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How Management Operations and Marketing Work Together
February 8, 2024
It’s natural to think that marketing is the answer to every business’ shortcomings. Certainly, marketing is a very important vehicle to generate brand awareness, promote specials and bring patients in the door. A strong marketing strategy will help to drive leads to a practice. When done effectively over time, these marketing efforts can support an increase in profits and sales at a medspa. But without a solid foundation, even the most robust marketing strategy and appropriate advertising budget can fall flat.
The aesthetic medical business experts at Acara Partners have worked with hundreds of medspas over the past 20+ years, and one thing remains true for medspas that have improved their sales and profits: they have had a comprehensive business strategy that involves both management and operations consulting support with marketing expertise.
Here’s a look at how management operations and marketing work together to generate success:
Lead capture process
With an improved marketing strategy, a practice can see an uptick in leads, but unless there is a strong lead capture process in place, leads will not automatically result in an increase in appointments, sales and profits. When Acara’s consulting team is brought into a medspa to assess business operations, often our consultants identify a broken lead capture process being a factor that inhibits growth. If we identify room for improvement in a medspa’s lead capture process, our consultants at Acara Partners can provide onsite management training.
Operations review
When Acara’s consultants evaluate a medspa’s operations, we review the practice’s hours of operation, provider hours of availability, utilization of treatment rooms and overall earning potential. During Acara’s market assessment, the consulting team will assess the competition’s prices, services, technologies, facilities and online presence. Are you a low-cost leader in your market and as a result are struggling to reach margins that will make you profitable? Prices that are too low can hinder the perceived quality of your medspa. Groupon and deep discounts will do this too. On the other hand, when a medspa’s prices are too high, it will be difficult to compete with other practices in the area. Our goal is to help medspa owners understand their position in the marketplace. With consulting’s market assessment report and recommendations for improvement, Acara’s marketing team will develop an effective strategy for promotions and specials.
Patient satisfaction
For Acara’s marketing team to contribute to not just an increase in new patients, but long-term patient loyalty, a medspa will need to have the following structure in place:
1. Start with a comprehensive consultation process, which includes health history intake and a clinical exam by a provider.
2. There should be trained and friendly front desk staff to answer phones and online inquiries, greet walk-ins and guide patients to their appointments in a consistent and professional manner.
3. Seeing patients on time goes a long way! This often begins with structuring each bookable appointment for an appropriate amount of time and allowing for prep and post-treatment care time. Providers should be expected to conduct services in a timely manner so they can see their next patient on time, too.
4. A strong checkout process is key. The front desk staff is the first and last member of the medspa that a patient will see. It’s important to make a lasting impression. A strong checkout process will include asking how the treatment went, booking the next appointment and a friendly, appreciative send-off. Patients should leave happy and confident!
5. Lastly, patients should receive an email or text message with a link to share their experience. Soliciting a review allows the practice to catch any negative feedback and resolve it with the client. Positive feedback can also be utilized as the practice’s next great review which will help the medspas’ reputation and encourage new patients to give you a try.
Certainly, revamping your medspa’s marketing strategy will support the initiative to increase profits and sales, but in our decades of experience as consultants for medspas, the only tried-and-true methodology is to approach a medspa with both consulting and marketing expertise. Contact us today to learn more about how your medspa can grow with Acara Partners.