Starting Your Aesthetics Business - Part One - Who are your customers?
Often, practitioners step out of their training course and jump straight into treating family and friends without thinking about the ‘business’ side of their aesthetics business.
They knock a logo together, set up their Instagram and Facebook profiles and hope that if they post semi-regularly, they will be able to seed and grow their aesthetics business.
The problem with this approach is that a number of the fundamental principles of business have been completely missed out! And at some point, this catches up with you!
Before you even set up any kind of online presence, before you even think about marketing your services, you need to have some foundational business building blocks in place.
To fail to have these fundamental things in place will hamper your business, leave you feeling disillusioned when you fail to get bookings and potentially lead to you throwing in the towel before you’ve even properly gotten going.
There are five fundamental business building blocks your aesthetics business needs BEFORE you start marketing?
1 - WHO ARE YOU FOR?
You’re not right for everyone.
Not everyone is right for you.
And that’s OK.
You need to know who is right for you and who you are best able to serve. Knowing this helps form your perfect patient personas.
These aren’t real life people, they are an avatar of a patient. To create you personas:
1. Research your local area use tools like Acorn to find out quantitatively the kinds of people of live in and around your area. Spend a day in a cafe near where you’re thinking of setting up. People watch. Drive and walk around the streets.
Notice. Watch. Listen. Make notes. Think about who you could attract.
Start to get a picture of the kinds of people you could attract, and whether or not they’re a good fit for you and your business.
2. Identify 3-5 target groups within your local area who you want to attract.
These will be your ‘perfect patient personas’. Though the personas are fictional, the profile should be as detailed and well-rounded as possible. These will be the people you are “speaking to” in your marketing, the people who you want to attract with your messaging and branding…so you have to know them!
3. Figure out your “perfect patient persona” - think about the following things:
Demographics
What gender are they?
What age group?
Do they have kids? How old are they?
Where do they live?
Lifestyle
What kind of house do they live in?
Do they rent or do they own?
What car do they drive?
Where do they do their weekly shop?
Where do they go on holiday?
What do they wear?
What’s their lifestyle like?
What are their beliefs and values?
Profession
What’s their professional status?
What’s their income level?
What industry do they work in?
Influences
Where do they hang out on weekends?
What do they do in the evenings?
Where do they hang out online?
What social media platforms do they use?
What do they watch on TV/Netflix?
What newspapers/magazines do they read?
Pain Points
What frustrations do they have?
What inconveniences them?
What concerns do they have?
What do they want to improve?
4. Create your persona profiles - take all of your research and information and create perfect patient persona profiles like this:
Trying to market your services and business without knowing your perfect patient personas will result in you wasting time and effort trying to appeal to all.
Whether you are sorting a social post, crafting a newsletter or planning an in-person event, knowing your perfect patient personas is crucial to attracting the right clientele to you and your business.
