Your marketing funnel, from first look to booked and rebooked

“Marketing funnel” sounds like something from a corporate slide deck, but it’s a simple idea. It’s the path someone takes from first hearing about you to booking, coming back and telling their friends. Lots of people start at the top and fewer make it through each step, which is where the funnel shape comes from. For a salon, clinic or studio, I break it into five steps:

Some people will always drop out between steps. Not everyone looking at your lash lift page is ready to book today. The point is to spot the step where far more people fall out than should. That’s your leak, and fixing it usually does more for your diary than anything you add at the top.

Most clients look close to home. They search “brow lamination near me” or “facials in Leeds”, look at the map results and a couple of websites, and pick from there. If you’re not showing up, nothing else gets a chance.

What good looks like: a complete, verified Google Business Profile with the right category, your services, real photos and correct opening hours. A website with a page for each main treatment and your town mentioned naturally.

Common leaks:

How to check it: search your main treatment plus your town on your phone in a private window and see where you come up. Then open the performance section of your Google Business Profile, which shows how many people viewed your profile and what they did next, such as calls, website clicks and direction requests. You need a verified profile to see it.

Fixes for this week: fill in every section of your profile, add recent photos of your room and your work, and check your hours. My Google Business Profile guide takes you through it, and getting found on Google locally covers your website side.

Once someone lands on your profile or website, they’re asking a few quiet questions. Is this for someone like me? What actually happens? How much is it? If they can’t answer those quickly on a phone, they go back to Google and try the next one.

What good looks like: each treatment explained in plain words, with who it suits, how long it takes, what to expect and a price or a clear “from” price. Real photos of you and your space. Reviews close to the booking button.

Common leaks:

How to check it: hand your phone to a friend who doesn’t know your work and ask them to find what your most popular treatment costs and how long it takes. Watch where they get stuck, and don’t help.

Fixes for this week: add prices to your top five treatments, write two or three plain sentences under each name, and swap one stock photo for a real one. If you’re unsure about your prices before you publish them, how to price beauty treatments has a worked example.

This is the step I see leak most often, and it’s usually invisible to the owner. Someone wants to ask a question or check availability, and the way to do that is unclear, or there are so many ways that none of them are watched properly.

What good looks like: one or two clear ways to get in touch, visible on every page, with enquiries landing in one place you check every day.

Common leaks:

How to check it: send yourself an enquiry through every route you list, from a friend’s phone if you can, and see where each one lands. Then count last month’s messages that never got a proper answer.

Fixes for this week: pick your main route and make it obvious everywhere, with a short line on your other channels pointing people to it. Add a thank-you message to your form saying when you’ll reply. Set two fixed times a day to clear every inbox.

An enquiry is a warm lead, but it isn’t a booking yet. The gap between the two is mostly speed and ease. People often message more than one business, and in my experience the one who replies first with a simple way to book tends to win.

What good looks like: replies within hours, not days. Online booking, or at least a link you can send straight away. A deposit taken at the point of booking, with your cancellation terms shown clearly before they pay.

Common leaks:

How to check it: go through your last 20 enquiries and note how long you took to reply and whether each one booked. The slow replies often cluster in the “didn’t book” pile.

Fixes for this week: write saved replies for your most common questions, each ending with your booking link. Google also lets you add a booking link to your Business Profile, and some booking systems connect with Google directly. If you don’t take deposits yet, start with new clients and your longest treatments.

Aesthetics clinics work a little differently, because the first booking is usually a consultation. You can advertise the consultation, but under the ASA’s rules on prescription-only medicines you can’t promote treatments such as Botox to the public, so your funnel has to lead people to that consultation. My guide to marketing an aesthetics clinic covers a consultation-led funnel properly.

This is the step most people forget is marketing at all. A client who has been to you, liked it and trusts you is the easiest booking you’ll ever get, and they’re where most referrals and reviews come from.

What good looks like: the next appointment suggested before they leave, aftercare sent the same day, a gentle reminder when they’re due, and reviews asked for as routine.

Common leaks:

How to check it: look at the clients you saw for the first time three months ago. How many have been back? Many booking systems can show this, or a quick count from your diary will do.

Fixes for this week: offer the next appointment at the end of every treatment, with a reason, such as “your infills will be due in about three weeks”. Save one aftercare message per main treatment. Send a kind, no-pressure note to a few clients you haven’t seen in a while.

Email is the steadiest way to stay in touch. You can usually email existing clients about similar services under the PECR “soft opt-in”, as long as you offered an opt-out when you took their details and in every message. Anyone else needs to have actively agreed. My guides to email marketing for salons and an email welcome series cover the rest.

For reviews, ask every client at the same point, such as in your aftercare message. Don’t offer anything in return and don’t only ask the happy ones: Google’s policy doesn’t allow incentives or selectively asking for positive reviews. Fake reviews and undisclosed incentivised reviews are also banned under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, as the CMA’s guidance explains. There’s more in how to get more Google reviews.

You don’t need a dashboard. You need four numbers for the same month, written down somewhere you’ll look at again:

Divide each number by the one before it. That gives you the share of people who make it through each step, and the weakest step is where to start.

Here’s an example with made-up numbers, purely to show how the sums work. They aren’t benchmarks.

In this example, two thirds coming back is healthy and 30 enquiries is a decent start. But 21 people got in touch about a treatment and didn’t book. That’s the leak. This business doesn’t need more followers. It needs faster replies, a booking link in every reply and maybe a deposit.

Compare yourself with your own last month, not with anyone else. If you only track one thing, make it enquiries and how many of them booked.

Ads, boosted posts and influencer collaborations all pour more people into the top of the funnel. That’s useful when the rest of it works. When it doesn’t, you’re paying to send more people into the same leak.

Go back to the example. Doubling the looks to 800 with nothing else changed would give roughly 60 enquiries and 18 bookings, and it would cost money every month. Keeping the looks at 400 and getting better at replying, so 6 in 10 enquiries book instead of 3 in 10, also gives 18 bookings. That costs time, not money. Fix the leak first, and when you do spend on ads later, each pound goes further.

Sometimes the leak is bigger than a quick fix. If your website can’t take bookings or you can’t update it yourself, have a look at the signs you’ve outgrown your website. And if several steps are leaking at once and you can’t see where to start, that’s what I work through with clients in business design.

Run through this once a quarter. Anything you can’t tick goes on your list.

Found

Interested

Enquire

Book

Return

It’s the path a client takes from first finding you to booking, coming back and recommending you. I split it into five steps: found, interested, enquire, book and return. It shows you which step is losing the most people.

Reply quickly, ideally the same day, and put a booking link in every reply so there’s no back-and-forth. Keep enquiries in one place you check daily, and take a deposit at the point of booking.

Track four numbers for the same month: looks at your profile and website, enquiries, new bookings and how many new clients came back. Divide each by the one before it. The weakest step is usually your biggest leak.

Only once the rest of your funnel is working. If people already find you but don’t enquire, book or come back, more ads just send more people into the same leak. Fix the weakest step first and any ad spend afterwards goes further.

Mostly, but the first booking is usually a consultation rather than a treatment. You can advertise consultations, but you can’t promote prescription-only medicines such as Botox to the public, so your funnel should lead people to a consultation and make that easy to book.