Medical Spa & Medspa Digital Marketing Company
This guide examines 14 unique medical spa marketing channels. We have divided this guide into two sections: digital marketing ideas and traditional marketing ideas. The goal is simple — drive more patients to your medical spa business.
The Ultimate Guide to Medical Spa Marketing
Whether you call it a Medical Spa, a MediSpa, or a Med Spa, the medical spa industry is a growing area of the aesthetic industry. Your med spa could be a new business. It could be an offshoot of a plastic surgery office. Or you could have been offering many of these non-surgical treatments long before anyone used the term medical spa. Regardless, getting the word out about your medical spa can seem daunting. For the best ROI, your med spa needs to incorporate a mix of both digital and traditional marketing strategies in your overall med spa marketing plan.
You've already taken the first step — reading our guide, which is full of med spa marketing ideas, examples, and strategies to ensure you have a steady stream of returning and new patients entering your front door.
Digital Marketing for Medical Spas
Today, if your med spa isn't engaged in the digital marketing world, your competitors are probably burying you. Digital marketing involves building a strong internet presence. This all starts with your med spa website. From there, your digital marketing extends through active social media pages, informative blogs, email campaigns, multimedia, content marketing, and accurate directory listings across the web. Making an impact online is sure to positively impact your med spa, bottom line.
Plastic Surgery Website Design
WHY IT MATTERS
of users' mistrust of a medical website is directly related to web design elements.
Your medical spa website is really your calling card. It's the place where new patients are first introduced to your practice, and it's where they will draw their first impressions. You want to be sure to showcase your treatments, your skilled staff, and the aesthetics of your med spa to separate you from your competitors. Your website needs to function seamlessly on all devices from phones to laptops, clearly convey your med spa brand in the digital world, and make it simple for a patient to instantly contact your office whether they have a question or want to schedule an appointment. Of course, a great med spa website is nothing without reliable, fast web hosting.
There are lots of digital marketing firms out there that can market spas, but you should trust your online medical spa marketing to a company that has specific experience in the industry. You want an agency that understands different conversion strategies for the med spa sector of the aesthetic world. And your med spa website should have certain design features — before and after galleries, animations of procedures, med spa blogging, and strong calls to action to help patients move from curious interest to making an appointment. Working with MyAdvice brings you more than 20 years of experience in the medical spa marketing world.
Test if your medical spa site is mobile responsive.
Essential medical spa website design elements:
- Mobile Responsive
- Clearly Branded
- Conversion Focused
#SliceOfAdvice
Quick tips and tricks on website design and digital marketing basics.
Medical Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
WHY IT MATTERS
of all traffic from the average Google search goes to results on page one.
The goal of every search engine is simple — deliver happy searchers. They want searchers to end up with relevant returns as quickly as possible. Google weighs various factors to determine if your website is relevant to what searchers are looking for, whether your website is trustworthy, and if it deserves a high ranking in organic search returns. SEO for medical spas involves optimizing your website to rank highly for search terms that match the treatments and procedures you specialize in. It means answering the questions people have about various med spa procedures, and building trust with prospective patients and clients before they ever step foot in your business.
5 Key Strategies to Med Spa SEO Success
- Content Optimization
- Link Building
- Site Structure
- Local Directories
- Website Technology
Local Medical Spa Directory Listings
WHY IT MATTERS
of consumers who perform a local search ultimately visit a store within 5 miles of their current location.
Local search is an important part of a medical spa marketing strategy, but you'd be amazed at the sheer number of online directories out there. Checking each one and making sure your med spa information is consistent is not the best use of your time or that of your employees. Yet, inconsistency across listings confuses search engines; they assume different listings mean different businesses. Having accurate NAP information — name, address, and phone — ensures that search engines and patients have correct information. This consistency across the web instills trust, helps bring patients to your medical spa, and is crucial in your SEO marketing.
Your med spa needs to work with a digital marketing firm that can handle your directory and business listings too, making sure they are consistent and you don't need to worry about them.
Keep your NAP information accurate:
- Name
- Address
- Phone
Managing Reviews for Your Medical Spa Practice
WHY IT MATTERS
of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Online reviews have become crucial in all business, and medical spa marketing is certainly included. You need positive reviews to convert curious website users to new patients. In the aesthetic world, reviews are often the first impression point a potential patient has with your practice. Plus, you can respond to online reviews for free, which gives you a chance for engagement without a dollar spent. Generating and responding to reviews needs to be a standardized routine in your medical spa front office. But it's hard to be ever vigilant and know when a new review has been posted and needs a response.
Your digital marketing firm needs reputation management software that alerts you when a new review is posted. This software also needs to help you generate reviews from your happy patients. MyAdvice has review and online reputation management software that does all of that, and then some.
Top Review Sources for Medical Spas
- Google My Business Profile
- Yelp
WHY IT MATTERS
of people say social media affects their choice of doctor, hospital, or medical facility
Social media has evolved from a peer-to-peer network to a necessity for every med spa. For many potential patients, how they view your social media presence affects whether they become actual patients. Social media can help build trust and allows patients to connect on a more personal level with your med spa and your entire staff.
But regular posting is necessary for social media engagement, and that can be difficult for your medical spa marketing staff to keep up with. It's worth considering having an agency handle your social media profiles and regular posting to take the burden off your staff and keep your social media visitors engaged.
Regardless of your personal views on social media, we recommend your medical spa has a social media profile and that you have a clearly defined process for posting personalized content consistently. This can be an area where your digital marketing agency can really help. Otherwise, your practice's social media pages can languish with content that is months old. That's a recipe for your visitors becoming former visitors.
MyAdvice's Social Power tool can help you schedule and plan your social media posts, as well as give you a library of content to choose from to make social media easy for you and your staff.
Tips to improve your social media:
- Consistency is key
- Engage with your patients
- Define your target demographics
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) for Med Spas
WHY IT MATTERS
of people say paid search ads make it easier to find the information they are seeking on a website or a search engine.
As Google and Bing make organic search more challenging by continually giving paid search more prominence on search engine results pages, paid search advertising needs to be a part of your medical spa marketing marketing plan. Pay-per-click advertising has that moniker because your medical spa only pays when a user clicks on your ad and is directed instantly to your website. Advertising in paid search is very cost effective, as you're only paying when a user hits your site.
That's where robust, engaging content and beautiful website design come in, keeping a curious visitor on your site and encouraging that person to push deeper into the pages. This increases your ROI. There are different SEM ad types, and they require different strategies to optimize your ads to generate leads. That's why you need a med spa marketing firm to manage your SEM.
The two most common search engine advertisements for med spas are text ads (the paid advertising that shows up at the top of a search engine results page) and display ads (ads on the right side or across the entire top of regular webpages). Unlike text ads on top of search engine results pages, display ads show up on pages of websites, which means you have control over them and can set the parameters.
Setting your SEM campaigns and budgets involves first setting your overall SEO strategy. This optimizes your website to ensure your budget is efficient and your ad quality scores are high.
Ad Quality Score Factors
- Maximum bid amount
- The click-through rate (CTR) of your ad
- The relevance of each keyword to its ad group
- Landing page quality and relevance
- The relevance of your ad text
- Your historical AdWords account performance and site engagement
Medical Spa Email Marketing Overview
Email marketing can be a great way for your medical spa to inform current patients about new spa treatments you are offering, as well as any monthly specials. Coupled with a referral program, email can also be a great way to generate new patients. If you handle your email marketing in house, you need to choose an email marketing platform based on two factors: ease of use and price. Prices are usually dictated by frequency of your emails and the size of your list.
Our typical recommendation for a med spa is to send out one email every month. This email can include a monthly special, descriptions of new treatments and services you offer right now, other helpful aesthetic tips, and referral program information. That referral program needs to offer something to a current patient who refers a new patient, something like a free Botox session or ThermiRF treatment. Your staff needs to collect these email addresses and manage your med spa email list. To do this you should have a connected form that directly links your website to your email marketing software.
Email Marketing Services Review
| MailChimp | Yes. Up to 2,000 contacts. | $30+/month | Very Easy |
| Contstant Contact | Yes. For 60 Days. | $20+/month | Easy |
| SendInBlue | Yes. 9,000 emails/month. | $25+/month | Very Easy |
Top Email Marketing Benefits
- Stay Top of Mind
- Upsell More Expensive Procedures
- Increase Referrals
Blogging For Med Spas Overview
Creating regular blog posts on your medical spa website can pay many dividends. These blogs can drive traffic and potential patients to your site, provide regular content to share on your social media pages and in your email marketing campaigns, and blogs are an important part of creating new content for SEO purposes. This is because search engines view blogs as new content, and new content is rewarded in organic search.
Blogs are a vehicle to create new content for both existing patients and potential patients. The most important aspect of your blog posts is consistency — posting a new blog at least once each month. Each blog should also focus on a single one of your medical spa services or procedures. And the information should be valuable for the reader, not just fluff. The information contained in your blog can position your medical spa as an authority on the treatments and procedures you specialize in. Plus, the information helps prospective patients learn about treatments or procedures they may not have heard of, much less considered, prior to reading your blog.
Writing consistently and writing well can be difficult for a med spa. Many med spas farm out their blogging duties to a digital agency or a freelance writer. This ensures every blog has fresh content and the writing quality is high. If you have a particular blog topic you want to add in-house, you can still do that, but you don't have the ongoing task of creating blogs month in and month out.
Creating an Engaging Blog
- Post Consistently
- Choose Topics that will Resonate with Your Patients
- Always Have a Call-To-Action
Traditional Med Spa Marketing
- Typical Cost:
-
- Local TV: $200 - $1,500 per 30 second ad
-
- Local Radio: $500 - $8,000 per week
-
- Billboards: $500 - $20,000 per month
-
- Regional Newspaper Ads: $700 to $15,000 for ¼ page ad
-
- Mailers: $250 - $2,000 per 1,000 mailers
Traditional marketing channels target patients when they're not in the digital world. Radio commercials, TV and print ads, billboards, and direct mail all are considered “traditional marketing.” These ads are different from paid digital ads in that you pay to possibly get in front of your target audience. They may hear your radio spot because your station buy matches the demographics of your medical spa clientele. But they just as easily may not hear it at all. That is quite different from paid search ads in your search engine marketing campaign. There, users click on your ads, and you only pay when they do.
At MyAdvice, we believe there is a place for traditional advertising coupled with digital marketing as described above. To make these traditional media costs more effective, you need a process to track their effectiveness and ROI, which isn't always easy. We have options for doing this by directing specific social media ads to specific landing pages or to certain distinct phone numbers. Still, traditional media can be frustrating due to the unknowns and the cost of creative production.
Traditional marketing has been on the decline and will continue to decline for these reasons. That's why your medical spa needs to focus as much as possible on digital marketing options.
Offline Medical Spa Advertisements (TV, Radio, Billboards, Newspaper, & Mailers)
Traditional marketing can be a great way to reach new patients and can instantly impact your Medical Spa practice. However, you need to make sure you have a clear goal for each of these ads and have a set process to track the ROI on each channel. You can track the effectiveness of each source with a specific landing page on your website or having a specific number leads can call. These channels are typically large investments and take months to measure the ROI and the value they generated for your Medical Spa practice. The prices listed above do not account for the creative production of the ads.
Traditional marketing is on the decline and becoming less effective, you need to consider your digital marketing options.
Important Pricing Factors
- Circulation / Reach
- Demographics
- Impressions
Med Spa Business Development
You probably consider your med spa to be a stand-alone aesthetic practice, but it can be profitable to consider adding partners. These aren't name on the door partners; they're associations. For instance, your med spa doesn't perform cosmetic surgery, but recommending patients to a first-rate plastic surgery practice could form a back and forth flow of referrals.
And you can think beyond straight business referrals. You could offer to write a monthly column for the local newspaper on ways to counter the affects of skin aging. Local TV stations in smaller markets are often interested in new cosmetic procedures and techniques. Maybe the local bridge club would be interested in a Botox night. Other businesses that strive to help their customers stay young could be interested in teaming up on social media contest giveaways.
There are endless possibilities for these kinds of business development opportunities for your med spa. A great way to come up with possible patient acquisition associations is to first identify your ideal or typical patient. Then get your whole staff together, along with your medical spa digital marketing firm, to brainstorm creative options for reaching this patient. This has the added benefit of your staff becoming invested in growing your med spa clientele.
4 keys to a great partnership:
- Mutually Beneficial
- Creates Value For your Patients
- Both Parties Committed To Each Other’s Success
- Clear Partnership Expectations
Med Spa Referral Program
Referred patients are great patients because they've already heard great things about your medical spa. That's why your medical spa marketing needs to encourage referrals through a defined program. Through a referral program your current patients will receive something in exchange for a referred patient scheduling a treatment. You could give both the referred new patient and the referring patient a discount. Or you could give the referring patient a free treatment, such as an IPL photofacial. It's a great way to spread the word about your med spa and to reward your loyal current and potential customers.
You will need to make this easy to implement (don't make anyone jump through hoops to receive the discounts), and you need to have a clear process in place, both for your patients and for your staff. A great way to build referrals is to incentivize your staff to generate referrals from prospective clients. It's an excellent way to have your best medical spa patients spread the word and be rewarded for it.
4 Keys to a Great Referral Program
- Easy to Understand
- Well Trained Staff
- Rewards for the Referee & Referrer
- Automate an email to the Referee from a form on your site
Med Spa Events (Open House)
The most frequently mentioned factors when choosing a medspa were the providers' competence (22%), the recommendation from someone known (21%), and the overall quality of the service provided (20%). Among the other factors mentioned were patience and respect. An open house is a great way to convey these values.
Planning and executing an event can seem like too much work, but this is a great way to celebrate your current patients, introduce your med spa to new patients, and engage with the community. Whether it’s a “Grand Reopening” after a remodel, a yearly “Open House,” or even your “Grand Opening” for a new med spa, events can really build patient loyalty and introduce your med spa to lots of interested others who may not yet be ready to book a procedure. Maybe they will after having a look around your beautiful offices!
Again, you want to think of your ideal med spa patient. Maybe a “Winter Skin Care Tips Night” could be perfect on a fall evening. Offer discounts on skin care products. Have a drawing for fractional skin resurfacing or a chemical peel. Think of what would appeal to that ideal patient of your medical spa. You’ll want to have catered food, activities, maybe demonstrations of a new procedure such as laser hair removal, prizes, promotional branded items with your logo and med spa name on them, and office tours with staff members.
We recommend med spas hold an open house once each year. That way you’ll learn a bit each year about successfully hosting these events, and your patients will begin to look forward to the event each year.
3 Tips for any event
- Determine Event Goals
- Determine Event Budget
- Promote on Social Media
Med Spa Community Building Events
It’s estimated that potential patients need to see a brand 7 times before the marketing message registers.
Showing you care about the community where your med spa is located is a great way to make your med spa more visible, all while lending a hand or doing some good. If you’re a dermatology med spa, for instance, you could offer free skin cancer screenings at a community fair. If your med spa is in an area with mostly older clientele, maybe you can sponsor a senior games event or something similar. Community-building events show that you value being a part of the community and that you’re willing to give back.
4 great community events to sponsor
- Local Races - Bonus if you and your staff participate
- Local Food Drives - Reach out to patients to participate with your office
- Local Sports - From Highschool to Minor League sports are affordable options
- Service Projects - Reach out to local schools or churches and see if there are volunteer opportunities
Med Spa Speaking Engagements
The most mentioned factor when choosing a medical spa was the doctor's competence (22%).
To build your presence as an authority in the non-surgical aesthetic world, there is no better way than speaking at a trade show or industry gathering. Attending these symposiums and continuing learning trade shows is important to stay abreast of what’s new in the aesthetic world. If you have an opportunity to present or speak at one of these events be sure to takes lots of photos and videos. This makes great content for your website, social media platforms, and in a newsletter or monthly email.
Med Spa Speaking Engagement Options
- Local Schools
- Trade Shows
- Chamber of Commerce
Let's talk GROWth.
If you seek answers and help with the items listed above, you’re in the right place. We can help move your medical spa to the next level with our digital marketing services. For over 20 years, we’ve been building the healthcare industry’s most beautiful websites and optimizing them for search.
Schedule a 30-minute GROW consultation and we’ll work with you to create the roadmap – and show you how we can help you get there.
Social Media Marketing for Med Spas