Table of Contents
- A Website with Beauty & Brains
- A Fresh, Captivating Blog
- Engaging Permission-Based Marketing
- Standout Social Media
- Laser-Focused Online Advertising
- A Glowing Online Reputation
Staying on top in today’s ultra-competitive medical spa market is a challenge under the best of circumstances. Add to that economic uncertainty, and it becomes even more important that you have all your marketing ducks in a row. That means your med spa cannot simply rely on marketing strategies that have worked in the past. To attract and retain patients, you must be sure you are crushing it in the following 6 areas.
1. A Website with Beauty & Brains
When the economy is tough, potential patients are more careful about discretionary spending. It is essential to have a strong online presence to stand out from the crowd and attract new customers. One of the key components of a successful online marketing strategy for a medical spa is having a well-designed and informative website.
A well-designed website:
Makes a Great First Impression – A stunning website with a user-friendly interface, informative content, and savvy branding goes a long way in capturing the attention of potential customers and making them want to learn more about your medspa and your services.
Educates Potential Customers About Your Credentials and Service Offerings – Your website should provide detailed information about each treatment, including its benefits, risks, and what to expect during the procedure. It should also showcase the qualifications of the providers. This helps potential customers feel more informed and confident in their decision to choose your medspa.
Showcases Before-and-After Photos – If at all possible, your site should showcase before and after photos of your real patients. In addition to helping, you rank in image searches; photos provide prospective customers with visual proof of the quality of your work. Seeing these transformations can be a powerful motivator for users to schedule a consultation or appointment.
Is Mobile-Friendly – With well over half your website traffic coming from mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website is more important than ever before. A mobile-responsive website ensures that potential customers can easily access your site from their smartphones or tablets, regardless of the screen size.
Improves Search Engine Visibility – Search engine optimization (SEO) involves optimizing the website’s content and structure to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). A well-optimized website helps potential customers find your medspa through SEO strategies focused on relevant, highly searched keywords or phrases. This increases visibility and drives traffic to the website.
Prioritizes Lead Capture – Website users should have multiple opportunities on any given page of your website to contact you, book or request an appointment, or sign up for news and specials. Users should feel comfortable providing you with their contact information, and the process should be simple.
Investing in a high-quality website is a smart business decision that pays off in the long run by attracting new customers and growing the business.
2. A Fresh, Captivating Blog
One aspect of digital marketing that many medical spas overlook is regularly adding fresh content to their site through a blog. Your blog serves as the cornerstone of an effective content marketing plan, and adds tremendous value in the following ways:
Enhances Authority & Credibility – Relevant, informative content can help you establish your medspa as an authority in the industry. By publishing informative and educational content related to both trending and established treatments, potential customers and Google see your site as a reputable source of information.
Attracts New Patients – Your blog can help attract new customers to your site and your business. By creating content that answers common search queries, the blog can broaden your site’s appeal and attract potential customers who are searching for specific information online.
Improves Search Engine Rankings – Furthermore, having a blog can boost your search engine rankings, which can lead to increased visibility and traffic to the website. Search engines reward fresh content. By consistently posting new, relevant, and informative content tailored to topics users are searching for, the blog can help the spa’s website rank higher on search engine results pages for relevant keywords and phrases.
Connects With Existing Patients – Another benefit of having a blog is that it helps you connect with your existing customers. New posts offering tips, promotions, and other helpful information, give them a reason to return to your site, spend time with your brand, and reactivate as patients. Additionally, each post can serve as an anchor for email and social media marketing.
Builds Brand Voice & Affinity – Your blog gives your medspa a voice and personality that sets it apart from its competitors. By creating content that highlights your expertise, values, people, and personality, the blog can help potential customers connect with your medspa on a more personal level. This can help build a stronger brand identity and make the medspa more memorable to potential customers.
Whether you do the writing yourself, outsource it, or use generative AI for help with outlines and drafts, keeping your blog updated with fresh content is a fantastic way to stay connected, competitive, and relevant. A word of caution about using AI tools for content generation: Be sure to carefully review the copy for accuracy and edit to capture the personality of your brand.
3. Engaging Permission-Based Marketing
Permission marketing is an area of digital marketing that is often overlooked but can be incredibly effective. Remember, by opting in, this audience has indicated that they are very engaged and that they want to hear from you. If you are providing valuable, carefully curated messaging at a respectful cadence, email, and SMS (text) marketing can be a powerful component of your marketing strategy. Here are some of the benefits:
Is Cost-Effective – Email and SMS marketing is a cost-effective way to reach potential and existing customers. Compared to many other marketing tactics, opt-in marketing is relatively inexpensive. This means that you can reach a larger audience for a lower cost, increasing your return on investment.
Builds Goodwill & Customer Loyalty – Email and SMS marketing is a fantastic way to keep customers engaged and informed about your medical spa’s services and specials. By sending regular text updates, newsletters, or promotional messages, you can keep customers up to date on new treatments, special offers, and events. This helps to build customer loyalty and encourages repeat business.
Allows More Targeted Messaging – Additionally, permission-based marketing allows you to personalize your marketing messages. By segmenting your mailing/messaging list based on customer interests or demographics, your medical spa can send targeted messages that are more relevant to each customer. This can help to improve the effectiveness of the marketing message and increase the likelihood of customers taking action.
Amplifies Other Marketing Efforts – You can use email and SMS marketing to promote the spa’s blog content, social media presence, and other online marketing efforts. By including links to your website and social media profiles in messages, you can drive traffic to your website and increase online visibility.
Provides Consumer Insights – Another benefit of this type of marketing is that it allows you to gather valuable customer data. By tracking open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics, you can gain insights into what types of messages are most effective in engaging customers. This data can then be used to refine future campaigns for even better results.
Attracts New Customers – Finally, email and text marketing can help you generate new leads and attract new customers. By offering incentives such as discounts or a free consultation for signing up for emails or texts, you can establish a connection with potential customers and grow your network.
Read our blog post to learn more about how to use email marketing effectively and evaluate your success.
4. Standout Social Media
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok provide a unique opportunity for medical spas to connect with potential and existing customers, highlight their services, and build brand awareness. We know that consumers want up-to-the-minute content such as patient experiences, treatment education, and practice happenings to feel more connected and trusting of your medspa. Here’s how social media can be an asset to your marketing plan:
Reaches Your Target Audience – With 90+ percent of the population actively engaging with social media, it has never been more important for your medical spa to have a presence there. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are the top social media apps, each with more than 2.5 billion users worldwide. Although many of these platforms limit the audience of business accounts, your loyal followers can see and share your content. Actively posting on these social media sites can dramatically increase your brand visibility.
Costs Next to Nothing – By creating profiles on social media platforms and sharing content such as before-and-after photos, office events, treatment information, and promotions, you can potentially reach a wide audience for only the cost of the time you or your staff put into it. This is especially important in a tight economy, and for small or startup medical spas that may not have large marketing budgets.
Engages New & Existing Customers – social media allows you to engage with your existing and prospective customers and build relationships. By responding to comments and direct messages, you can show that you value feedback and opinions and are responsive to patient needs. This can help to build customer loyalty and encourage new and repeat business.
Showcases Services & Expertise – By sharing photos and videos of treatments and procedures (with explicit permission, of course), you can give potential customers a glimpse into what they can expect from your medical spa’s services and providers. This can help to build trust and credibility with potential customers and make them more likely to choose you for their cosmetic or wellness needs.
Promotes Other Marketing Efforts – Furthermore, social media can be used to promote the medical spa’s blog content, email newsletters, and other online marketing efforts. By sharing links to your website and other online platforms, you can drive traffic to your website and increase your visibility.
5. Laser-Focused Online Advertising
While paid advertising might seem counterintuitive in a lean economy, we at Etna Interactive have seen the rewards it can generate for our medspa clients. Here’s why:
Targets Your Ideal Customer – With the use of various targeting options, you can ensure that your ads are shown to the people most likely to be interested in your services. When you use Google search advertising, keyword targeting ensures your ads are served to potential customers who are actively searching for your services. Social media platforms offer the flexibility to target demographics such as age and gender. This increases the effectiveness of the advertising campaign and reduces wasted ad spending.
Can Be More Cost Effective in Tougher Times – In a down economy, it’s common for businesses to pause their ad campaigns to save money, with plans to restart them again once the economy improves. With the competition cooling, now is the time to spend on paid search if you can, and often online advertising costs drop when there are fewer active advertisers. Your competitors are leaving the field wide open for you.
Adjustable in Real Time – Campaigns can and should be designed with performance measurement in mind, and the available toolsets simplify tracking your advertising performance. With platform-native reporting tools and Google Analytics, you can monitor factors such as cost per result, reach, impressions, leads, and more. With the ability to set daily budgets and adjust bids based on performance, you can optimize your ad campaigns to maximize your return on investment.
Builds Trust in Insecure Times – Being a familiar and trusted brand is especially important when potential and existing customers are incredibly careful about where and how they spend their money. Having a strong presence at the top of the SERPs, at least in part by purchasing highly visible ad placement, is more essential now than ever.
To learn more, read about how Etna Interactive has helped our clients win at the paid advertising game.
6. A Glowing Online Reputation
An excellent reputation can be one of your most powerful marketing tools. But having great customer reviews is only the start. You need to have a steady flow of fresh, positive reviews to really reap the benefits of your stellar reputation. That is why, here at Etna, we are proponents of automating your reputation management with products like Reputation Ally, which produce a continual stream of quality reviews with minimal effort on your part. Here is why your reputation is so important:
Provides Social Proof – Patient reviews provide social proof for potential customers. An overwhelming majority of patients research online for a medical spa, and they are looking at reviews. Studies show that consumers look at the average rating, the number of reviews, and the recency of those reviews when evaluating a business. By having numerous fresh, positive patient reviews on various platforms such as Google, Yelp, and Facebook, you can provide potential customers with social proof that your medical spa is reliable, respected, and trustworthy. This increases the chances of a potential customer choosing your medical spa.
Boosts Google Rankings – Customer reviews can improve the search engine ranking of your website. If you have a high number of recent and positive reviews, search engines such as Google are more likely to rank your website higher in search results. This means that potential customers are more likely to see your site when they search for services in their area. This leads to increased website traffic and, more customers.
Helps You Improve Customer Service – Candid patient reviews provide valuable feedback for medical spas. By monitoring patient reviews, you can identify areas where you can improve your service, offerings, and customer experience. This can help you to make necessary changes and improvements, leading to happier customers and more positive reviews in the future. In an economic downturn, superior customer service is more important than ever.
Enhances Marketing Content – Patient reviews provide a great source of content for your marketing efforts. Positive patient reviews can be used in marketing materials such as social media posts, email newsletters, and website content. This can help to highlight the positive experiences of previous customers and attract new customers to the spa.
To learn more about reputation management, read our post, 4 Steps to Master Your Online Reputation.
We are Here to Help
These are just 6 areas we know can produce wins for your medical spa when consumers are limiting spending and marketing budgets are tight. Although you may only be able to invest time and resources into some of them, focusing on even a few of these will increase your chances of grabbing a healthy share of your market.
If you have questions about how Etna Interactive can help your practice thrive in any economy, contact us today. We also encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you receive educational content like this, and follow us on Facebook to keep up with the latest Etna content.
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