Your first 100 sauna members

Donna launched on “one of the worst weekends in April, weather wise”, and she launched free. “We did an open weekend, put it out there on social media and we just said like, come along.” No ticket, no upsell, just towels and disclaimers. The point was not revenue. The point was that nobody on the island had ever gone from hot to cold before, and the fastest way to explain a sauna is to put someone in one.

She backed the open weekend with an early sign-up offer on block bookings. “Promotions are really, really good early doors,” is how she puts it. Then she opened right as the season started, and watched the bookings come through.

The pattern to copy: a free open weekend to get the word out, one simple early-bird offer to turn visitors into repeat bookings, and a launch timed to when your site is busiest.

Donna's regulars did not come from ads. They came from groups that already existed and needed somewhere to meet: men's mental health groups, menopause groups, sister circles. The local paper ran a story too, not about the sauna but about Ed, and why a veteran would choose to do something good for his mental health. That article did more than any campaign could.

Amelia of Ojas Sauna found the other side of the same coin: people were already looking. “In the first couple of months, when I asked people how they found me, they said that they were searching sauna near me on Google Maps.” Claim your Google Maps listing before you spend a pound on anything else.

And then there is simply being seen. Visitors watch the smoke rise, try a session, and, in Donna's words, “It all has like that ripple effect, doesn’t it? You just need that one time.”

Our own enquiry records say the same thing the operators do. Across 938 enquiries in our books, here is how each channel converted:

• Word of mouth: 16% became customers.
• Instagram: around 13%.
• Search (Google and the like): around 12%.
• Cold marketing campaigns: between 0% and 7%, and the coldest of them converted nobody at all.

Warm beats cold, every time, by a distance. A person who was told about you by a friend, or who went looking for you, is worth more than ten people you interrupted. For a new sauna that means: make the first hundred sessions so good that people talk, be findable when they do, and spend your energy on the groups around you rather than on ads.

Most operators run a mix, and the mix matters less than people think at the start. Donna sells drop-in sessions and block bookings; her early-bird offer was on blocks precisely because a block turns one good first visit into a habit. Her regulars are the community groups. Her drop-ins are the visitors: “In terms of visitors, we have people coming over here just for the day to use the sauna. So they are willing to get on a ferry, come use it and go again.”

What makes both work is that the session is cheap against how good it makes people feel. Nobody haggles: “No one’s come out ever saying, I wish I hadn’t done that. Like, what a waste of my 55 minutes. Or 16 pound.”

At the venue end of the scale, Ra and Oscar of The Pink Sauna price by the day rather than the seat: “We target about 500 pounds for a weekend day for Saturday and then a Sunday.” Start with simple drop-ins, add a block or membership offer once you know your regulars by name, and let the diary tell you the rest.

New operators worry about winter. The operators who have been through one do not. Donna's busiest slots hold steady all year, and off season she simply concentrates the diary: “We opened Friday to Monday, so Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, they were like the cluster days and they were worth opening every time.”

Winter is also when the product is at its best. “Dark nights, the fire crackling inside, no music. Beautiful,” is how Donna describes the off-season feed of the fire.

The money holds up too. Ra and Oscar's weekend takings at The Pink Sauna: “I don’t think we’ve dropped below £900 for a weekend the whole year.” The whole year, not the summer. Cold weather is not the enemy of a sauna business. It is the reason it exists.

Asked what someone thinking about it should consider, Donna's first answer was two words: do it. Her second answer was about staffing, the thing that quietly decides whether the diary you fill stays filled: “If you’ve got no staff, it can’t work.” She and Ed knew from day one that the two of them would run it, and that certainty made everything else simple. Work out who is going to run yours before you commit, not after.

Her more practical advice: “Make sure that you have a really good set of waterproofs.” Running a sauna outdoors in Britain means weather, every week, all year.

Amelia's advice is about the start line: “The best thing is genuinely just getting started and it sounds easier said than done.” And Donna's verdict, six months after making back what the sauna cost: “It’s been the best business decision we’ve ever made and I’m so glad that we did it.” Read Donna's story, or start with how to start a sauna business.