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This post will be based on the exact strategy we implemented to scale an aesthetic clinic from part-time, to now running 3 full-time locations within 2 years.
Once you’re done implementing it, it’s not uncommon for clinics to start seeing a fast increase in enquiries, like this:
Today I’m going to show you exactly how we did it (step-by-step). Let’s dive in!
This strategy is not ideal for all clinics.
It is designed for clinic owners who want a consistent AND scalable patient acquisition system… and not a ‘get rich quick scheme’.
You need to have:
- Confidence in your services/treatments
- Proven case studies / results
- A ‘patient first’ mindset
In fact, it’s the exact strategy we used to help Vale Laser Aesthetics go from a ‘part-time clinic’ to now running 3 full-time locations (and growing month on month!):
If you want to grow your clinic without wasting your money on ineffective marketing, then THIS is the paid ads strategy to do it.
Want this system fully built out for you?
The fastest and easiest way to drive consistent, compounding enquiries and patients is to install our Clinic Marketing Blueprint.
Our expert team will implement our proven systems into your clinic so you can focus on what you do best!
Read on to learn how to grow and scale your clinic from paid advertising… without needing to cheapen your brand!
The ‘Clinic Marketing Blueprint’ Strategy: Conversion Focused Marketing (Without Heavy Discounts)
Lead generation, SEO, organic traffic… they are all important factors to focus on for long term growth. But nothing beats a marketing system with compounding traffic, that delivers consistent patients day after day.
Here’s what that looks like:
Ask most marketing companies how to get patients into your clinic, and they’ll tell you this:
- Choose a cheap treatment.
- Discount it even more + add fake scarcity (which isn’t actually compliant with regulatory bodies… more on this later!)
- Push it out to anyone in a 20km radius + keep calling the ‘leads’ until they book.
That’s an old strategy from 2020… and really, it was never an effective long-term strategy. It’s done more harm than good.
Fast forward to today, the competition among clinics and treatment providers has become incredibly intense. Whereas a few years ago you might have been the sole clinic offering HydraFacial in your area, it’s now very common and patients have more options on where to go.
It no longer works to just offer discounts and hope patients choose you. And even if you do generate “leads”, you’ll have no clear strategy for how to get that traffic to convert into long-term treatment plans.
The 3-Steps To Using Our “Clinic Marketing Blueprint” To Get Targeted Traffic That Converts Into Paying Patients
There are three main steps you need to execute our Clinic Marketing Blueprint successfully.
Step 1: Lay the right foundations (before wasting your ad budgets)
Step 2: Position your treatments in the right way (Our TPM Method)
Step 3: Use paid ads to reach your dream patients (Our ACE Formula)
Below is a breakdown of how every part of the strategy works. But first let me tell you what this has to do with a blueprint…
A blueprint is defined as: “a complete plan that explains how to do or develop something”
Have you ever performed a Dermal Filler treatment?
You wouldn’t jump right into doing this treatment without a thorough consultation and analysis… that would lead to HUGE problems.
There is a specific process (blueprint) to provide the best results for the patient and to ensure you are covered from any complications that may arise!
This may vary depending on the patient’s wants + needs, but there will be a workflow that is OPTIMAL in order to achieve the desired outcome.
It’s the same with marketing your clinic online.
You can’t just try to ‘fast-track’ the process and put an advert online, spend £1000 and hope for the best. You need the right foundations to protect your budgets and your reputation!
This is what most clinics miss and it frustrates me when I hear from clinic owners the pain they’ve gone through with wasted money + time!
They’re shooting blind, with no strategy or guidance!
What you’re doing here is guiding your dream patients down a specific process to get them to know, like and trust you… and then you’re guiding them to the finish line (aka visiting your clinic).
Once you build out the Clinic Marketing Blueprint, you can have hundreds of your ideal patients running down YOUR funnels, and converting into high lifetime value patients who want to come back year after year.
Want this system fully built out for you?
The fastest and easiest way to drive consistent, compounding enquiries and patients is to install our Clinic Marketing Blueprint.
Our expert team will implement our proven systems into your clinic so you can focus on what you do best!
Step 1: Lay the right foundations (before wasting your ad budgets)
Foundations, Foundations, Foundations.
“Without a solid foundation, you’ll have trouble creating anything of value”
There is no point jumping straight into paid ads, without first establishing the foundations of your marketing.
This is the strategy you use to ensure any marketing efforts you make are not wasted!
Here’s how to do it:
First, plan out your ICPs. These are the Ideal Client Persona’s that YOU want to attract.
Say for example you want to attract patients who are looking for Laser Hair Removal treatments. We need to map out the ideal patient for this treatment in as much detail as possible.
Here are a few questions that we have clients answer when laying our marketing foundations.
- Who do you want to attract? Be specific… e.g. new mums, aged 30-40, enjoy yoga and pilates.
- What problems or pain points are they trying to solve?
- What is their income level?
- What lifestyle do they lead?
- What objections do they have during the buying process?
We also need to know specifics on the marketing side such as:
- What do you aim to achieve with this campaign?
- Which advertising channels/platforms will be most effective in reaching your target audience?
- How are you going to track the results?
- How will you convert these enquiries into bookings?
Now I have a list of the exact patients I want to target, prioritised by how likely they are to convert for my our treatments:
Once we have this, we can move onto the next step of laying our foundations.
This concept was created by Eugene Schwartz. In his book “Breakthrough Advertising”, he describes the stages that potential customers go through before making a purchase.
Understanding these levels helps marketers tailor their messages to meet the audience’s current state of awareness. This is exactly what you need to learn in order to elevate your clinics marketing.
Stage One: Unaware
People at this stage are not necessarily in need of any of your treatments or services because they are unaware they have a pain or problem to solve. They don’t know you, and most importantly, they won’t buy from you at this stage.
Stage Two: Pain Aware or Problem Aware
In this stage, people recognise they have aesthetic concerns but aren’t aware of any solutions yet. For instance, they might realise they need skin rejuvenation or hair restoration but haven’t decided on a specific treatment or clinic. The key is that they become aware they have a problem.
Stage Three: Solution Aware
Here, individuals know there are solutions available for their skin or aesthetic concerns, but they don’t yet know that there is a treatment at your clinic that solves it for them.
Stage Four: Product Aware
At this stage, the potential client is actively exploring various products or treatments to address their issue. Your clinic might be among their considerations, but there’s more to do before they commit to a purchase decision.
Stage Five: Most Aware
So now we’ve almost made it! In the “most aware” stage, the client is nearly prepared to make a purchasing decision but may require a final nudge or incentive to seal the deal.
The PROBLEM is most clinics running adverts, try to push someone who is in the ‘Unaware’ level, not the ‘Most Aware’ level…
When you do this, you find friction and generate poor quality leads who don’t value your clinic or even understand what they signed up for!
Now let’s say I’ve identified that my dream patient is typically in ‘SOLUTION AWARE’ and has a high likeliness to convert for my clinic. In that case, I’ll start building an advertising campaign around this ‘level’ and tailor it to their needs… and then slowly bring them up the awareness levels to convert into a booking.
For best results you need to map out a different advert for each level of awareness, so you have all bases covered.
Remember: you are building THE foundations of your marketing so that you can beat your competitors and not need to discount!
As you cover each ‘awareness level’ you will build a really good eco-system that targets your ICP at each stage!
Remember, that your BEST patients were at some point lower down on the stages, and then they climbed up. So don’t ignore people who are on stages 1-2, as they very well could be your dream patients in time.
The potential clients discomfort compounds over time… “Once the discomfort of staying the same surpasses the discomfort of change, they take the leap.”
Want this system fully built out for you?
The fastest and easiest way to drive consistent, compounding enquiries and patients is to install our Clinic Marketing Blueprint.
Our expert team will implement our proven systems into your clinic so you can focus on what you do best!
Now it’s time to ensure you position your treatments in the right way to avoid time wasters + attract your DREAM patients.
Let’s go!
Step 2: Treatment Positioning Mastery (TPM)
Treatment Positioning Mastery is a crucial step in having success when marketing your clinic. It allows you to provide your treatments at a premium price, rather than competing with cheaper clinics!
Here’s how to do it:
First, we need to learn this fundamental framework (and it’s where most clinic owners fail)…
People aren’t paying for your ‘device’ or your ‘time’, they’re paying you to help them solve a problem that they don’t know how to solve on their own.
- E.g. Helping ladies reduce fine lines & wrinkles.
- E.g. Treating incontinence so they can live a normal, worry free life.
- E.g. Permanently reducing body hair, so they never have to stress over unwanted hairs!
All of these represent problems & pain points that people are motivated to get solved QUICKLY. My system requires you to hone into the main problems that people are desperately looking to solve.
What you need to do is SHIFT the way you portray your clinic online.
I’ve worked with tons of clinics who (after reading this training) managed to change their marketing efforts from ‘discounts’ to ‘premium pricing’.
And it all comes down to positioning in the correct way.
When running ads, viewers will see you in one of two categories:
- Commodity
- Value Based
To avoid being a ‘commodity’ and to get into the realm of ‘value based’, you need to…
Focus on the TRANSFORMATION, not the TREATMENT.
Remember, the primary goal of your advertisements is to bring up their pain points and position your clinic as the solution to their needs.
So you need to focus on the transformation you can provide as the hook!
When you fix this, you will notice people don’t have to be “sold” as much.
They will come to you already sold on getting their problem/pain points fixed and from there it’s all about making sure you can actually help them.
You are positioned as the experts!
Having the right treatment positioning also comes down to the ‘offer’ that you have on the advertisements. This doesn’t have to be a discount, but something that shows the value your clinic provides.
One of my favourite quotes is from Alex Hormozi.
He says… “Make people an offer so good they would feel stupid saying no.”
How simple is that? Nice and easy but it helps put things into perspective when crafting your treatment positioning.
Want this system fully built out for you?
The fastest and easiest way to drive consistent, compounding enquiries and patients is to install our Clinic Marketing Blueprint.
Our expert team will implement our proven systems into your clinic so you can focus on what you do best!
Now it’s time to talk about how to generate new patients that are running to purchase your treatment plans.
Step 3: Use paid ads to reach your dream patients
Looking at the results above most people would consider this ads campaign to be a successful promotion with a £5.22 cost per lead.
That’s a rookie mistake.
Our goal with the Clinic Marketing Blueprint is not VOLUME of new leads. We are scaling our marketing for dream patients, not trying to find the cheapest leads.
Leads are pointless if they don’t convert and the above example was from a clinic who we onboarded a few weeks ago. The ads were run by a previous agency, who were set on getting them the cheapest CPL (cost per lead) possible.
The result? Wasted clinic time and wasted advertising spend.
SIDE NOTE:
You’ll have seen an upshoot in “marketers” online offering clinics free trials, crazy guarantees and false promises in the hopes of scooping you up. But have a think for a second… Why are they having to do these ‘crazy deals’ if their systems are so good?
9/10 times it ends up biting clinics in the you know what. The ‘work for free until it works’ model is flawed and a dangerous trap for clinics. In life, nothing is free. You end up paying eventually.
And with that model, you waste your time, which is your most valuable asset, on something that isn’t working… and then end up repeating that cycle hoping that it eventually works out. But it’s “free”, right?
Installing Our ACE Formula
Our Aesthetic Client Engine is the key to scaling new patients from your content when using paid advertising.
It’s the method you use to convert the traffic and leads from your advertisements into paying patients.
Here’s how we set it up:
- Detailed Targeting
- Paid Ads
- Landing Page
- Qualification Quiz
- Education Video Sales Letter
- Calendar Booking
- Consult Booked
Now… you may be thinking you’ve tried the above flow before and it hasn’t worked.
We hear this regularly when speaking to clinics.
Let me draw a parallel to help clarify this.
Imagine two doctors: one fresh out of medical school and another with over 20 years of experience. Both are given the same detailed checklist to follow during a procedure. Even though the checklist is thorough and both doctors adhere to it strictly, the experienced doctor is likely to achieve superior results with fewer complications.
This difference is due to their extensive experience, deeper understanding, and the nuances they’ve learned over the years that aren’t explicitly written on the checklist.
The same applies to setting up your marketing campaigns…
Simply having a checklist isn’t enough. Success depends on the experience and skill of the person executing it. Experienced marketers know the nuances, can adapt strategies, and avoid common pitfalls, ensuring smoother and more effective campaigns. This expertise is key to achieving your clinic’s growth and patient acquisition goals.
Producing successful and profitable adverts for your high-end treatments isn’t easy…
However, after running thousands of campaigns, we have found a winning formula for a wide range of treatments. This allows us to skip past the ‘learning phase’ when working with clinics, and install our “Clinic Marketing Blueprint” successfully.
To track down the best performing combination, we look for conversions and sales… rather than the amount of leads generated.
Check out this image from one of our clients based in London.
You can see that Facebook is generating 3x more enquiries than Instagram. So most clinics would assume FB is the place to advertise and turn off the IG ads.
Makes sense, right?
Wrong.
If you’ve set up the tracking correctly, you can see what leads have translated into sales for your clinic.
In this case, the Instagram ads were bringing in the bulk of revenue + bookings! So we’re happy to keep a higher CPL, as it’s generating a clear ROI for this clinic.
Whereas FB is just getting leads, and no sales!
I’ll also check on conversations between our sales and customer success team inside Slack channels, and often find gold nuggets like this:
Once I’ve identified a winning ad campaign, we’ll start to scale up this and cut out the ‘losing ads’.
Want this system fully built out for you?
The fastest and easiest way to drive consistent, compounding enquiries and patients is to install our Clinic Marketing Blueprint.
Our expert team will implement our proven systems into your clinic so you can focus on what you do best!
When advertising high-end treatments, we need to expect a longer sales cycle.
If someone sees an advert for a simple facial, the sales cycle is short and they could even pop into the clinic that day for treatment.
However, if you’re advertising a treatment which is invasive, has long downtime etc, they’re going to want to think about it and ensure it’s a good fit. Therefore, the sales cycle is longer.
This is actually a good thing.
By just running ads for a treatment asking people to sign up, you’re limiting yourself to only a small percentage of people who will buy today.
Not all your traffic will sign up, and not everyone who signs up will purchase and visit your clinic today!
So to get our treatment adverts converting really well, we’re going to build a system that turns our traffic and leads into new patients… on auto-pilot.
How?
Using The ‘Omnipresent’ Marketing Funnel.
You’re going to follow three steps to execute this:
- Retarget your advertising traffic and email leads (who haven’t converted into sales yet.)
- Retarget them across all the different online platforms they visit (start with £5 per day to begin with)
- Retarget them with educational content they’ve never seen before, with a call to action to book a consultation.
When you get these three things right, something amazing happens.
All of a sudden the traffic and leads you worked so hard to acquire with your XXXX content start seeing you EVERYWHERE they visit online.
To your potential patients, you look like a big clinic who is providing so much value before they’ve paid you a penny! When in fact you’re buying cheap retargeting clicks (which are even cheaper when retargeting to content because ad networks love serving up ads with educational content to their users.)
Here’s a screenshot of click costs from one of my retargeting ad sets:
Does this mean you’re going to get £0.47 clicks?
No. Your click costs might be cheaper or more expensive than mine.
But let’s say for the sake of this example that your click costs are £0.50, and you’re selling a £400 body contouring treatment.
After 10 days running your ad you will have 200 clicks with £100 ad spend.
Let’s say only 1% of clickers convert to be conservative.
That’s two £400 customers (£800 total) you’ve now acquired for £100.
In two months you’ll have already recovered your customer acquisition cost, and be making a profit.
What about the 99% who didn’t convert? They’ll start seeing your other pieces of content everywhere they go online, and have a second chance to convert.
Why does this work so well?
- You’re retargeting a warm audience that’s already seen your landing page and enjoyed your content.
- You’re putting another piece of educational content in front of them which isn’t “salesy” or “pushy”.
- You are positioned as an industry expert/authority in your local area.
- Your first-time visitors may have never even considered buying from you before. Now they will start seeing overwhelming social proof everywhere they go online with the results you get for your patients, what you do and how you do it.
- You avoid ad fatigue. Instead of retargeting your visitors with the same sales message over and over again, you’re now showcasing why they should trust your clinic.
This is an advanced strategy you can use to position your clinic as an industry leader, and use educational content to acquire patients at scale. No need to discount/beg for bookings!
Want this system fully built out for you?
The fastest and easiest way to drive consistent, compounding enquiries and patients is to install our Clinic Marketing Blueprint.
Our expert team will implement our proven systems into your clinic so you can focus on what you do best!
Now It's Your Turn
Every scalable clinic is built on consistent high-quality traffic and a winning sales funnel. But doing cheap offers, then hoping and praying for sales isn’t a scalable strategy.
Sure it can work. But we found a more SCALABLE solution: The Clinic Marketing Blueprint. It’s helped us transform over 100 clinics marketing into a profitable patient acquisition system.
With our blueprint, you can say goodbye to heavy discounts and hello to a steady stream of high-end patients! Learn the secrets top clinics use, including how AI technology converts inquiries into paid deposits effortlessly.
You’ll be able to licence the same systems, templates, tools and campaigns that we use for our clinics!
To get started, click here to book a demo call with our team. We’ll walk you through our unique system and see if it’s a good fit for you.
Want this system fully built out for you?
The fastest and easiest way to drive consistent, compounding enquiries and patients is to install our Clinic Marketing Blueprint.
Our expert team will implement our proven systems into your clinic so you can focus on what you do best!
