Marketing Guide for Winning Med Spas

Before we begin discussing marketing strategies for medical spas and identifying the most effective methods for promoting your med spa, it's essential to adopt the right mindset.

The internet is filled with misconceptions about medical spa marketing and attracting patients, so it's essential to cut through the noise.

Many pieces of advice dive straight into tactics because those who write them often focus only on specific strategies; they are too immersed in the details to see the broader perspective.

However, it's important to remember that those who only focus on tactics do not win the bigger battles.

Therefore, let's approach this topic from the proper perspective.

A Winning Marketing Strategy For Med Spas Starts with Market Orientation

Start by thinking from your patients' perspective, rather than focusing solely on your services. This shift in focus may sound simple, but it's a stumbling block for many business owners.

Getting this right is your first step into marketing like a professional and not like a self-taught internet marketer who repeats what others say.

At the heart of a successful medical spa marketing strategy is a winning aspiration. This blueprint outlines what success looks like for your office, as success can be seen from many different perspectives, but ultimately, the goal is to saturate an area around your practice where no one else stands a chance.

Understanding your market landscape is key to defining what winning looks like.

To do that, you have to orient yourself toward your market and avoid the common pitfall of becoming too self-absorbed, focusing more on the services you offer than on solving the problems your patients face.

It's immediately apparent when an aesthetic practice is owned by someone who views the world from its patients' perspective.

Take the med spa Genesis as an example. Their winning aspiration is to sell membership rather than a one-and-done service.

Use Market Research to Segment Your Market

Your competitors keep marching in the wrong direction.

But not you.

While they continue to focus on what they want, you already have an unfair advantage by concentrating on what the market wants.

The next step is market research. Legitimate market research. The kind that replaces assumptions and biases—what we call hearsay marketing—with truth directly from your target audience.

There are two primary ways to approach market research: quantitative and qualitative.

Each has its own merits.

Qualitative methods, such as one-on-one surveys, help you understand the 'why' behind consumer behavior, while quantitative techniques, like online mass surveys, provide the 'what' through numerical data.

Conducting full-scale quantitative research can be expensive and time-consuming, costing upwards of $12,000 for even the smallest of markets and taking weeks to compile.

Advantages of Quantitative Research

• Higher statistical validity and representative of target markets and audiences based on sample size and composition.

• Relying on numbers tends to give more absolute findings, while qualitative data is based on human interpretation.

Disadvantages of Quantitative Research

• Not very flexible.

• Less detail or description.

• It can be a high-cost project when samples are not readily available, for example, in new target markets.

While med spas operating in multiple cities or countries benefit a lot from quantitative research, small practices that are in the start-up or scaling phase are better off focusing on ethnographic research if they're trying to gain a foothold in the market.

Advantages of Qualitative Research

• Generates 'below the surface' responses, underlying reasons about why people do things, not just what they say in public.

• Explores thoughts and experiences.

• Helps answer the 'why' and 'how' questions.

• Detailed, rich description and context/in-depth feedback.

• Flexibility.

Disadvantages of Qualitative Research

• Insights are not likely to be representative of a population segment, and therefore, statistical inference is not possible.

• High cost per respondent.

This isn't to undermine the benefits of qualitative research. Larger medical spas often need it more than solo offices because their size directly correlates with the distance between leadership and the people they serve.

Start with qualitative research, then conduct quantitative research. To get the best understanding of your market, you need both.

The effectiveness of your research hinges on how you divide your audience into panels—what we call market segmentation.

Segmentation is the identification of subsets of people within a market who share similar needs and demonstrate similar buyer behavior.

There's no sugarcoating it. Breaking down segmentation would take an entirely separate article to explain.

It's a time-consuming process that most people don't want and shouldn't have to do on their own. It's one that's best left to experienced marketers who can do it for you.

Backwards Marketing Research For Med Spas

You can streamline this process by doing Backwards Market Research.

In Backwards Market Research, you start by defining the desired outcome you aim to achieve for your patients. From there, you work your way back to identify the market segment that would most value this outcome. This segment becomes your focus, and you validate your insights by interviewing individuals from this group.

This approach dramatically increases not only the validity of your research but also the likelihood that what you discover will be helpful and actionable.

The data and feedback you receive, especially the concerns raised and the specific language used by the segments you target later, will prove invaluable for crafting your messaging, branding, and even how you provide your service.

Business owners who invest the time to truly understand those whom they serve—rather than making assumptions—find long-term success.

Balance Segmented Targeting with Mass Targeting

Okay. After spending several weeks conducting market research and doing a proper segmentation, you're ready for targeting.

Targeting isn't just a marketing buzzword; it's a decisive factor that can make or break your acquisition efforts.

There are three common approaches to targeting.

Classical Market Targeting

The first approach is what we call classic marketing targeting, where you choose to focus on a segment of your potential clients based on their makeup, including cross sections of demographics, geographics, and even psychographics.

For instance, if your med spa specializes in Botox and injectables and you're entering a saturated market, survival is predicated on picking a narrow segment to win. You stand no chance of gaining a foothold against entrenched incumbents without doing this.

Don't make the mistake of thinking classical targeting is only something you can do with digital media, either.

Any focus on a segment of your market characterizes classical targeting. Choosing to place a billboard where a particular segment of your market is most likely to see it is classical targeting.

Mass Targeting

Mass targeting is a little oxymoronic because it's characterized by the lack of any meaningful targeting beyond what's required to be considered in your total addressable market.

The idea with mass targeting is to cast a wide net, making your name known to as many people as possible (i.e., brand awareness) in the hopes they remember and choose you later on when they need services.

This is not cheap. And the results you get will not be quick.

That's not to say it isn't effective, though.

It just takes enough time, consistency, and capital before the dam breaks, and you never have to worry about demand again.

Hybrid Targeting

Our recommendation is to allocate budget to both approaches using a hybrid model.

Market newcomers should spend more on classical targeting and less on mass targeting. Over time, as you gain purchases, begin shifting that budget to lower your patient acquisition costs.

Now, there's no perfect ratio to follow here. But I know everyone wants one and won't take action if I don't draw a starting line. So here it is, taking a 60/40 approach between classical and mass targeting, respectively.

Position Your Med Spa to Win the Market

In this section, we articulate the core values of our business, its desired representation, and the experience we aim to provide for our target audience.

We need to consider three key aspects:

1. What our customers want

2. What we can offer

3. The services provided by our competitors

This analysis will help us determine the optimal positioning for our offerings and contribute to the overall success of our medical spa.

Two Ways to Position Yourself to Win

In the business landscape, standing out from the competition is paramount.

There are two general paths to achieving this: Differentiation and Operational Efficiency.

Differentiation: The Unique Selling Proposition

The first approach is differentiation. Setting yourself apart so that the people you serve remember you and have no doubts that you're the best med spa for them.

The key question to ask yourself is, "What can I offer that my competitors either can't or won't?"

Operational Efficiency: The Cost-Effective Approach

The second strategy is particularly relevant in markets where people view you as a commodity. Here, the focus is on serving your market more efficiently than your competitors. This involves optimizing your cost structure through automation or streamlined processes so that you can offer value without engaging in detrimental price wars.

The 4Ps of Medical Spa Marketing

Once you've defined what winning looks like, identified the market segments you aim to capture, and outlined your medical spa marketing strategy, the next step is to ask: What must be true for me to reach my goals? How long will it take me?

There's a time-tested concept in marketing called the 4 Ps.

Now, this isn't something the sophomoric community of digital marketers writing on the web talks about because they never took a real course in marketing.

So, get ready to learn a radical concept that first-year marketing students learn before their first midterm.

The 4Ps of marketing are product, pricing, placement, and promotion.

Let's start with the first: product.

Use Messaging Your Market Will Understand to Explain Your Service

Your product is your service.

Ask yourself, What must be true about my service to meet patients' needs? One key aspect is how you present your services to the market.

Language matters.

For instance, what you call your service can significantly impact how it's perceived.

As an example, people do not think about semaglutide for weight loss; they think of Ozempic because Hollywood has made it famous, even if you and I both know they're no different.

Adapt your language (what we call messaging) to what your target market understands.

Once you've nailed down the terminology, the next step is to validate your service offerings.

Ask yourself, What services am I not providing that the market wants?

If you find a gap, one of your "must-have" capabilities will be to find a way to offer that missing service.

Use the Van Westendorf Price Sensitivity Meter to Get Your Pricing Right

Pricing is important. Pricing is also something most businesses set based on the competition, their margins, or from gut instinct because they don't know there's any other way.

Getting pricing wrong is one of the primary reasons businesses never achieve a meaningful profit.

Whether you're still selling your time for money or have learned to package what you do into memberships, consider using Van Westendorf's Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM) to determine your optimal pricing range to avoid unknowingly sacrificing the profit you deserve.

Create a Google Form and send it to both former clients and clients who have a reasonable sense of what medical spa services cost.

Ask them:

• At what price would you consider the treatment to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?

• At what price would you consider the product to be priced so low that you would feel the quality couldn't be excellent?

• At what price would the product become too expensive, so that it is not out of the question, but you would have to give some thought to buying it?

• At what price would you consider the product to be an excellent bargain buy for the money?

Then you plot the responses on a graph and identify the intersections that suggest optimal pricing zones. The intersections of these curves often yield four prices:

• Point of Marginal Cheapness (PMC)

• Point of Marginal Expensiveness (PME)

• Optimum Price Point (OPP)

• Indifference Price Point (IPP)

Businesses frequently underprice themselves. Don't do that. Charge what the market is willing to pay and earn as much profit as you ethically can.

Don't Limit Promotion to Digital Marketing Channels

If you've read any of the other blog posts about marketing for med spas, this is the section they all focus on, but it's only ⅛ of the bigger picture.

Promotion is how you get your message to your market so they're aware you exist, what you do, and why they should hire you.

There's a ton of channels to choose from. Here's a list:

• Organic Search

• Paid Search (PPC)

• Paid Search (LSA)

• Organic Social

• Paid Social

• Email Marketing

• TV Advertising

• Radio Advertising

• Billboards/Outdoor Advertising

• Direct Mail

Which channel should you choose?

How do you know which is the best one?

The answer is: all of them.

Your goal is to make an impression, so people return again and again to your practice rather than exploring other options.

You have to test channels to figure out which will work best. But if you want to narrow things down to work within a limited budget, then the best thing you can do is to talk to your market. Ask them what channels they use on a day-to-day basis.

No matter what channel(s) you choose, don't be surprised if they don't start filling up your calendar.

Getting traction on a channel follows what's known as a Sigmoid Curve (S Curve). Things will start slowly, gradually begin picking up momentum, then rapidly accelerate before leveling back out once you achieve saturation.

The S Curve of Adoption

The key variables that determine the success of a channel are your strategy and your creative. Create the kind of content people would want to consume on that channel.

For example, people don't get on social media to see ads from businesses trying to sell them products or services. They'll scroll right past it because they don't care. What they like are stories, things that entertain them or educate them.

Here are some examples of individuals who do this effectively:

Again, it's about how—not where. You'll see plenty of marketers out there saying digital marketing is better than traditional marketing.

They have no idea what they're talking about.

It's all just marketing.

I blame Mark Zuckerberg for this whole debate between digital marketing and traditional marketing. He used and promoted this false dichotomy when Facebook launched the advertising component of its platform back in 2007.

And it turned out that Facebook ads are just ads. They're just digital billboards people see fleetingly as they scroll through their feed.

That doesn't mean they're not effective—there's just nothing of substance that warrants the "traditional vs digital" divide.

Placement Applies to Services Just As Much As Products

Placement may seem out of place here for services.

But it's not.

We like to look at placement as the entire experience of the patient from the moment they start looking for a med spa to the moment their engagement with one ends.

You want to optimize the experience every step along the way.

Make it easy for them to find you (i.e., have a website). Make it easy for them to schedule an appointment.

Make pricing easy for them without sacrificing quality.

Make their experience throughout the process pleasant.

And lastly, make it easy for them to pay you. That's good for them and you.

All of those combined touch on the essence of placement in marketing.

You have all the ingredients to market your med spa effectively.

Key Takeaways To Remember About Medical Spa Marketing

Many people try to make marketing more complicated than it needs to be.

Effective med spa marketing requires a strategic approach. It starts with understanding your target market and their needs and then positioning your aesthetic practice to meet those needs in a unique and valuable way.

Market research, segmentation, and targeting are the fundamentals that ensure your marketing efforts are focused and effective.

The 4Ps of marketing aren't dead and apply to the medical industry just as much as they do consumer packaged goods.

And it's all made possible and held together by enabling management systems.

If you want to achieve long-term success, remember, marketing is more than just tactics. No matter what the internet marketers say, they still can't write a single article about med spa marketing without mentioning the need to make your website mobile-friendly and responsive, as if it were still 2016.