No time to grow your aesthetic business?
How getting a manicure could help…
by Lee Cottrill, Business Development Director, SkinViva Training
For those of you that are in the early days of growing your aesthetics business offering treatments such as Botox and dermal fillers, you’ll know already how difficult it can be to find the time as a busy nurse, dentist, doctor or any other medical professional. Yes, you’re eagerly developing confidence and skill in your treatments and pleasing your customers but finding time to develop the business side is ever-elusive.
In this blog, I want to share with you some of my own experiences of developing successful working relationships with beauty salons in order to grow your patient following and (hopefully) get you more customers for dermal filler and Botox treatments. Ultimately, whether you have an hour a week available or fifty, it’s all about finding the most effective things you can do with your time to give you the best return in your marketing efforts.
First of all, let’s take a second to go over why beauty salons make good partners for a budding aesthetician. Well, I like to think of our salon partners at SkinViva as part of our marketing family. They’re an extended arm of resource that help to promote the SkinViva brand without having to put people on the payroll. If you look after your salon relationships they will look after you – by talking about you, helping to promote you, and giving you ideas and feedback about the market you’re trying to conquer.
Have a manicure?
Yes… I admit I sucked you into this blog with my manicure reference but the sentiment is a true one and although I’ve not yet had my nails manicured by one of my salon partners I have been known to get hair cuts, massages and eyebrow threading in an effort to break down barriers and open the door to a new relationship.
Once you’ve done the deal though and you’re the proud aesthetic clinician offering anti-ageing injectables at ‘Beautiful Beauty’ [or insert other salon name here!], what can you do to make the most out of this ‘extended arm’ without requiring excessive efforts from you?
Aesthetics Business Tips
Read on to the below list and hopefully you’ll get some sparks of inspiration to try out in your own salon relationships!
- ‘That all-important social media’ (…by which for this purpose I specifically mean Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Yes, there are others but don’t bite off more than you can chew to start with!) – beauty salons that use social media will with have an audience of fans, likes, followers etc. These represent an army of people who are either already existing customers or people that have been sufficiently interested in what the salon is promoting, ergo there is an existing relationship there which you can build upon. Woohoo! People on social media however are not on there to BUY products/services but they ARE on there to find out about stuff, gather information, and engage/communicate with friends, businesses and other organisations. What does this mean for you? It means it’s an opportunity to start to build awareness of your aesthetic treatments to a ready-made audience in order to commence them on the start of the buying journey.
- Suggested next step: Write 20 posts and get some accompanying images that you can give to the salon owner (or the person who runs their social media accounts) and ask them to post them for you at a rate of 2 per week. Make them interesting, to-the-point, but not ‘salesy’. Monitor the pages to see how people are engaging with the posts and ensure the salon are clear on what you expect them to do with messages and comments which come in.
- ‘I need to see this for myself’ – Getting your Botox ‘done’ isn’t what it once was and today anti-ageing injections and beautification treatments are commonplace and accessed by a very wide breadth of market segments. Having said that, for many people, seeing is believing and questions like ‘does Botox hurt?’ and ‘How big are dermal filler needles?’ are resolved by being able to check things out in the flesh but from a distance. Yes, there’s YouTube but this just can’t trump watching someone receive a treatment in the same room as you. Demonstration events are a great way to move potential customers along their buying journey. The kind of audience you’re likely to get at a salon demo event are typically women (of various ages) that are already ‘considering having treatment’.
- Suggested next step: Ask the salon owner if they’re interested in doing a ‘joint’ event to promote salon treatments and your aesthetic treatments for which you’ll do a ‘live demo’. Ask the salon staff for 2 volunteers – one for Botox and one for dermal filler. Do the Botox treatment 2 weeks before the event and then ‘tweak’ the treatment on the night as required…the point being Botox takes up to 2 weeks to work so you’ll be wanting to show a before/after position on the night. For dermal filler, you can treat the patient fully on the night. Good areas include the nasolabial folds and marionettes. Lips also are good but remember to warn your crowd that they swell! As part of planning the event, ask the salon staff to take names and telephone number of people that want to come so that the salon team can remind them. The golden rule is that if 20 people say they’re coming then plan for 10.
- ‘The outside is often better than the inside’ – Every good salon will have a range of products on sale in reception and will have literature/posters to promote their treatments. For you this can mean that the reception area can be a tricky place to promote your aesthetic treatments a). because it’s already cluttered; and b). because the salon owner will naturally want to protect their own treatments first and foremost. I’m not saying you shouldn’t push to get some posters and leaflets organised in the salon but a better step can be to pay a bit more and order…an A-Board! We’ve had lots of customers in the past come to us and, when we ask, they tell us ‘I saw a sign as I was walking past. The big advantage is that it doesn’t require people to be in the salon in the first place in order to become aware of you and…better still… apart from the cost of the A-Board and the poster to put in it…it’s a free way to promote yourself.
- Suggested next step: Ask the owner’s permission to use an A-Board outside the salon and if they’d mind putting it out and bring it in each night (you might find you need to remind them to keep doing it!). Next, order an A-Board (a good website is UKPOS.com) and go to a local graphic designer to put you a lovely big poster together (don’t make too much of a meal over it or you’ll waste weeks trying to get the ‘perfect’ design) promoting the non-surgical treatments you’re offering. A point of differentiation could be to ‘be specific’ i.e promote the treatments you’re really good at. This could be non-surgical rhinoplasty, or lip enhancement or maybe just great eyebrow lifts with Botox. Don’t forget to comply with all advertising standards!
Botox and Fillers Training Manchester
SkinViva Training Academy offers a comprehensive range of medical training courses for cosmetic and medical skin treatments.
Their courses are designed for medical professionals such as suitably qualified and registered medical professionals who wish to learn and build on their skills in delivering these procedures.
SkinViva Training was established by by Dr Tim Pearce MBChB BSc (Hons) MRCGP. The SkinViva Training team upholds high standards of clinical training providing a combination of fully-supervised practical experience together with essential theory.
For further information, to discuss which course is right for you, to enquire about availability or to book a training course please call 0161 850 2491, or email info@skinvivatraining.com.
