What is marketing?

Marketing is any action a business takes to attract an individual or audience to the products or services they offer through high-quality, targeted messaging. It’s the art of effectively communicating and influencing potential patients, providing exceptional value, entertainment or education through content, guiding them towards making informed choices (i.e.choosing YOU), and nurturing long-lasting relationships.

In order to market effectively, you need to have a deep understanding of your ideal patient. You HAVE to know their needs, wants, aspirations, blockers and concerns and speak to these in your marketing, consistently. This allows you to connect with them and ultimately offer them solutions that will improve their confidence, self-esteem and overall quality of life.

Marketing is not some mysterious dark art. It’s simply about knowing your ideal patient, knowing where they hang out online and “in real life” and speaking to them authentically about the things that resonate with them, in a way that’s accessible and relatable.

There are few things you need to figure out BEFORE you start marketing your business.

Who are you trying to attract?

Where can I find these people?

How do I attract them?

Who are you trying to attract?

You aren’t the right practitioner for everyone. And that’s OK! There are certain groups of people who you are perfect for, and who are perfect for you and your business. Marketers call these personas or avatars.

Depending on the type of person you are, where your clinic is, what your clinic looks like, the type of treatments you offer, the prices you charge, your values, beliefs, morals and the results you achieve, you’ll appeal to a segment, or a few different segments.

In order to market to a particular group of people, you need to get to grips with your patient personas. Think about the type of patient you want to attract. Ideally, you will identify 3-5 “types”.

Here are some characteristics/features to think about when deciding on your ideal patient personas:

• Gender

• Age group

• Profession

• Hobbies

• Interests

• Where they shop

• Which social media apps they use

• What they watch on TV

• Where they holiday

• Their type of house

• The clothes they wear

• The makeup brands they use

Once you’ve decided who you want to attract, pen a portrait for each of your personas. This is a story about a fictional person who fits that persona perfectly. Give them a name, a job, picture them. Make them real. These are the people you will be speaking to in all your marketing and communications.

Where can I market my business?

The places you can market your business are called marketing channels - some will be more accessible, achievable, affordable and relevant to you than others.

There are two broad types of marketing channels:

• Online Marketing - using the internet to promote your products or services

  • Content marketing - blogs, podcasts, infographics and videos

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) - basically, getting your website on Google (other search engines are available!) using optimised content or paying for your page to appear when people search for certain terms.

  • Social media marketing - Organic and paid

  • Influencer marketing

  • Email marketing

  • Text marketing

  • Affiliate marketing

• Offline Marketing - using traditional media to promote your products or services

  • TV

  • Newspaper/Magazines

  • Radio

  • Outdoor - billboards, bus stops, posters, car stickers, shop signs

  • Events

  • Promotional items

  • Flyers

  • Sponsorship

  • Direct mail - letters, cards, free samples, leaflets, postcards

Obviously, as a solo entrepreneur, unless you pay an agency or independent marketeer to help you, you will have to choose a limited number of channels to use on a weekly basis and supplement this with planned, ad hoc activity on a selection of other channels.

How can I market my business?

There are limitless ways to market your business!

But before you so, you need to sort your branding! Not sure where to start? Read this.

Once you’ve got your branding drilled down, here’s an example of a typical Aesthetics Clinic Marketing Starter Stack:

Website & email address

A solid, basic, cheap website/landing page is more than sufficient when you’re starting out. You can enlist the help of a website agency, if you wish. But getting started by building your own is a sensible, cost-effective approach.

Your email address should be a business address, allowing you to separate work and personal emails. This is not only the more professional option, but from a GDPR perspective, you should avoid having patients details in your personal email account.

Setting up your Google Business Profile is also a no-brainer.

Social media accounts

The social media platforms you choose will depend largely on the ones your target demographic are using. Typically, most practitioners use Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

Social media marketing is the cheapest, but probably most time consuming, marketing channel. The algorithms favour those who consistently and regularly post great content. So ensure you have planned out the content you want to post. It should be a mix of educational, entertaining and “sales”. Using the camera on your phone and software like Canva, creating branded content has never been easier.

Email marketing

Building an email list, so you’re able to regularly communicate with existing and potential patients is a no-brainer. The cost of this is negligible, with platforms like Mailchimp and Flodesk offering free (or very reasonable) email marketing for small businesses.

Flyers

Branded flyers with your services, pricing, how to book and location to hand to existing patients and to place in other local businesses where your perfect patients might frequent is another low cost marketing activity.

Local magazines/publications

Local magazines are potentially a good way to reach your target audience. These tend to be monthly/quarterly publications, are delivered directly to people’s homes and are a way to build brand awareness locally.