How to Attract the First Clients to your Newly Started Beauty Clinic

Being a small business owner requires you to wear many hats – starting a beauty Clinic is no exception. Being excellent in your field in the beauty industry may not be enough. To succeed in running a business you will have to work on different areas that may be new to you.

One of the most important aspects of running a business is marketing and sales. Marketing your new business is crucial. In today’s world potential customers have a multitude of options to choose from. Why would a potential customers choose your beauty clinic? How will they know that your business exists? To help you attract your first clients and get your dream off the ground we’ve put together this guide to give you valuable marketing advice.

Table of content

• Personal Branding and Trust
• Who Are You Selling To? – Know Your Target Audience
• Create a Strong Online Presence
• Leverage Social Media
• Try Reaching People Through Influencers
• “Newly launched” Special Offers and Promotions
• Go Local! Network in Your Area
• Host an Event That Brings Value
• Use Email Marketing
• Collect and Spread Reviews
• Get Referral with Incentives
• Join Local Events
• Local Media is the Best Media
• Make the Customer Experience a Competitive Advantage
• Set a Structure for Follow-up and Analysis
• Bonus tip
• Conclusion

1. Personal Branding and Trust

Show that you have the right skills, knowledge and experience needed to provide excellent results and great service. When getting an esthetic treatment whether, it’s Botox, filler injections, or another procedure, potential clients are looking for the best option available to them. You need to permit a feeling of professional expertise to make them trust that you are that option.

How do you do that? Tell your story, both professionally and personally. Showcase your educational background, licenses, diplomas, and achievement to establish yourself as an expert and trusted professional in you field. Don’t miss the personal aspect, present who you are and your motivations in starting you own beauty clinic. What are your values, or uniqueness that sets you apart?

A great tool in building trust is before and after pictures. Images that clearly show the great results of the treatments you offer is a powerful resource in marketing. Making a before and after picture is super easy, here is a free tool to create before and after pictures in mere seconds, and you don’t even have to give your email, no account creation required!

2. Who Are You Selling To? – Know Your Target Audience

Understanding who you are trying to reach with your marketing activities is essential. Identify the demographics and preferences of potential clients. Create buyer personas to visualize your ideal customers, including their age, gender, location, and interests. Trying to reach anyone, and talking to everybody means no one is listening. To help find the audience you are targeting it can also be useful to think about who you are not trying to reach. This can help you narrow down you audience.

3. Create a Strong Online Presence

It almost goes without saying, having a user-friendly website that presents who you are and what you offer is absolute key. A website helps showcases your services, team, and testimonials. Today most people are on their phones so make sure your website is optimized for the mobile screen format.

Make sure Google finds you! Try to optimize your website for search engines. SEO (search engine optimization) is a waste field and if you have the budget getting professional help from an agency is a good idea. SEO makes sure your website is easily found by people who search for you services. Read more about SEO here.

4. Leverage Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool to engage with potential clients and to get them to discover your business. Identify the platforms most used by your target audience, such as Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. It’s better to focus on one or two platforms to not spread out to thin. Social media takes time and requires a lot of efforts.

However, it’s worth it! Social media it’s a great space to share before-and-after pictures, educational content, and client testimonials to demonstrate your expertise and build trust. Engage with followers by responding to comments and messages promptly.

5. Try Reaching People Through Influencers

In social media marketing there are three common concepts: Owned, Earned and Paid. Owned social media is everything you do on your own accounts, Paid social media is paid advertising, Earned social media is when other accounts talk about you. A big part of earned social media is influencer marketing. It has grown the last decade and large influencers live of the revenue they generate from partnerships with different companies.

If you want to use influencers as a marketing tool but lack a big budget reaching out to smaller, and even tiny influencers present in your local space and that are relevant to your target audience can be a good alternative. Everyone that has a following is an influencer to some extent. Try to see if you can find the right fit for you and offer payment or treatments as a renumeration.

6. “Newly launched” Special Offers and Promotions

To get potential clients to try your services, consider offering a special promotion or discounts for new clients. This could be a percentage off their first treatment or a free consultation. Make sure to make your promotion limited time as this creates a sense of urgency. Make sure to collect reviews and before and after pictures from these first customers and to showcase the of the treatments and build your portfolio.

7. Go Local! Network in Your Area

Networking with other businesses and professionals in your area can open opportunities for referrals. Connect with people in the beauty industry: dermatologists, spas and salons. Other business serving your target audience can also be of interest.

Does your potential client go to the gym or maybe there is another connection out there. Ask if you can provide brochures or business cards in these venues that they can share with their clients, in return you can promote their services at your clinic.

8. Host an Event That Brings Value

Organize a small event to bring in your target audience and build a relationship to them. Bring value by offering educational content like a workshop related to skincare, beauty, or other treatments. Inviting potential clients to a fun evening to learn more about the benefits of your offering is a great way to build a connection. This allows you to build relationships and showcase your expertise in a more personal way which can help build trust and credibility.

9. Use Email Marketing

Start building an email list of prospects and clients that you can email with offers and other content that brings them value. Share your beauty tips of the weak for example. Email is a cost efficient and powerful marketing channel.

Promote your newsletter on your website and on social media to drive subscription. Keep in mind that peoples’ inboxes are full of emails and newsletters. Try to stand out and really create something relevant for your audience.

10. Collect and Spread Reviews

Positive reviews of your service and treatments are super important. Ask happy clients to leave reviews on Google, Yelp, or other review platforms. Make sure to respond to reviews, whether positive or negative, to show that you value feedback and are committed to providing great service. Showcase your reviews on your website and share on social media! Many potential customers look to reviews to hear from others what they thought about a product or service. Even less positive reviews can have a good impact if responded to correctly.

11. Get Referral with Incentives

Maybe the best marketing tool is Word-of-mouth. When someone we know tells us about something we are more likely to listen. Get happy clients to refer their friends and family to your beauty clinic by offering referral incentives. This can for example be a discount on a treatment or a gift card for every referral.

12. Join Local Events

Participating in local events is a great way to get your business known in your community. Look for local events, fairs, or beauty expos where you can set up a booth to promote your beauty clinic is well worth the time, effort and potential budget required. This way your able to physically engage with your potential audience. Getting to show you face and connect in real life is very valuable. Distribute brochures, offer free mini-consultations or samples of products.

13. Local Media is the Best Media

Getting exposure in the media can be thought. However, chances are higher with smaller local newspapers, magazines, or radio stations and these media outlets are more relevant to you as they serve the same geographical location as your clinic.

Try to be featured with for example a story about your business or a more personal interview. Keep in mind that it’s good if the content brings value to the media outlet. That’s done by providing value and interest to their audience.

14. Make the Customer Experience a Competitive Advantage

Exceptional customer service can’t be overestimated. When you delight someone, make them feel seen and safe you leave clients with a feeling. As humans the feeling we have is what we remember the strongest and the impact cannot be overlooked. A happy client is much more likely to recommend your services to others and become loyal customers bringing reoccurring revenue. Think about how you would like to be greeted by a business and what has delighted you in the past and try to learn from others.

15. Set a Structure for Follow-up and Analysis

When running a business, it can be easy to get pulled in to the many day-to-day activates required to keep your clinic running. However, setting a side dedicated time for evaluation and reflection is very important. This helps you take a step back and look at what you’re doing.

What works? What doesn’t work? A common rule in business is the 80/20 rule. 20% of activities often bring 80% of the results. Try to analyze what these 20% top deliverables are and focus more on them. In revers try to cut efforts and energy from other areas that are not delivering the desired outcome.

Bonus Tip – Make Online Booking Easy

Once you have your website up and running it’s great to offer your clients the option to reserve an available treatment slot online. It’s standard these days and people expect to have to make minimum effort. As mentioned, service is key and offering online booking is an easy win.

An online booking tool don’t need to be complex and costly for a newly started clinic. Most important is that you can add the treatments and services you offer, the available time slots customers can choose from and who in your team (if you have one) is available. The tool should give you a clear calendar overview so you can easily plan your time and resources. Best of all is that you don’t have to pay for a booking tool! MERIDIQ offers a free booking system especially made for beauty clinics and salons. Try it out and see if it fits your business!

Conclusion

Don’t worry, you got this! Starting your own beauty clinic is brave and bold. You are one of the few people daring to take the steps in following your dream. If you keep your eyes on how to bring value to your clients and dare bring you own personal touch to your business, you are halfway there in succeeding. It will take a lot of hustle in the beginning but trying to keep at least a few of the points we’ve discussed in this article in mind will help you a lot.

The first step is to in becoming amazing at marketing is doing research, by reading this article you’ve already started. Try to prioritize your next actions. It may not be possible to execute on all the points in this article right away, see what the lowest hanging fruit for you that will bring the most value. Good luck on your adventure!