Questions:
What's an appropriate monthly marketing and public relations budget and how much for each?
How do you find a good public relations person? agency?
How and when is the best time to run specials - introductory prices, packages, gift with purchase etc.
What are the most effective advertising venues?
Should there be a sales person in your medspa or should medical professionals be selling through consults?

Amen! Well said doc!! Can we learn to share positve things for those oif us still trying to make our spa work? We need to rally and support each other in a positive light! Just curious, since I am new to this, does anyone have any information on the best search engine optimization for my website? I need to be more aggressive with on-line marketing on a tight budget. I would appreciate any recommendations. Thanks.

09.4.2008 | Amen

Marketing and PR Budget: totally depends on the ROI of anything you've tested. What? You haven't tested? Then how do you know what works? A formula for marketing (that you know works) is a budget at least the amount equal to the "lifetime value" of a new client. In my office it's around $20K -- so I wouldn't blink at spending that on a marketing campaign I knew (through testing) that works. Basic rule: keep the math on your side.

Good PR Agency/Person: Rare. If they pitch their awards then you'll be spending money on them getting awards. I won't surrender marketing to anyone other than myself -- or outsourced to someone who believes what I do and does it better.

Best time for specials: Hallmark Holidays, Federal Holidays, your dog's birthday -- or any other fun excuse.

Most effective advertising venues: Gotta test. Depends on your (hopefully) niche market and what they read/view/listen to. Gotta do your research first and KNOW YOUR PROSPECTIVE CLIENT COLD.

Sales person: all people in your organization should be cross trained to sell, up-sell, and cross-sell.

I agreed with what Dr. Fairfield said from above. Personally, I don't advertise much at all. How do I get clients then??
1) I am very good at doing a few things: thermage, fillers.
2) I charge competitively, e.g. I would throw in free hands or eyes with thermage or I charge a set amount for filler per area regardless of amount of filler and t/u visits.
3) when I see the client for thermage or fillers, I try to get them to go for the other one and also for Fraxel/Portrait Plasma
4) With the above listed 3 items, I usually get more clients thru words-of-mouth.
From what I have heard from other places, the internet is a good source of advertisement. One good way is to treat your own staff and have them talk up the procedures.

W are doing a open house in October with a theme for breast cancer awareness month and also supporting by walking in the 5K (American Cancer Society) the latter part of October. Also for the month of October women that bring in a current mammogram will receive a free service.

Does anyone have any additional ideas for Breast Cancer awareness month (October)

1-combination marketing /pr budject is 10-12 %of collections (all charges such as printing etc must be charged to marketing and not office supplies etc)
2-by refferral-they are all great salesmen!
3-Coupons work best for our clinic-keep switching offers-Botox is branded and draws the most attention-we use it as a semi-loss leader(everybody knows what it is and what it costs)
4-The CLIPPER is the only Media that has consistantly produced a 300% ROI
5-We use a trained aesthetician to sell, but the physician is always brought in to review the proposed tx plan and meet the client.(we believe the client MUST meet the physcian)

Any Clinics/Med Spas doing any type of teeth whitening and if so how is it going. How are your marketing the teeth whitening and has it been a good fit for your practice.

I don't do it but I know of one that does. In general, they did not find it to be such a good investment. Personally, I did try one of them at a trade show I must admit my gums bled and hurt like hell. I got it for free.

I have been open for two years now and tried almost every form of advertising except TV. The only thing that has worked for me is print advertising in local, neighborhood newspapers.

Mass mailing did not work.

Radio was too expensive and suprising poor results.

Glossy image ads in fashion mags - no good.

Yellow Pages - awful

Internet is #1 for me. I would strongly suggest a service like Yodle to do your pay per click advertising. I am also going to get involved with SEO.

Finally, don't forget about your own database of patients. Patients come and go and unless you continue to market to them, they may not come back.

What's frustrating is that I know medspa owners accross the country and different things work in different areas. I know a couple of spa owners who have done Money Mailer or similar things with good results. I wouldn't spend a dime on that crap. Same with radio and direct mail. It's so hard to figure it out. It really is trial and error.

I would like to try something new but don't know what to do. Any suggestions?

09.18 | Matt/Aurora medical Sp

Probably the only advertising tool that more than paid for itself time and again with both my center in St. Paul and my "sister" center in Minneapolis was direct mail pieces to our existing data base. I have heard from other (successful) med spa owners that their monthly or quarterly newsletters were their number one sales tools. I think it is just too expensive to try to market to the "ocean" --- they response rate for radio and majort newspapers, etc. is simply too low. The REAL key is probably kick ass INTERNAL MARKETING which costs almost nothing to implement but is easier to talk about than actually to do well.

Tonight, Wed, January 14, from 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm Eastern, Susan Feng, owner of the Medical Facility in New York will be hosting a Marketing Discussion in the MAPA Chat Room. Everyone is welcome.

http://www.chlasermd.com/dynamicdata/mapa.asp click on "Chat Room"

Medical Aesthetic Practice Association - MAPA
Get you Dollar Bills in by Feb 1.

How to join MAPA: http://www.chlasermd.com/dynamicdata/mapajoin.asp

Come early, you may need to download JAVA to get into the Chat Room.