Marketing your skin clinic business online can be a hugely challenging, yet hugely rewarding activity and power new business enquiries. With strict regulation, new procedures and treatments launching all the time and widely varying public opinions shared on social media, it is essential that your business takes a strategic approach.
We’ve put together our expert top tips on how to devise a marketing strategy to get the best results, and not fall foul of the country’s strict advertising standards.
As specialist marketers in the beauty clinic industry, we know that a good website always starts with great SEO.
SEO helps to bring organic (free) traffic to your website by using researched keywords which will be picked up by the search engines – the idea is for it to be displayed at the top of the first page of results, directing more people to your website. Keyword research is the best place to start when planning your content, both on your website as well as on social media.
Keyword Research
Begin your keyword research by thinking of your perfect customer – what treatment or product do you want them to purchase? What would you search for if you were looking for this service? This is a good benchmark as to what keywords will work for your beauty salon.
Once you have this list, you can look deeper to see how many users actually search for those keywords each month, using SEO keyword tools such as Keyword Planner or SEMRush. These will tell you the highest searched for words and phrases each month, enabling you to decide which ones to target.
Content
Now you have your condensed list of keywords, you can plan great content around it. Ensure that you sell sell sell your service to help with conversion rates, so think about what makes your skin clinic better than your competitors, and what the benefits of your services are.
Ensure your copy includes informative descriptions of your products and services, as they will help convince the user to make an enquiry with you. The more information you give the user, the more likely they are to convert. And always include a call to action – such as a ‘Book here’ button – to help aid this.
Offers and discounts are another way to quickly grab the attention of the users on your site because everyone loves saving money, especially if the user is actively looking for a specific treatment or product.
Be aware!
There is strict legislation around marketing in the beauty industry. There are certain terms and images which cannot be used to promote your services, such as promoting Botox or POMs (prescription-only medicines). Make sure that you understand what these are to ensure that you don’t get a fine! Read the legislation from the ASA here.
Now that you have great content on your website, you need to make sure your technical SEO is up to scratch.
Images
Ensure that all your images are optimised to increase website speed. Reduce the file size as much as you can and make sure the dimensions of the images are correct to fit.
Website speed!
No one likes a slow website, and it will increase your bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of users who arrived onto your website and bounced away, without interacting with it. To be certain, run your website through a speed checker to make sure that it is in the green and nice and quick!
Backlinks
Backlinks are vital for domain authority. You need high-quality links from high domain authority websites to show Google that your website has got good quality content, and this will help you fly up the rankings. Think of them as reviews, you want as many legitimate reviews (links) as possible to show Google how great your website is. Write good quality blogs to encourage other websites to link back to you, as this is the easiest way to get backlinks quickly.
SEO always needs to be reviewed and updated to keep you ahead of the curve and stay competitive. Keywords, optimisation and content need to be constantly reviewed to ensure you are appearing high up in the search results to increase conversions and quality traffic.
Whilst having organic (free) traffic is brilliant, there are plenty of benefits of using paid ads to get relevant users to your website. Paid ads appear in search engine results, websites, email, videos maps and apps (click here for a short guide by Google). Paid ads also allow you to advertise above the organic listings on search engine results pages.
Where should your ads appear?
Since Google is the driving force of search engine marketing, your first step should be to create a Google Ads account. From here you can create a range of paid campaigns. Whilst it can be useful to test various ad campaigns, a good starting place is Google Search Ads. This is because you can target users searching for terms relevant to your product/services. For example, it’s possible to target terms such as “hair removal services Hertfordshire” so that your ads appear when someone searches for this term.
Keyword Research
Just like your SEO campaign, your PPC campaign should start with keyword research. The process is similar, using tools such as Keyword Planner and SEMrush to find the terms that are relevant to your business.
One major factor to consider here is that each keyword has an average cost-per-click (CPC). This is the predicted price you will pay for a click. What this price is will vary by search term, so use the data in your research as a guide to understanding how expensive it will be to target certain terms.
Campaign Set-up
Now for the nitty-gritty. Within your Google Ads account you’ll start by creating a campaign. Google will guide you through the process, suggesting certain campaign settings, such as bidding strategies, by your goals for the campaign. If you have multiple goals for your ad campaigns, impressions (awareness) and conversions (sales) for example, it makes sense to split them into different campaigns. It’s also possible to set daily campaign budgets to help you manage your spend. Whilst daily spend may vary slightly depending on demand, your budget will act as the benchmark.
Ad Groups
Ad groups, as it says on the tin, contain ads, and you can have multiple ad groups in a campaign. Associated with each ad group is a list of keywords you have chosen to target for any particular group. There are various options when it comes to your keyword targeting. It’s possible to be very specific regarding what search queries your ad shows for (exact match), very broad (broad match) and somewhere in between (phrase match/broad match modifier). Learn more about match types here.
For example, you may have an ad group called “facial treatments” that contains ads related to facial treatments and list of keywords relating to, you guessed it, facial treatment. If you were also selling body treatments, you would follow the same process for a separate ad group. Keeping ad groups specific and separate makes your account more efficient and controlled which helps to drive down costs and increase clicks/conversions.
Ad Creation
Create your headlines and descriptions, ensuring that your message is clear and persuasive, as well as including the keywords which you have researched. It’s helpful to do this because, as you’re paying when people click on your ads (for most bidding strategies), you need to ensure that customer intent is exactly what you’re looking for before they land on your website. Getting it wrong can waste you a lot of money!
Once you’ve completed this final step you’re ready to switch the campaign on!
Beware…
Similarly to SEO, there are certain things which cannot be advertised on Google Ads. There are certain search terms and prohibited content which will get disapproved or removed by Google, meaning your ads will not show in the search results. An example in the beauty industry would be terms such as “Platelet Rich Plasma” and prescription-only medicines.
Read all of Google’s policies in the healthcare and medicines industry here.
When it comes to marketing your skin clinic or beauty business on social media, you need to choose platforms that work best for your industry. This industry relies on trust, credibility and evidence. One platform that would tick all of these boxes would be Facebook. Here you can share videos and pictures of your work, include fun posts about your team, and collect positive recommendations from past clients. You can also create events on Facebook which could be useful for discount promotions or in-store offers. List your services and fill in your ‘About’ section to give the most up-to-date contact details and opening times for your business. You can even set up Facebook advertising and target your local area to draw in new customers.
Don’t forget to get creative! Make sure your posts include either a video, picture or graphic so that you really hit the social media marketing aesthetics.
Research what your competitors are doing on social media and take a look at what hashtags they are using in their posts. Create a list of the best hashtags and include them in your posts. These will help users who are searching for the hashtags find your posts at the top of the list. Remember to do some outreach marketing – by this we mean like other pages as your business page and get vocal by commenting on their posts. The more your business is seen to like and comment on social media, the more other users will take notice and want to click on your page.
Another platform that works well for skin clinic businesses is Instagram. This is because the platform relies on visuals in the form of photos, videos and gifs. You can build a following on Instagram by researching the most effective hashtags that garner the most impressions and adding them to your content. Take a look at what other bigger companies use and click on the hashtag. You will now see a feed of content that has used this hashtag, and how many impressions (times people have viewed it) it has. You can also very easily post to your stories on Instagram, which appears at the top of the feed on the homepage. A story can be an image,video or can even be a live video. This will feature in the stories feed for 24 hours, before it self-deletes. Upload videos that walk a user through the process of your services and this will help demystify any queries or curiosities someone may have at the time. This will also build trust with your audience, as they will be able to see the real people behind the brand.
You can also offer discounts and free treatments through competition posts, by asking users to like, comment and follow for the chance of winning. This is a great way to increase engagements and your following. Follow other small businesses in your local area, and get chatty on direct message! Introduce yourself and your business, and see if you can set up any local links that will help you drum up business. Just like with Facebook, remember to make your content relatable, creative and vibrant!
Trust is hugely important when it comes to the beauty industry, so make sure you are open and honest when writing your website content or blogs.
Adding regular new content to your website – usually in the form of blogs – will help increase your SEO rankings, as well as position you (and your brand) as a ‘thought leader’. By proving that you are capable, knowledgeable and experienced, you will position yourself as trustworthy and are more likely to get people to book treatments.
Content topics
Don’t make your blogs overly salesy – that’s off-putting to potential clients. Instead, give them industry information and news, comment on related topics that are in the press or trending on social media – if it is a negative story about a treatment gone wrong, tell your readers how this might have come about and reassure them about your own consultation and treatment process.
Use the keywords to help you come up with topics to write about. If you’re trying to push facial treatments, for instance, think of how you can write readable copy around it, e.g. ‘5 top facial treatments to get you ready for summer’.
You can also write about news relating to your own clinic, e.g. new treatments, your staff doing something to raise money for charity, events etc.
Like SEO, PPC and social media, use good quality links to other websites which will not only show that you have done your research, but will also score more highly on the search engine searches. So if you’re talking about cold sores, link to a relevant page on the NHS website which will be seen as an authority, or to reputable news organisations, such as newswires, broadsheet newspapers and media outlets. NB Wikipedia does not count as a reputable source as it can be edited by anyone at any time.
When you’ve posted your new blog content, then you can shout about it on your social media platforms, encouraging people to link through to your website, and hopefully be able to satisfy themselves so that they will book a treatment at your clinic.
Driving people to your website is a multi-layered process but, by following the processes carefully, it can yield great results in terms of website visits, fans and new customers.
In conclusion, unlocking the full potential of your skin clinic business demands a strategic and comprehensive approach to digital marketing. At Cariad Marketing, we stand ready to be your partner in success. Our professional SEO services, pay-per-click management, social media expertise, and web design prowess are all geared to propel your clinic to new heights. What sets us apart is not just our excellence but also our commitment to affordability with tailored SEO packages. Don’t let your clinic be a hidden gem; let it shine in the digital space. Are you ready to embark on this journey with us? Reach out to Cariad Marketing today, and let’s elevate your skin clinic business together.
