After a tattoo session, SophTattoos had no way to check in with the client or to invite them back. Sophia had started the business with no system of her own for staying in touch.
For a long time, ads brought in about 80 percent of her new clients. She had no list to send deals, promotions or review requests to.
We built SophTattoos an email program. We cover the cost of her email list as part of her recurring package. Clients join the list automatically when they opt in on the booking form, the consent form or the website. Those forms collect detailed information about each client. Automated emails check in after each session, ask for a review and carry her deals and promotions. A referral program rewards clients who send someone new.
About 15 percent of her bookings come from returning clients, including those her emails bring back. Ads bring in 64 percent of her new clients, down from about 80 percent, and the referral program and live events bring in others. Her repeat client rate, also called retention, holds at about 18 percent year over year, on a much larger client base than she had before. Her regulars rebook through the website.
We split the list into segments, groups of clients with something in common, and send each segment its own emails. The check in after a session asks how the client is doing, how the experience went, whether they need a touch up and what could be better. When a client refers someone, they get 10 percent of the referred client's tattoo price as credit. They can put that credit toward their own next tattoo or save it. Credits expire at the end of the calendar year. Win back and promotional emails bring her regulars back to book.
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SophTattoos
The ads earn back about three times their cost in tattoo work at the least, and 18 times at her peak. In one month, $400 of ads brought in about $5,700 of work. With ads that promote only her, her bookings rose 200 percent over two years, compared with her time at the Long Island shop. The added bookings caused no real admin strain, because the forms and the booking run automatically. She needed only a bit more time to answer emails and requests and to decide what to take on. Today the ads bring in 64 percent of her new clients.
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Email & SMS
White Rabbit
The retention journeys did what a prime location never could. They brought past clients back, including people who had moved out of state and put down deposits to book future sessions. Instead of hoping former clients remembered them, the studio had a system that reached out on its own and turned a finished tattoo into the start of the next booking.
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Email & SMS
Wyld Chyld Tattoos
We still run the shop's email program, which we built for them. The list grew from about 1,000 subscribers in the first year to about 16,000 in the fourth. We plan seasonal promotions with the shop, based on pooled data from all of their tattoo clients. In the first year, client retention rose 22 percent. That figure compares the past clients in the system when we started with how many of them came back. Over two years, Google reviews grew from about 200 to more than 500, and their rating rose from about 4.2 to 4.7 stars.
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Arte De La Noche
Bookings increased 2 to 3x, and the calendar stayed booked at least two weeks out. With more appointments scheduled in advance, she could take more total appointments and rely less on walk ins to fill gaps.
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