy word for word, and the exact place in your account to send them from.
The five templates
Copy these, swap the details for your own, and keep them somewhere you can reach in a hurry. Each one is written for a different group, which is the whole trick.
1. The win-back
For clients who have not been in for a while.
“Hi [Name], it’s been a while! We’d love to see you back at [Salon]. Book this week and we’ll add a free treatment on us: [link]”
2. The gap-filler
For a cancellation you need to refill today.
“A spot just opened today at 2pm with [Stylist]. First in, best dressed: [link]”
3. The birthday
For clients with a birthday this month.
“Happy birthday [Name]! Enjoy a birthday treat: 20% off any service this month: [link]”
4. The treat yourself
For a quiet week you can see coming.
“You’ve earned a little you-time, [Name]. This week only, enjoy 10% off any service: [link]”
5. The VIP
For your regulars, the ones who never miss.
“[Name], you’re one of our favourites. Want first pick of next week’s appointments before we open them up? [link]”
Notice what none of them do. None apologise for making contact, none run three paragraphs, and none go to everybody. A text that lands in sixty characters and offers one clear thing gets a reply. A newsletter does not.
How to send one in 60 seconds
Everything below lives in the Marketing tab of your account. Four steps, and the first time you do it is the slowest.
Step 1. Open Marketing. The Home tab gives you a grid of ready-made client searches. You are not building a list from scratch, you are picking one that already exists.
Step 2. Pick your group. For a win-back, choose Clients who didn’t come in and set the date range you care about. For the birthday message, use the birthday search. For VIPs, use Recurring clients who came in. Then hit Search.
Step 3. Tick the clients you want. The results come back as a list with a checkbox on every row, and a tick box at the top to take the lot. Untick anyone you would rather not message. This is the step most owners skip, and it is the one that keeps the message feeling personal.
Step 4. Write it and send. Choose Send SMS, give the campaign a name so you can find it later in the Campaign Report, paste one of the templates above, and send. The screen shows you how many clients it is going to and how many messages that costs before you commit. Send a preview to yourself first, every time.
Do this before you send anything to anybody. Send the preview to your own phone and read it as a client would. Check the link works, check the name field filled in properly, and check it does not sound like a form letter. Thirty seconds, and it has saved more campaigns than any other habit.
Three rules before you hit send
Marketing messages are regulated almost everywhere, and the rules are more similar than you would expect. In Australia the communications regulator sets out three requirements for any commercial message, and most countries land in the same place:
- Consent. You need permission from the person receiving it.
- Identify yourself. Your salon name and real contact details.
- An easy way out. A clear unsubscribe, honoured promptly.
None of this is a reason to hesitate. A client who booked with you and gave you their mobile so you could confirm the appointment is not a stranger you bought from a list. Just keep the opt-out working and respect it the moment somebody uses it.
Check the rules for the country you operate in, since the detail does vary.
Prefer set-and-forget?
Sending campaigns by hand is the right place to start, because you learn quickly what your clients respond to. Once you know, you can stop doing it by hand.
Under Admin > Messaging you will find Smart Send, which handles the automatic messages that go out on their own schedule: appointment reminders, birthdays, first visit messages, and a Clients Who Haven’t Been In message that runs your win-back for you.
Underneath that sits Smart Send Plus, where you build your own automations rather than using the standard set. Pick who it goes to, when it goes, and whether it travels by SMS, email or WhatsApp.
We have written about the automation side properly elsewhere: three salon SMS automations worth stealing covers the ones most salons turn on first, and pre-appointment automations goes deeper on the messages that run before a client arrives. This post is about the campaigns you send yourself, on purpose, when you look at next week and see a hole in it.
Both have their place. Automations keep the baseline running. Campaigns are how you respond to the week you are actually having.
Why salon SMS marketing beats the feed
A social post goes out and reaches a slice of the people who follow you, chosen by an algorithm you do not control and which changes without telling you. A text goes to the phone in someone’s hand, and it is still there tomorrow.
The client list is the one marketing asset you own outright. Nobody can throttle it, nobody can change its terms, and it gets more valuable every year you keep it tidy.
It works best alongside the reminders from Part 4. Reminders keep the bookings you already have. Campaigns create the ones you do not.
Try this week: send one
Not a strategy. One message, one group.
Look at next week in your calendar and find the emptiest day. Then pick the template that matches why it is empty. Quiet because regulars have drifted, send the win-back. Quiet because of a cancellation, send the gap-filler. Quiet for no reason at all, send the treat yourself.
Send it to a small group first, twenty or thirty people. See what comes back. That one send will teach you more about your client list than any amount of reading, including this.
Frequently asked questions
Does SMS marketing work for salons?
It works because of who is on the list. These are people who have already been in, already liked the result, and already gave you their number. A short message with one clear offer, sent to a small relevant group rather than everybody, is what makes the difference. Sending the same message to your whole database is what stops it working.
What should a salon text a client who has not been in for months?
Keep it warm, short and specific. Acknowledge the gap without making it awkward, give one reason to come back now, and include a booking link so they can act while the message is open. The win-back template above is the version we would send.
When is the best time to send a salon SMS campaign?
Send it when the client can act on it, which usually means late morning or early evening on a weekday, and a few days before the gap you are filling rather than the morning of. For a same-day gap-filler, send it as soon as the cancellation happens. Avoid very early and very late, since a marketing text at 9pm reads differently from a reminder.
Is SMS marketing expensive for a small salon?
On the Pro and Max plans a monthly SMS allowance per operator is included, so ordinary campaign use sits inside what you already pay. Pricing is per Bookable Operator, capped at 7 operators, with no hidden fees. Set against one recovered appointment, the maths is not close.
Already with Simple Salon? Everything above is in your account right now. Open your Marketing tab, pick one list, and send your first campaign today. Give it a name you will recognise in the Campaign Report, so next month you can see what it did.
Not with us yet? This is what you would be switching on: your whole client list, already sorted into the groups worth messaging, with the sending built in and an SMS allowance included on Pro and Max.
The Booked Solid series
Six weeks on filling your salon’s calendar automatically.
- Part 1: 5 Money Leaks Quietly Costing Your Salon Bookings
- Part 2: How to Set Up Online Booking for Your Salon in 5 Steps
- Part 3: How to Add a Book Now Button to Instagram
- Part 4: The Real Cost of Salon No-Shows (and the One-Text Fix)
- Part 5: 5 Salon SMS Templates That Fill Quiet Days (you are here)
- Part 6: The Booked Solid Checklist: Set Up Your Salon for a Fully Booked Spring