I am compelled to write this post because I often see owners and managers of medical spas deciding upon marketing spending based upon incorrect assumptions. And believe it or not this flies both ways…spending too little and spending too much. It seems as if every spa falls into one of these two categories.
First category, the spending too little group…since that is what I’ve seen the most lately. This typically happens after all good intentions are in place to spend the appropriate amount on marketing. Either a new location opens it doors and (after spending so much money to launch the new business) the owner gets shell-shocked from writing so many big checks and says “enough, we can’t spend anymore money!” or just simply (through a poor planning process) has run out of money. Here’s the dilemma: If you don’t spend money communicating your open for business you won’t have any business! No business no money…no marketing no business…no money. See the quandary?
Second category, the spending too much group…though we see less of this lately (recession dampens most to want to spend too much money). This most often happens when an owner of a medical spa has had success with an advertising program and begins to believe that more is better. The more I spend the more business I will have. The problem here is with the relationship between how much you spend and how much you bring in. So it’s great to have $100K of revenue per month but not so great if you need to spend $40K of radio advertising each month to get there. The dilemma in this situation is that the more you spend the more revenue you have but the less profit you will have to show for it.
So what’s the solution? From all of our data and involvement with Medical Spas, it is essential to identify a marketing budget that you can commit to financially and implement effectively. This includes insuring that your business is capitalized at a level that allows for this financial commitment and you have hired the correct professionals to guide you through an effective implementation.
Interestingly enough Aesop knew a little bit about Medical Spas when he wrote “The Tortoise and the Hare” slow and steady wins the race!
FXA
