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In the med spa business, summer time may be slow. On the flipside, the holiday season can ramp up with November and December pulling in record revenue. All to say, there are ebbs and flows to all businesses, and the aesthetics industry is no different.
This is why it’s so important to continually be bringing in new clients. While upselling existing clients and building loyalty is a key building block, cracking the code on patient acquisition is also critical. Your med spa needs a robust pipeline of faces—new and old.
Read on to learn how to reach new patients by enhancing your patient acquisition marketing.
Patient Acquisition Basics
Most med spas report that 70% of their patients return to their med spas every month. If you’re hitting those numbers, kudos! Loyal clients aren’t just happy. They champion your brand, refer others, are 50% more likely to try new treatments and spend 31% more than new customers.
But diversifying is key. As a rule of thumb, you should aim at getting 30 to 40% of your clients from new patient acquisition efforts.
Just launched your med spa? Here’s how to optimize your med spa marketing and earn your first $100,000!
Instead of relying on consistent, recurring clients, it’s high time to expand your customer base and bring new faces to your med spa. And this starts (and stops) with a refined patient acquisition marketing funnel.
Patient Acquisition Marketing 101: Funnel Marketing for the Win
Patient acquisition refers to finding, attracting, engaging, and converting prospects into patients. This process involves creating a strategy to attract leads, nurturing them (through a funnel) until they are primed for purchase, and converting them into customers.
The funnel method segments customers and delivers custom content, ads, or offers to take them from brand awareness through to paying customers. Funnel marketing is all about deploying specific marketing tactics tailored for a potential client’s readiness to guide them towards patient acquisition and becoming a med spa client.
What is a marketing funnel? A marketing funnel delivers targeted content, ads, and offers at specific times during the customer's buying journey—from discovery through to purchase.
While patient acquisition marketing funnels can vary, they go something like this:
- Awareness: a potential customer recognizes their problems and becomes aware of your business. This could be through a blog post, social media before and after photo etc.,
- Interest: a potential customer seeks more information about your services by visiting your website, hitting the call-to-action on a post or link in bio, or asking for more information.
- Consideration: a potential customer evaluates their options by reading reviews or signing-up to receive tailored content (like FAQs before a first botox treatment, special offers, or a free consultation).
- Intent: a potential customer signals potential purchase by locking in an appointment or free consultation.
- Purchase: a potential customer becomes an actual customer with an aesthetic appointment.
Like funnel marketing, funnel thinking is about strategic targeting by tailoring med spa outreach to resonate with the right people, at the right time. For example, your promotional strategy during your med spa launch should give them the urgency to visit your med spa. A tailored offer could give a potential customer the nudge toward patient acquisition that they needed!
Patient Acquisition Marketing: Perfecting the Marketing Funnel
Go Bold With Branding
Brand visibility is the foundation of patient acquisition marketing. Don’t settle for “meh”. Focus on creating clean, memorable branding. Elevate your brand with bold, captivating visuals and strong aesthetic nursing photos.
After all, a successful med spa business with strong patient acquisition isn’t just about the services you provide—it’s about the entire experience. From your physical space to business cards and your website to your overall online persona—everything should feel cohesive and like your med spa.
Run Digital Ads
Ads can elevate your brand awareness by an impressive 80%. Once people catch a glimpse of your ads on their social media or search results, they’re 155% more inclined to search specifically for what you’re offering.
Maximize your digital ad impact and bolster your new patient acquisition efforts by:
- Knowing Your Audience. Dive-deep to understand your ideal prospects. You need to know their demographics, online behaviors, interests, types of jobs, location etc. Peek at your competitors and analyze current clients to refine your target profile, and tailor your messaging and marketing tactics to strongly resonate with your potential clients.
- Testing Platforms. Whether it’s social media advertising, search engine marketing (SEM), or native ads, choose the platforms aligned with your objectives. Each platform has its own strength; social media is great for brand awareness while SEM is great for capturing customers who are ready to make a decision.
- Leveling-up Landing Pages. Ensure your website and campaign pages are optimized to capture and convert potential patients. If you don’t have a website yet, this is your cue to create one!
- Sprinkling in Creativity. Make your ads pop with recognizable visuals, whether it’s a signature color scheme, logo, sassy slogan, or conversational copy. These elements not only make your ads eye-catching but amplify brand recognition and awareness.
Digital remarketing
The customer journey takes time. Along the way, a potential customer may show interest in a cosmetic service and even schedule an appointment, only to become a no-show.
Remarketing and retargeting is all about nudging prospects back by showing ads on the platforms they frequent. They might need that gentle push to proceed with their buying journey.
After all, retargeted users are 70% more likely to choose you over your competitor. This is because you can deliver them the right message (and special offer) at a key point in their decision-making to help them over the edge. Remarketing keeps you top of mind and is a key piece of patient acquisition marketing!
Offer-based campaigns
Many med spa owners fear providing discounts, fearing this will “cheapen” their offering. But remember, lower prices often drive demand, and it’s not just about cost. Enticing offers will draw new clients in. Why not give potential customers a taste of what you have to offer, and prove to them that you are a cut above?
After all, many industries offer free trials, discounted first months, and ‘gifts’ to newbie customers. This is to get them in the door–once they’re there, exhaust all efforts on client retention and loyalty.
So, the question isn’t whether or not you should trial offer-based campaigns, but more so, to whom should you offer a discount?
When you craft the right offer to potential customers in the “consideration” or “intent” phase of the patient acquisition marketing funnel, it helps them get across the line and opens your doors to potential loyalists. Bargain-hunters and one-offers looking for the cheapest med spa services may find you, but so will legitimate, recurring patients.
Give an unforgettable experience with your memorable brand, and hey, you may have more regulars that you *bargained* for—pun intended!
SMS Automation
Did you know a staggering 98% of SMS messages are opened? Compared to email’s open rates at 19.8%, that’s incredible engagement.
Text is the perfect tool to treat loyal customers to exciting product updates and offers, create touch points for “after” photos—but to also re-engage with clients who’ve been sidetracked in their buyer journey. In other words, those stuck in the “consideration” or “intent” phase.
SMS automation lets you pinpoint the perfect moment for contact. Whether it’s a welcoming note after sign-up, a gentle reminder about an upcoming appointment or timely nudge towards a one-time-only promo, you can touch base when it counts.
5 Tips for Patient Acquisition Marketing
Here are other valuable nuggets that can boost your patient acquisition marketing efforts!
- Think Tech with Your Med Spa. Ever observed tech giants, especially SaaS businesses, allure users with a free trial? If your services stand out, why not offer an enticing discount to give prospects a glimpse of your excellence? Then impress them on the first visit and cultivate lifelong loyalty.
- Embrace Mistakes as Lessons. Don’t fear that your patient acquisition strategy will fail or that you don’t understand patient acquisition marketing funnels…yet. Trial and erroring is part of developing a streamlined digital engagement strategy.
- Tune Into Your Patients. Oftentimes, your new clients come to you after being disheartened elsewhere. Understand their past experiences, learn the reasons, and refine your approach to keep them satisfied and loyal. This is also great to weave into your messaging, ads, and outreach when focused on patient acquisition. For example: “Didn’t get the botox results you hoped for? We’re here to save face!”
- Offer a self-scheduling option. Missed opportunities often result from delayed responses or lackluster service. By offering a hassle-free self-scheduling tool, you remove barriers, making it easier for clients to step into your clinic.
- Manage your online reputation. In today’s digital age, reviews can make or break a decision. Stay vigilant about your online reputation. Respond to negative reviews and feedback to demonstrate your commitment to their safety and satisfaction. This helps patients to self-serve and self-schedule or opt-in to your patient acquisition marketing funnel.
Summary; TL;DR
Cultivating relationships with loyal clients is essential, but a steady stream of fresh faces is when med spa growth kicks up a gear.
By cleverly tailoring your patient acquisition strategies to match where each client is in their buying journey, you’re not just casting a wide net–you’re making genuine connections that turn lukewarm prospects into your brand ambassadors.
Learn more about how Moxie helps entrepreneurs (like you) open profitable med spa businesses!