Case Study: How Audio Ads Helped this Small Business Reopen

3 min read

The Challenge

For the last 20 years, Hairshaper salon has served the San Francisco community helping young professionals look their best! Before the pandemic in early 2020, the salon was averaging upwards of 100 clients per day. But as the economy began to slowly open back up, owner Stacy Moh said most of her business had disappeared and the salon would be lucky to serve 100 clients a week - an 86% decrease in business.

In addition to the drop in business from the pandemic, twice as many people left San Francisco for other cities in 2020 (compared to 2019), including many of Hairshapers’ most loyal customers. With also the extra costs from PP&E equipment to keep both her stylists and customers safe, Stacy was in serious need of an affordable solution to market her salon during the reopening.

The Solution

Stacy and her team had never done much marketing in the past, as they relied on word of mouth and their long history in the neighborhood for their business. Most of Hairshapers’ customers had been with the salon for years. But again, with many of them leaving San Francisco, Stacy and team needed to find a way to reach more customers.

“Over the years, we have built a great deal of trust from our clients. After the pandemic, not only do customers need to trust us with their looks, but they also need to trust us with the safety of their health,” Moh said.

Through word of mouth herself, Stacy recently heard about AudioGO. After doing her research she found that audio is one of the most trusted forms of advertising. In fact, in a recent article by YouGov America, survey results showed that Audio is one of the most trusted forms of advertising. Although Stacy did not have much experience with marketing tools, she was able to quickly create a campaign on AudioGO. With previous business mostly coming from working male professionals within a 10-mile radius of the salon, Stacy created an advertisement geared towards male clientele in the local area. “AudioGO really made it easy for me to request an ad, target my users and launch a campaign.”

The Results

With a modest budget of $500, Hairshapers was able to run their ad for 1 month. Over that month, AudioGO delivered 28,000 impressions reaching just over 9,000 listeners. With the help of tracking links, Hairshapers received 60 new reservations through their online portal and 40 new reservations through phone calls. “In addition to new online bookings and phone calls, we had at least 10 new walk-in clients who mentioned they had heard our ad on various apps.”

And while Hairshapers’ business is still far off from pre-pandemic levels, the extra boost in business (with the help of AudioGO) created greater optimism amongst Stacy and her employees.

"AudioGO was great, and we highly recommend it! There's still a ways to go to get back to our old self, but at least we found something that will help get us there."