Stortini Hairstudio | The road to 1 Million

Have you ever met someone so passionate about their work that they almost make you wonder if you didn’t choose the wrong career?
Daniele Stortini is that kind of person – he’s a hairstylist in Empoli, Italy, and as you see from the quote above, he doesn’t shy away from his own skills and potential. He embraces it.

His energy, however, didn’t make us wish we were hairdressers.
It made us decide, right there on the spot, that we wanted to help him get there.
With almost 100 outstanding Google reviews, an ironclad reputation, and an unconventional approach to his field, Daniele had all it takes to reach that goal. And yet, he also had a problem: His promotional machinery was either broken, abandoned or both.

Assessing the brand

Running on a great reputation is an ideal situation for a brand, for it will retain clients.
However, the lack of effective communication can make it quite hard to acquire new ones: This was Daniele’s problem.

Here’s a quick overview of the issues we found in his brand:

• Logo: Daniele’s logo looked amateurish and outdated.
• Domain Name: The salon’s website had a long, long domain name – hard to remember and easy to misspell.
• Website Visuals: The website itself had images of models taken from online archives, yet no images of Daniele’s own work as a hairstylist.
• Lead Generation: The website had no contact forms, broken social media links, and unlinked WhatsApp accounts.
• Copy: From social media to the website, the copy’s language was inconsistent, going from a joyful tone to, at times, an aseptic compilation of words.
• Advertising: Daniele’s ads were focused on listing technicalities, with no appeal to benefits, emotions or outcomes.

On top of all this, Daniele had been trying on his own to study and apply marketing tactics – which rarely goes well when you are as passionate and laser-focused as he is about his field of work.
Without a proper, comprehensive and strategic approach, Daniele’s goal of 1 million euros in revenue was closer to a dream.

Against the clock to break the mold

By the time we signed a contract with Daniele, we discovered a major problematic: He was scheduled to relaunch his salon on November 27th, 2022.
Our signing took place on October 31st.
We had less than a month.

The project pipeline was tight, but that only meant we had to pull every other thing aside to focus on the Stortini brand.
Within 12 days, we had:

• Competitor Analysis: On a National level, Daniele had three big-name competitors that catered to an audience made of Lovers in the Jung archetype framework. However, these big competitors delivered their services with an approach of authority and recognition, and the local competitors barely had any approach at all.
• Market Research: The desires, fears, and tastes of Daniele’s audience proved right – the Lover was their archetype.
• Visual Identity: We started building the brand already with the insights from the Competitor Analysis. This was a risk, especially if the Market Research proved us wrong, yet we had no choice but to do move forward.
• Brand Personality: We found the perfect formula to differentiate Daniele. By his vast knowledge of his field and leveraging his lively, larger-than-life personality, we decided to place his brand in the Sage archetype with a dash of Jester – because without humor, the Stortini salon wouldn’t be as beloved as it is.

On Day 15, we began building the website.
On Day 20, the website was done and we began building the brand book.

Rise of a brand: The Stortini Hairstudio

To help creating buzz around the event, Daniele asked us to take over his social media accounts.
After 4 days of increasing engagement, the date had arrived: On November 27th, 2022, Daniele Stortini welcomed over 200 people to his new salon: Stortini Hairstudio.

The brand’s logo is an elegant sans-serif typographic mark enriched with two scissors that mirror a tattoo Daniele himself sports on his neck.
Our design team built it with elegance in mind, especially when matched with the color palette of pure black, pink, and broken white.

This new brand does not only provide the best dyes and haircuts in town: It sells environmentally-friendly products, and offers free in-depth analyses of the clients’ scalps, assessing its overall health and helping in the prevention and treatment of hairloss.

Daniele’s rebrand was met with excitement.
People bought copies of his book, held speeches, and celebrated with him.

Daniele’s reputation is now amplified by his strategic brand.
As revenue and social media engagement increases, it’s hard to doubt Daniele’s chances of meeting his goal.

The Results

Since the relaunch, Daniele’s revenue went from €2.000/week to about €5.200/week.

That’s slightly over 240.000€/year.
If Daniele and his team stick to the strategy, in 4-5 years he’ll hit his 1.000.000€ goal.