Medspa Digital Marketing: The Complete Guide

Utilizing Digital Strategies for Your MedSpa

Today more than ever, businesses across all industries must market themselves. It’s crucial for drawing in leads, converting them to customers, making revenue, and driving repeat business. What if you’re a medical spa or medspa? How would you achieve the above goals and more?

As medspas have grown across the country, so too has the rise of medspa digital marketing. This form of marketing encompasses web design, content and email marketing, automation, PPC, SEO, social media, influencers, and more to achieve the various goals of medspa owners.

In this informative, detailed guide, we will delve deep into medspa digital marketing. First, we’ll share a clear definition. Then, we’ll go even further into the many facets of medspa digital marketing we mentioned above, explaining how to use these to further your business.

As promised, let’s begin by talking more about what medspa digital marketing is.

We’ll start with medspas themselves. Medical spas or medspas are treatment facilities that offer a variety of services, including:

• • Medical-grade peels and facials
• • Acne therapy
• • Laser hair removal
• • Sun damage repair
• • Facial fillers
• • Botox

According to a 2017 report in Modern Aesthetics, there were 4,200 United States medspa facilities that grossed $945,000 in 2016. That led to a revenue increase of 6.9 percent from the year prior.

Data from this year in Global Newswire states that, by the time we get to 2026, the global revenue for medspas should grow to $34 billion. Parts of the world besides the US that have really embraced medspas are Thailand, China, and India.

Okay, so that’s the medspa part of medspa digital marketing. Like we talked about in the intro, companies of all types must market themselves to bring in new customers, retain their current ones, and continue to earn revenue. Considering that the data from 2017 says there are more than 4,000 medspas in the US and the industry has only grown since then, we can reasonably assume more 4,200 medspa facilities exist in 2019.

The competition is fierce then. Even if those other 4,000 medspa facilities aren’t in your neck of the woods, you can’t get lax. You need an engaging marketing campaign that will check off your company’s goals one by one. From lead generation to a goal as simple as increasing revenue, digital marketing can help.

How? We’re glad you asked.

The medspa world is all about improving the appearance of its clientele, so it makes sense to have a website that’s very visual. From showing pictures of the services you offer to before and after photos, these types of images could convince someone who finds you website to make a consultation.

Besides just images, your medspa can’t go without responsive web design.

What does this mean? Well, for one, responsive websites are optimized for mobile use. If your customer looks at your site on their phone and then later on their tablet, all the elements line up correctly. Nothing, including your beautiful images and your drop-down menu, looks misaligned, squished, or cut off.

To achieve this, responsive web design encompasses CSS media queries, layouts, and grids. All have flexibility to show the website on the device the customer is using.

Stumped on how you can even begin to design a medspa site that’s appealing and responsive? Go to our blog, where we have a stellar article on 10 medspa websites from real companies.

That ought to give you a jolt of inspiration. We also wrote a great post about 12 strategies for earning website traffic in the medspa world. Make sure you check it out.

While having a website is a fantastic starting point for your medspa digital marketing campaign, you will need more than that.

Next, you need to pay attention to your content marketing. This means of marketing is all about your blog. If you’re not already doing so, you need to begin filling your blog with phenomenal content.

We recommend you start with an editorial calendar. Here, you can plan how often you’ll publish (twice a week, once every other week) as well as what you’ll publish.

Okay, but how do you decide what goes into your blog, anyway?

Well, your team can brainstorm. You may have a list of articles that came easily to you, but eventually the well runs dry. Keyword research will also help, especially if your blog isn’t driving the kind of traffic you want.

Through keyword research, you can see what people search for in your industry. You can then use these relevant keywords and shape an article around them. The articles should get more traffic.

Keyword research is a major element of search engine optimization or SEO.

In case you’re not familiar, SEO can determine how visible your website is, namely on which page of search engine results it shows up on. Every company wants to be the first result when a person searches for a certain query. How to do that though seems to change every few months as Google algorithms shift.

If you want to focus on methods that actually work, we’ve got you covered. Here are some ways to boost your SEO today:

• • Make sure your snippets or important paragraphs are optimized, especially since carousels, knowledge graphs, recipes, and answer boxes have taken over.
• • Use on-page optimization, such as reworking your title tags and meta descriptions or rewriting content so it’s better optimized.
• • Don’t forget your structured data, or code designed for search engines. This code, which goes on your website, tells search engines where and how to display search results.
• • Remember that you’re marketing to people at the end of the day, so keep user intent in mind. Don’t make it hard to find information on your site. Also, go beyond basic text and share audio, video, images, or infographics if they’re a better way to present the information.

Besides SEO, you also want to pay attention to search engine marketing or SEM for your medspa business.

While SEO relates to the organic traffic you can drive through people finding you on search engines, SEM is about paid traffic. Pay-per-click or PPC advertising allows your site to appear on search engines by paying by the click (hence the name).

To succeed with PPC and SEM, you should start with a competitive analysis.

This will tell you what’s already out there so you know what to do differently to stand out. You also may want to consider targeting by geographical data with your PPC ads. Having a keyword list will keep you from spending too much money on advertising as well, a must for growing medspas.

Today’s consumers expect you to have a social media presence, but more than that, an active one.

While we have video marketing as its own separate section, you should have an account on YouTube. Other social channels to focus on are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and even Snapchat.

The visual platforms should prove especially easy to fill with content. As we said earlier in this guide, medspa is a very visual industry. With your clients’ permission, you can post photos and videos of your procedures in action as well as the above-mentioned before and after photos.

Social media marketing and content marketing often intersect. You can take the content you’ve written for your blog and promote it to your social media audience.

By encouraging them to share, you can earn even more traffic to your blog and your website.

Don’t be afraid to share content that other people have made, too.

The point of a social media feed is to provide value, and that doesn’t all have to come from you. Think of your social feed like a TV channel. If you’re showing commercial after commercial after commercial (selling, selling, selling), your audience will tune out. You need to give them varied, interesting content to keep them coming back.

If you have relevant videos, images, or articles to share that your customers would appreciate, please post them. Yes, even if they’re from other people. Just make sure to give the proper credit.

Speaking of social media, if you’ve ever scrolled through Facebook or Instagram, then surely you’ve seen an influencer in action. This person has a huge following and an equally large audience. If they promote a product or service, their audience will listen and probably even buy.

Influencer marketing, while not always free, can be a great way to put your medspa on the map.

Rather than reaching out to the big fish in the pond, like your Kim Kardashians of the world, make sure there’s a fit between the influencer and your medspa. Otherwise, the whole arrangement will seem inauthentic, which could lead to lost sales for you.

If you can’t find an appropriate influencer or you don’t want to go that route, you can always use affiliate marketing.

This is sort of like a referral program. You have an affiliate who gushes about your medspa. The affiliate, like an influencer, has a large audience of eager buyers. Then, each time someone schedules an appointment, that affiliate gets some of the money.

Let’s circle back around to video marketing. The viral video has been a phenomenon for more than a decade now (yes, it’s hard to believe YouTube has been around since the mid-2000s) and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Even if you don’t make the next viral video, you still want to use video marketing to grow your medspa. According to a 2019 infographic from Shopify partner Oberlo, many consumers, 54 percent, wish their favorite businesses would make more videos. The infographic also mentions that, of all content on social media, videos are the average consumer’s top pick.

Further, by using video marketing, you could earn more annual qualified leads (up to 66 percent) and boost the amount of time your audience spends on your site (by 88 percent). Sounds good to us!

No digital marketing campaign is complete without email marketing, including yours.

Through opt-in forms, you convince your blog readers and website visitors to share their contact information with you. In exchange, you might offer them a discount for a medspa service or something similar.

Once these customers opt in, they become part of your email list. You’d then send them a welcome email to get the ball rolling. Through targeted, personalized emails, you can engage and nurture with your new subscribers. In building that professional relationship, you might convince them to come to your medspa.

Now, what kind of content do you share in your email list? It depends.

You could write a newsletter, share blog posts, email your audience when you introduce a new product/service, and of course, reach out when you’re having a sale or offering a discount.

You’re a busy person, and if it sounds like the above marketing tasks are all over your head, don’t distress.

Marketing automation allows for a more hands-off approach while still getting things done. For instance, you can use email marketing automation to schedule when you send out your daily or weekly emails. You don’t have to be up around the clock, sitting at your computer to hit the send button manually anymore.

Speaking of email marketing, drip campaigns can also be automated. With these, you send out message drips, often pre-written, to convert leads and boost sales.

Customer relationship management or CRM software can automate areas like customer support, deal management, phone calls, lead management, lead nurturing, and so much more. If it has to do with your customers and you have too many to manage yourself, then you need to buy a CRM program ASAP.

Your customers will never fall through the cracks again.

Last but certainly not least, your medspa should consider investing in display ads.

These advertisement banners may include audio, video, flash elements, images, and/or text. From AdSense to social media platforms like YouTube and more, paid ads could fluff up your website traffic and net you a few more appointments at your medspa.

You may also consider remarketing ads.

Remarketing is one such Google Ads service that acts as a second chance to go back and convert site visitors or leads. These more targeted ads push your brand awareness to the forefront and hopefully convert these leads into customers once and for all.

Getting Started with Medspa Digital Marketing

Medical spas or medspas are a growing industry that could rake in $34 billion by 2026.

As such a major field, the digital marketing measures medspa companies take have become more pronounced. With SEO to SEM, social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, content marketing, influencer marketing, and responsive web design, medspas have a lot to focus on. In doing so, they can drive results like more conversions and higher sales, making every step of the way worth it.