“Established during the heady year of 2007 THE BOMB launched itself upon an unsuspecting Brighton. Their unconventional and avant garde approach has not only established itself in Brighton’s psyche, but pushed others to imitate and inspired a fresh approach to styling and customer environment. From grannys to trannys and all in between, THE BOMB has your name on it.”
The purpose of this blog is to analyse THE BOMB’s digital marketing using Chaffey’s six channels. I chose this Brighton based hairdressers as they are really unique, with “a 1980’s boys’ bedroom interior style” and a relaxed staff group and environment where you can have a drink, play on the old school Nintendo64 and give their resident dog Sharon a hug. They also happen to be the only hairdressers I’ve found during my three years in Brighton that I trust to style my hair. So if my small blog can help them gain a bit of recognition from a new audience or give them any digital marketing tips that would be a nice bonus to thank them for their service.
Search Marketing ~
There are a few different ways someone could Google THE BOMB. If they have no previous information, they could search ‘Brighton unisex hairdressers’. This leads you to a map and pages of results. They can be found on the map if you know where to find them, but they are not found on the page results as in their unique and accepting nature have chosen to use the keyword allsex instead of unisex. So if you have a bit more information and change the search to ‘Brighton allsex hairdressers’, they pop up in a few different ways. The second result is their Yell page, the eighth result is their actual website, the ninth result is a link to a Vimeo of their Mural being painted, and the tenth is a link to their facebook page. This keyword ‘Allsex‘ is very important lead to finding THE BOMB which other hairdressers are not yet using. When you actually know the name of the hairdresser you want to search for and type in ‘The Bomb Brighton Hairdressers’ they have links on the top eight responses. However, this doesn’t include a link to their website, instead it shows their Google page, Facebook links and a few websites that review and list companies under the same industry. Their Website comes at the top of the second page of results. It’s a good idea that they have included a link to their website on the Facebook page as that seems to come up first with most variations of searches.
Online PR ~
As mentioned in the searches, THE BOMB do have a Facebook page, and after further searching have an instagram and twitter too (both @thebombhair). They use these channels more to represent the ‘personality’ of the company than promoting themselves for new customers. This again is very unique for a business strategy, but, I think, matches their customer base perfectly. Their customers come to them for this experience and personality, not just the service. The brand is inclusive of this business style which is very different from the competitors all across brighton.
Online Partnerships ~
THE BOMB doesn’t currently advertise any other brands or related sponsors, but they have a product range coming soon according to their website.
Interactive Ads ~
I’m not sure if these technically come under adverts, but they do have some links to the art, photography and music industry. For instance, having Megamunded paint their mural with Ed Schofield Photography making it into a film, and Swell recording their music video live in The Bomb Hair Studios, makes even more links to the type of customers they will entice.The main runner of the company, Peter brian Taylor, also has connections with radio, and the hair studio is full of collectors items.
Opt-in Email ~
I don’t believe THE BOMB are in the business of using email campaigns, but they do offer an email address on their website that you can use to get in contact with them. If their customers wanted it, I feel there could be an opportunity for a newsletter/blog style email update every now and then.
Viral Marketing ~
The type of posts THE BOMB generates are definitely popular, but they are still a small local business and so viral is quite a far off idea. With their lack of push full advertising, I would say word of mouth is definitely a key contributor to new customers choosing them over competitors. I think that THE BOMB are very good in keeping their repeat customers with their service and personality.
THE BOMB does not use all of Chaffeys six channels to their full potential, but for them, I think that this is best. Intorducing impersonal email campaigns or generic adverts would take away from who they are and what they’re all about. What they could do is make sure they include as many keywords as possible in their GoogleAdwords to be found in the Brighton hairdressing scene which is saturated with competitors. They use their facebook and twitter really well with regular and spunky posts (I cringed after writing spunky too I do apologize!), their instagram could use a few new posts to freshen it with updates. Other than this, keep doing you!
– BOMB LOVE x
Check it out for yourself on http://thebombbrighton.com/ including links to their social medias.