Medispa – 15 Tips to Get it Off the Ground

The medical spa industry is quickly growing – which means the competition you had previously may have grown exponentially. It is too easy to lose visibility in the marketplace when competition is high, so it is vital to have a solid marketing strategy that can help you build brand awareness and convert people into patients. 

If you are searching for ways to brand stand out from others and increase the number of patients you are seeing, you’ll need to develop a robust marketing strategy. A medispa marketing strategy includes considerations regarding your facility, branding, your website, content marketing, local SEO, online business listings, social media, Google Ads, Social Ads, email marketing, reviews, promotions, referral programs, mail marketing and events.

1. Your Medispa Facility

The basics of your successful marketing plan actually start at your office or facility. No matter how excellent your marketing campaign is, if your facility appears dirty, run down, or unprofessional, you will lose customers quickly. 

Take a thorough walkthrough your facility daily to make sure everything is up to your standards. Train your employees to do the same. You can also create checklists for your employees to utilize to make sure they are catching any of the common areas that might be overlooked, such as sweeping the foyer or checking the parking lot. While some of these things may seem small, they can become big problems if they aren’t addressed. 

2. Branding

Besides your facility, your brand is another key foundational piece you will need for your marketing plan. Your brand should come out of the relationship between what treatments and services your business provides and the needs your customers have that those provide. Then you can use the components to develop the look and feel, tone, and messaging for your business.

In highly competitive industries like medispas, you need strong branding to help set your business apart and make it recognizable. Your brand can also help you build loyalty with your customers.

Many medspas use luxury branding for their businesses. While creating a luxury brand isn’t easy because you’re going after a specific target and asking them to pay a premium, it can be a good fit for medispas. 

Regardless of the type of branding you choose to go with, you’ll want to make sure to establish guidelines and circulate them across your team. Consistency is another highly important factor when it comes to building a brand. 

3. Website

Once your brand identity is solidified, creating a website should be simple. You’ll want to include pictures of your facility, a complete list of the products and services you provide, and your location. You might include a way for people to make appointments themselves, or a way for them to reach out to receive a phone call to schedule the appointment. 

If you’re not sure what you should include on your website, try looking at what your competitors are doing. What do you like about their websites? What do you dislike? What makes you want to be a customer? What barriers do you run into? These types of observations can be keys to unlocking important website must-haves for your own site. 

4. Content Marketing

After launching your website, you are well-positioned to start developing a content marketing strategy. If you aren’t familiar with content marketing – it simply refers to the practice of a business providing customers with useful information around topics that are similar to the services you provide. 

For example, if you provide treatments for fine lines and wrinkles, you might create content around making those treatments last as long as possible, guidance for who should get treatment and how often, the different types of treatments available so that potential clients can choose, etc. 

The most common form of content marketing is blogging, but it can take other forms too like videos or longer eBooks. Many businesses also create multiple types of content. Each business has to decide which type of content marketing makes the most sense and which content types are sustainable to produce. It isn’t enough to create a blog post every once in a while. You’ll need to develop a consistent schedule for creating and releasing new content in order for content marketing to be effective. 

5. Local SEO

In addition to any content marketing you decide to do, you’ll also want to make sure your business is optimized for SEO (search engine optimization) – and more specifically, local SEO. Local SEO helps search engines (like Google) recommend your business when people are searching for businesses like yours near your location. That sounds pretty powerful, right?

While there are plenty of checklists online to help you with local SEO, we’ll cover a few of the basics. First, you’ll want to double check your website. Make sure your phone number and location are listed there. It is also helpful to include your location in some of your website text. You don’t need to go crazy with this, but it is another signal to search engines about where your business is located. 

You’ll also want to make sure your business is optimized for mobile. Many people search for businesses from their phones while they are actively trying to visit a business of that type. If you aren’t sure if your website is mobile-friendly, you can use Google’s free mobile-friendly testing tool. 

The two other components of local SEO are online business listings and reputation or review management, which we will cover next. 

6. Online business listings

It makes sense that any time someone is searching for a business like yours, your business should show up on that list. But unfortunately, most of these listings don’t populate automatically – you are responsible for adding your business. So you will need to take the necessary steps to make sure our business is listed, the information is accurate, and that the information stays up-to-date. 

In regard to local SEO, search engines check popular business listing sites to double-check your information. So, you’ll want to make sure you provide consistent information in all of your listings and update any if information about your business changes. 

The three most important listings you’ll want to take care of right away include Google My Business, Bing Places, and Apple Maps Listings. You should also check for any medispa business listings in your city or state and make sure your medical spa is included. Lastly, you’ll want to make sure you set up your own profiles on relevant business review sites like Yelp. 

Keep track of where all of your business listings are so that if your location or hours change, you already know all of the places you’ll need to update the information. 

7. Reputation and review management

Once your business listings are created, people can start leaving reviews. Reviews can be a blessing and a curse. If you have a lot of positive reviews, it can help persuade others to give your business a chance. However, a few negative reviews can be harmful for your business. Many business owners wish they could “shut off” reviewing – but unfortunately that isn’t possible. Even if you don’t create the listings pages – people can still set one up and leave a review for your business.

Instead of trying to stop these reviews from happening, focus on what you can control. You can provide positive experiences at your business. You can listen to customer concerns and focus on providing high-quality customer service. You can also encourage regular, loyal customers to leave positive reviews. 

Making sure review sites are set up and that you are attempting to cultivate positive reviews is important for many reasons, but one of them is local SEO. Search engines do factor in the types of ratings your business reviews as part of how they decide to display your business on their results pages. 

There is definitely an art to online reputation management, and you’ll want to make sure you develop a strong strategy for handling positive and negative reviews. But by handling customer complaints efficiently and effectively, and by giving your customers positive experiences, you can make sure the good outweighs the bad.  

8. Social media 

Social media platforms continue to increase, and it can seem overwhelming for a business to develop a strategy and create a strong presence on every channel. The good news is that your business doesn’t need to be on every channel in order to make an impact. You just need to be where your customers are. 

Once you’ve decided on the appropriate channels for your business and customers, you’ll need to develop a social media strategy and schedule. Like content marketing, social media is also very dependent on regular and consistent updating. 

When you’re just starting out on social media, it can feel like you’re simply posting into the void because you may not have a lot of followers. However, it is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. You probably won’t get followers if you don’t have content, and you may feel like it is a waste of time to create content for very few followers.

But it isn’t a waste of time. It is just the beginning. You’ll simply need to balance the time it takes to create consistent, valuable content for social media against the size of the audience. At first, it may only make sense to post a couple of times per week. Then later, as more customers follow your business, you may want to post every day or multiple times per day. 

If you aren’t sure what to post about, try looking at your competitors. Also think about any blog or content marketing you’re producing – social media is an excellent way to distribute that valuable content. You can also curate valuable content from other sources like magazines or industry publications that make sense for your audience. 

You’ll also want to take a look at your social profiles and make sure they match your brand. There are a few important steps you’ll need to take to make sure each of your social media accounts is fully optimized so that your customers can easily find you and you’ll receive a small boost for local SEO. 

9. Google Ads

Once you have all of the foundational pieces in place like your website, social media channels, and content strategies, you’re ready to invest a bit more in your marketing efforts. This means turning on paid advertising. 

One of the most valuable channels of paid digital advertising for businesses is Google Ads. Google Ads provide a few different types of ads and each is valuable for different objectives. There is a lot of information and different strategies surrounding each ad type but a solid place to start is with Google Search Ads. 

Google Search Ads are the ads that pop up when someone types in a certain keyword. For example, if you do a search for your favorite brand on Google, you’ll likely see an ad for that brand (or a competitor!) first thing on the search results page. 

To get started, you’ll need to do keyword research, decide on a budget, implement a bidding strategy, and optimize based on your results. It can be intimidating if you aren’t sure what you’re doing or aren’t familiar with pay-per-click advertising like Google Ads, but it is possible to figure out an effective strategy through research.

Another simple strategy on Google Ads is to do retargeting ads. This means that ads for your business will display to people who visit your website. Retargeting ads are among the most effective paid digital advertising strategies, which means they are definitely worth the investment. To set these up, you’ll need to install Google’s tracking pixel on your website (Google provides step-by-step instructions) and then create a retargeting campaign. 

10. Social Ads

Similar to Google Ads, social ads can be a valuable asset for your business. You can also do retargeting ads on social platforms as well. 

The best part about social media ads, especially Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, is that the advertising platforms walk you through all of the steps you need to know to set up a campaign. It is very intuitive, and a great place to start if you’re new to online digital advertising. You don’t have to worry about keyword research, you just have to have a good understanding of your target customer. 

11. Email marketing

Email marketing is another very effective tool your medispa can utilize. While you can’t email everyone in your location, you can start collecting email addresses on your website and from customers. Then you can use this tool to drive loyalty, run promotions, and make announcements. 

One of the most popular email collection methods is to ask for an email address on your website in exchange for a discount. This may be something you want to consider if you plan on giving email marketing a prominent place in your strategy. 

12. Promotions

Almost every business offers promotions – at least periodically. Some retailers always have promotions to encourage additional sales. Promotions can be a valuable tool, but you need to make sure you’re using them strategically. 

For example, you don’t want repeat customers to only come when they have a discount – or to withhold business until a discount is available. 

To avoid falling into that trap, sometimes the best promotion is one that drives loyalty. For example, a free or discounted service after so many services. Or maybe a discounted add-on or upgrade every so often.

Once you’ve decided on a promotion that makes sense for your business – you’ll need to get the word out. You can use social media, your website, and any advertising you’re doing to communicate relevant promotions to your clients and potential clients.

13. Referral programs

Referral programs are a type of promotion – but they drive customer loyalty and encourage additional business. The way referral programs work is you offer an incentive to a loyal customer for referring friends or family to your business. While the concept is rather straightforward, tracking it can create problems.

You’ll want to make sure you have a system in place for honoring referrals and for keeping track of them when they happen. Additionally, if you notice a customer is regularly referring new clients but hasn’t yet left a review – that might be something to consider asking them to do since they are clearly excited about your business and happy to support you. 

14. Mail marketing

Mail can seem incredibly outdated, especially in comparison to some of the hyper-targeted strategies outlined here. However, it is still an effective channel. It is also a relatively less competitive channel, which means you have a greater likelihood for standing out. 

Additionally, mail marketing has become increasingly more targeted over the last few years. Did you know that you could target certain households with specific incomes in a location around your business? You can. 

Mail marketing probably isn’t something you can effectively DIY entirely, but luckily it is relatively inexpensive so getting the help you need shouldn’t be prohibitive. 

15. Events

Tradeshows and events are another great way to introduce your business to the community. Events work best when you have some kind of trial or demonstration to showcase at the event. If that isn’t possible, having a game and offering swag also work, too. 

The keys for events are to make sure you have everything you need on hand to answer any questions and also that you have an effective way to collect contact information from interested individuals. One of the most classic data collection strategies is also still highly effective – create a giveaway and require phone and email addresses to enter. Then you’ll have a new list of email addresses and contacts in your community that you can reach out to about your business. 

How to get started with marketing for your Medispa business

There are a lot of pieces to developing a marketing strategy for your brand and it can feel overwhelming when you are just starting out. However, if you own a medispa and you want help developing your strategy, Mediaboom can help. 

Mediaboom is a digital marketing agency with deep expertise in building brand awareness and generating quality leads on behalf of businesses in the medispa industry.