Sales funnel in tattoo studios: How to understand the point at which the potential clients stop booking a tattoo session in our studio?

One of the primary tasks of any company is to build an effective customer acquisition and retention system. A proven way to improve sales in tattoo studios is to examine the customer's "path" through the sales funnel, understand where and why customers drop out and then eliminate the reasons that prevent them from ultimately booking an appointment with us.

In this article, we will examine what a sales funnel is and how to use it to increase business in your studio!

What's a sales funnel?

The etymology of the sales funnel dates back to 1898 and it was coined by the American marketer Elias St. Elmo Lewis. He formulated this phenomenon as "the path that the customer goes from the moment the thought appears in his head to the purchase/booking, etc." In other words, it's a simplified scheme that shows step by step the customer's transition from familiarizing themselves with the product to repeated purchases.

The word "funnel" in this term is used for a reason - the graphical representation of the customer's journey resembles as an inverted triangle, narrowing towards the base. This is because during this process, many customers drop out at different stages and only some of them finalize the purchase/booking.

Models of sales funnels in tattoo studios

We've already found out that the sales funnel represents the entire journey that the customer needs to travel to book a session. Regardless, let's take a look at a classic example of a sales funnel using the AIDA approach. The funnel in this classification consists of four stages, which are deciphered by the first letters of the abbreviation:

A -attention;
I - interest;
D - desire;
A - action.

This model is suitable for any business, but depending on the type of business and customer acquisition sources, the steps will vary slightly. Let's look at some examples of sales funnels in tattoo studios:

The more sources you have from which you can attract your customers, the more sales funnels you use. Now let us take a look at how can you significantly increase your studio's business by tracking consumer behavior through the different stages of your funnel.

Sales funnels in tattoo studios

As you already know, the main goal of any sales funnel is to increase the number of customers making a purchase/reservation. Working with a sales funnel helps you convert as many potential customers as possible into actual buyers. Additionally, picturing the customer journey helps to solve several key tattoo studio tasks at once:

Locate the areas that need attention. Understanding each step of the path a client goes through will help you identify the ones you need to work with first. For example, if most of your clients drop out of consultations and don't sign up, you need to pay attention to working with incoming inquiries.
Marketing and Sales Planning. It is said that if your ad reaches a potential 100 clients, 10% of them will book a session at your studio. This way you will not only understand what kind of sales you can expect by displaying your ad to 200 people, but you can also plan for it. To start, you can assume that if you want to get 50 clients to come to your studio and pay for the service this month, then 500 people should see your ad.

You already know what a sales funnel is and how to analyze and improve each of its stages. It's time to think about how to measure its effectiveness in numbers, how to calculate key indicators, and what to pay attention to.

How do you measure the effectiveness of your sales funnel?

The effectiveness of a sales funnel is measured by conversions. Conversion is an indicator that displays the ratio of the number of people at one stage of the path to the number of people at the next stage of the path.

The formula for calculating conversions is simple: the number of visitors who performed the targeted action / total number of all visitors * 100%.

Of course, the very definition of a sales funnel assumes that the number of customers will decrease at each stage. Nevertheless, your job is to work through all the stages and improve conversion rates at each one so that as many people as possible move on to the next stage.

In our example, the lowest conversion rate was at the consultation stage - out of 100 service requests, only a quarter of customers registered. Therefore, it's the manager's work on bookings that will be the bottleneck. As soon as your studio detects such a problem, you should start taking action, such as minimizing customer inquiries to only one place (inquiries only on Instagram or through a platform like INKsearch.co), training the manager, or systematically checking messages. Such actions can maximize your performance from 30, even to 75%!

How to increase conversions at different stages of the sales funnel in tattoo studios?

Although a separate sales funnel should be formed for each objective you want to achieve in your tattoo studio, the main stages of each will be similar... With these strategies, you can increase conversions at each stage and eventually make more sales.

How to attain more activity around your studio?

The more potential customers learn about your brand on a daily basis, the more bookings you can have. That's why it's every studio's job to show your information to as many potential customers as possible.

Make sure you are taking advantage of all available advertising channels and platforms:

1. Contextual advertising on Google.
2. SEO marketing.
3. Advertising on social networks Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
4. Advertisement websites. (OLX, Gratka.pl, produktymy.pl etc.).
5. Placing your studio on Google Maps.
6. E-mail marketing.
7) Websites with coupons
8. Profile on INKsearch.co platform

How to get more bookings for your tattoo studio?

You can develop your reach and obtain more activity from a variety of sources, but keep in mind that you need to keep track of each one so that potential clients will have a quick and easy way to contact your studio. Unfortunately, some people cancel their sessions during this step because they don't get feedback, don't know where to contact you, or wait a long time for a phone response. To minimize such problems, keep a few important things in mind:

Keep your website and social media organized. Make sure users have access to all the information they need to choose your studio: location, photos, list of working artists, pictures, and reviews. Don't force users to ask for information - a substantial amount of potential clients won't waste time working out the details.
Simplify the session booking process and make it available 24/7. Use all available methods: register clients by phone, in private messages, and through platforms like INKsearch.co
Terminate the customer path obstacles defined above and get more leads without increasing your advertising investment.

How to improve appointment performance

Your studios' activity and the number of visitors depend on how well you process all requests. What can you do to sort out this matter in your studio?

Check how quickly the manager responds to calls and messages. Even though you invest heavily in advertising, you may be losing a lot of customers due to waiting too long for a response from your side. Find ways to standardize this path so that the number of lost session requests is as low as possible.
Study conversations and responses to messages. This will help you understand why customers are leaving right after this step. Perhaps someone who's responding to your customers is not very polite in their communication.
Standardize customer communications. Provide sample messages that managers can use.

Remember that working on the quality of your submission service must be an ongoing process. The key to success is constantly checking and analyzing so that your studio always performs at its best.

How not to lose clients "on the way to the studio"

A client has already booked a session? Great! However, keep in mind that sometimes there are situations that lead to not having a tattoo session. Depending on the size of the studio, losses due to client no-shows and tardiness can be as high as 500-2000 PLN per month.

How can we minimize them?

Remind clients about their scheduled tattoo session. Clients who have signed up at the studio may change their plans or simply forget about their scheduled appointment. Set up automatic appointment reminders through INKbusiness. You can believe us that doing this helps reduce delays and customer absences by up to 50%!
Collect deposits from your customers. Pre-payment guarantees you better protection against last-minute cancellations and disciplines your clients more. However, it is important to organize the paid booking process so that the customer doesn't face any obstacles.

What can we do to keep a client coming back to our studio?

Remember, the sales funnel doesn't end with the first purchase or registration; the main task of any business is to build long-term relationships with their customers. So how do you maintain more customers and get them to come back to you for the next session?

Try to schedule the following visits. Each client's visit to the studio should end with a new booking. If a client got a small tattoo, find out if he would like to come back for another one and get another body part tattoed.
Collect feedback; this way you can determine customer complaints on time and correct any deficiencies.
Get in touch with your "lost" customers. Thanks to INKbusiness, your customer base is always at your fingertips. This option makes it easier for you to direct your marketing offers to those people who have not come to your tattoo studio in a while.

Now you know what a sales funnel is and how to use it to increase your tattoo studio sales. Now it's time to picture your own sales funnel, calculate the effectiveness of each step, and find the places where you're losing the most customers so you can fix them.

Use your sales funnel regularly and then you will understand what you need to focus on to increase sales and pull together your business.

Support your operations with INKbusiness and manage your #LIKEAPRO studio!