Toshi Dream Spa and Salon is a full-featured spa and salon business located on Main Street and open seven days per week from 10AM until 7PM. They have been in business for fifteen years. Five years ago, they expanded and modernized, going from a hair salon with five chairs to a full-service spa that offers facials, body treatments, waxing, manicures, and pedicures. Their shop is modern, clean, and slick looking. The decor is minimalist, with a cool color scheme using white and icy blue and purple shades. Toshi Dream Spa and Salon wishes to convey an image of cleanliness and being in touch with the aesthetics and grooming needs of contemporary urban consumers.This business uses a wide range of marketing methods to promote their business. Word of mouth is their primary marketing method, which is enhanced by relationship building through multiple social media platforms. The Toshi Dream Spa offers promotional contests through their Facebook and Instagram accounts. One of the promotional contests partnered with local artists to offer art giveaways for customers. Another contest asked followers of their Facebook and Instagram accounts to post pictures of "their favorite urban legend," "their favorite urban dog," and "their favorite food," and selected winners for receiving a $25 gift card. Through these creative promotional events, the Toshi Dream Spa has shown how social media can be wielded in a highly successful manner. Every month or two, Toshi Dream Spa also offers promotional giveaways to customers who tweet to the salon using the hashtag #dreamspa.

Similarly, the Toshi Dream Spa reminds customers often about rating them on Yelp and other ratings websites for consumers. There is a little blurb on their pamphlets requesting customer ratings, and a sign in the window as well. Customers are reminded in ways that make them feel empowered, too, such as by saying "We want you to be happy! If there is anything you did not like, please tell us now. If there is anything you did like, please tell your friends on Yelp!" This approach helps to minimize negative content on Yelp but in a non-coercive way, encouraging customers to be open about their complaints. The policy is supported by a managerial staff that remains actively engaged with the customer, soliciting feedback while the customer is still in the salon.

When Toshi Dream Spa first opened as Toshi Salon fifteen years ago, their primary demographic was Asian females in the younger demographic. The expansion completely changed the...

Whereas they used to offer hair treatments and styling options only, the opening of the store front adjacent caused the owner to consider expanding into the additional space and partnering with the owner of a day spa in one of the suburbs who was seeking to open an urban branch. Together they created Toshi Dream Spa and Salon. The Toshi Dream Spa and Salon concept was to provide an integrated full service spa and aesthetics center, differentiating Toshi from any local competitor. Also, the expansion meant that their demographic changed, and expanded from a small group of Asian women to a broad subset of affluent, trendy young adults in the urban core who seek regular services, including hair, skin, nails, and spa treatments. Relationship building and customer loyalty are the primary focuses of the business's marketing strategies. Toshi Dream Spa and Salon achieves its marketing goals by using a variety of strategies.
Toshi Dream Spa places small advertisements in local entertainment newspapers, targeting their primary customers in the young but affluent demographic. Their age demographic can be divided into segments depending on the services offered. The spa services are targeting the 30-40 demographic, with the salon services skewing a broader age range starting from the young 20s extending into the 40s. The primary market is also predominantly female, which is why recently since their expansion, Toshi Dream Spa and Salon has identified the opportunities in marketing to their secondary market, which is males from the same affluent urban demographic. As Thompson (n.d.) points out, an "ideal marketing plan should effectively target both your primary and secondary audiences." This can be achieved in a number of different ways, such as by marketing different products to each of these segments, or incorporating "different levels of analysis" into the same marketing campaign or strategy to create a gender-neutral approach (Thompson, n.d.). Indeed, this is exactly what Toshi Dream Spa did when they devised their creative social media strategies asking customers to upload pictures and share them. Additionally, Toshi Dream Spa decided to take out separate ads specifically for the male secondary market. These ads promoted men's services including waxing, manicure, and hair/beard salon during critical times of the year including Father's Day, Valentine's Day, and Christmas. Separate ads for the primary demographic focused on the other options…