Marketing is a salon’s way of telling its story in order to attract new clients and encourage existing ones to try different services from the menu. The ways salons leverage marketing to tell those stories is expanding every year, as owners sample newer vehicles like community videos, influencer programs and social media, along with more traditional methods.

Here is the winner of the best Philanthropic Campaign in SALON TODAY's STAMP competition.

Virtue Salon
Columbus, Ohio
Owners: Melanie and TJ Guzzo
Virtue is located in the Columbus neighborhood of Clintonville, which has a resource center that serves children, the elderly and the homeless of the community. After finding out that the center’s biggest need is hygiene products, the team at Virtue decided to start a friendly battle-like competition among salons and barbershops in the area.

“Throughout the month of March, each participating salon and barbershop put out social media content to get their clients to bring in donations of shampoos, conditioners, female hygiene products, shaving supplies and soap,” Melanie Guzzo says. “We collected more than 3,600 products, and the salons and barbershops were able to get to build relationships with one another.”

This is one of only one of 31 marketing ideas featured in Salon Today's September/October S.T.A.M.P. issue. See the others here. (Coming Soon!)

More about STAMP:

SALON TODAY’s Annual Marketing Program, (STAMP), puts the spotlight on fabulous marketing—ideas that have been tried in the salon environment and proven successful. By entering this competition, these winning marketing teams are willing to share those entrepreneurial ideas with you, to encourage your team to put your own STAMP on it.