Every consent form at Wyld Chyld Tattoos asked for a name, a birthday and an address. At the shop in Merrick, New York, those forms went into a file, and staff rarely typed any of it into a computer. By law, the shop must give every client aftercare instructions after a tattoo or piercing. When the consent form moved to iPad kiosks, the names, birthdays and addresses started going straight into the shop's CRM. A CRM, short for customer relationship management, is the system that holds client records.
The owner of the Merrick shop needed past clients to come back, because walk ins alone were no longer enough. Once a client left, no one followed up to ask how the session went or whether the tattoo needed a touch up. On Google, the shop had about 200 reviews and a rating of about 4.2 stars.
After the signature and the ID, the iPad consent form now ends with a one tap option to join the shop's email list for promotions, deals and events. We grew that list on purpose, because the shop owns the data. In winters without an ad budget, email was a safe fallback, and when the budget was there, the shop ran both ads and email. To cover the new custom work, the shop moved from our Foundation tier to our Growth tier. We covered the cost of the email list, which the email platform bills by subscriber count. Postmark, a transactional email service, automatically sends every client aftercare instructions after a tattoo or piercing, whether they subscribe or not.
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.
We split the list into groups, and new subscribers get a series of welcome emails. After a tattoo, a check in email asks how the session went and whether a touch up is needed, and a yes alerts the front counter to book it. An internal triage receives all client feedback, and the shop deals with the bad experiences it turns up, sometimes by fixing a tattoo or giving store credit. Then, a few weeks after a tattoo or piercing, every client gets a request for a Google review. Clients who have not been in for 180 days get a win back email inviting them to return. We first sent it at 90 days, which was too early.
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Paid Ads
Wyld Chyld Tattoos
Together, the ads and the new way of posting took the shop's Instagram to a peak of about 750,000 impressions in the third and fourth years. Impressions count how many times the posts and ads appeared on someone's screen. New clients now find them through social media and the feed every artist posts to.
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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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Website Development
Arte De La Noche
The new system reduced response times from weeks to just one or two days and nearly eliminated missed leads. Monthly tattoo bookings grew from 12 per month to an average of 6 requests per week, while piercing requests rose from 5 per day to over a dozen daily. The new system saved hours each week and improved client retention and satisfaction.
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Website Development
SophTattoos
The new digital system improved client retention by 18% within the first two months and increased consultation conversions by over 40%. Sophia now spends less then half the time responding to inquiries, maintains consistent branding across platforms, and has an organized database of clients she can reach out to for repeat business and promotions.
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