Loading summary
Transcript28 lines
- [00:00]
Lauren
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Ricky
So today we wanted to talk about. We just got back from our team retreat. We've got a lot of stuff to unpack that we're sharing. We want to roll out to our clients first because we've got some cool key takeaways and action items and kind of a timeline. But we want to talk about conceptually, some of the stuff that we talked about as a team. And one of the exercises that we did on this team retreat is we went back to square one and we just did this, basically a mini focus group. We said if we were going to choose a med spa from scratch, we, we tried to do this in a way that was really like unwinding the fact that, hey, we're in the industry, we're in this day today. But if we were really going here from scratch and we were trying to find a med spa, I'm trying to schedule a Botox appointment for the first time, for example. How am I going to go about discovering and selecting an option? And so I think these foundational elements. We've talked about some of this before, but it's going to be a pretty cool checklist and some extra bells and whistles and nuances and things that we uncovered during this conversation to make sure that you're foundationally set up for success. A lot of times we're talking, talking about ad strategies and tactics that can help generate results in terms of direct response, client acquisition. But when, if we're being honest, when we look at our results across our client portfolio, there's a, a deviation. Right? There's some clients that get better results than others. What are the common themes? I think some of these things tie into that. So this is setting the foundation so that anything else you do marketing wise, is going to be supercharged in terms of the potential result. So the first thing we talked about is branding. And I think this is something that we've probably not talked a ton about in terms of, like, what does that actually mean? We talked about what is developing a brand, but an actual, in terms of actual brand assets, what matters? So where should we be paying attention? I'm going to, I'm going to zoom out, actually, because we talked about, I think in the discovery flowchart, Lauren, people are generally not going to find a med spa initially on Facebook ads unless they're seeing. Or on Facebook unless they're seeing an ad. Right. You're not going to discover just in your organic social media feed your local med spas posts. Like, that's mostly not where that's going to happen. So most of the time you're either seeing an ad somewhere, you've been on the fence thinking about the service, you're seeing an advertisement, or you're performing a search on Google maybe, and now chat GPT. But some sort of. Some sort of a proactive search is probably the step one. In lieu of an ad. Was that kind of what we talked about from your recollection in our notes?
- [02:13]
Lauren
Yep, absolutely.
- [02:15]
Ricky
Okay. So then the second thing we said is if somebody's going to Google, they're looking for a med spa. Again, we're saying in. In lieu of an ad, they're going to Google, they're looking for a med spa, they perform a search, Botox near me, med spas near me. And they're trying to get to the phase of provider selection. They're going to try to figure out, hey, who, who's in the pool of people I'm even going to consider doing business with. We went through the order of operations and what we think people are probably looking at, and pretty high on the top of the list was our GMB, our Google business listing. It's got 90 different names. It's changed so many times. But the Google Business profile, that's your Maps listing, that has the star rating associated with it. I think all of us unanimously said common sense here is that star rating is a key component to the consideration pool. Lauren, do you think, like, if you're looking at a Maps result and you've got a couple businesses in there that are like 5.0, are you differentiating between the 5.0, 4.9 and 4.8? Are you considering this close enough that you would put all of them in your consideration pool?
- [03:12]
Lauren
I think it would be a big challenge based on other factors, too. I don't think I would just solely make the decision on the reviews or the star rating. And I think the other thing that we all kind of talked about that we came to an agreement on was the pictures actually are going to be secondary to where we're going to look next and what we're going to look into next. We're going to talk about reviews a whole bunch here in just a minute in terms of what we're looking at and how we're going to decipher through reviews. But the pictures on your business profile are actually going to be a really big deal too, in terms of if you're getting that next click through or click to your website or read through your reviews. People want to see something, they're excited to go visit. You don't really want to see a little hole in the wall in a nasty shopping center that you don't want to visit. You want to see a beautiful photo of the inside of the practice or maybe even the injector or some of your team photos. Something that makes you excited to want to go to that place. It was funny. All of us girls were talking about like I want to see something cute and pink or something fun and girly like that makes me excited to go do that. So I think yes, reviews of course are going to have a huge differentiator. But with that too, my next look would be what does it look like? Am I interested in it or do I even care to look further?
- [04:26]
Ricky
Yeah, so when we talk about making brand tangible, that was one of the cool discoveries I think we came across that we haven't paid enough a lot of attention to really ever is hey, what are the photos that come up on your Google business listing? Actually after this retreat, I went through our business the med spa magic marketing Google listing and I was like, I've never really thought about this. And there were four or five random photos that were just duplicates, like six versions of the logo that we had all up that we had uploaded on our own. So I actually went through, trimmed it up. We had some new photos taken and we cleaned that up. And so hey, the first impressions matter I think is the key takeaway here. People are going to look at your reviews. I think that if you're a 5, a 5.0 or a 4.9, you're probably kind of in a similar consideration pool. If you're starting to get to 4, 8, 4 7. The reality of the range of review options, let's just think about it this in the med spa space, don't think about it as 1 through 5. Think about it as 4 through 5 is really your actual star rating. If you're at a 4.0, you're basically a 1 as a med spot. I'm going to be completely honest with you. Like that's what. If you have a med spa that's got a 4.0 rating on Google, you have massive reputational problems in terms of your at least your Google business listing that you want to work on cleaning up. If you're at a 4:1, that's the same thing, right? 414243. These are very low star ratings. I would say a mediocre med spa is going to be somewhere in the 4, 6 range. A mediocre med spa, like as you get to 4, 8, 49 now you're getting into like the B tier reputations and the really established, really successful med spas. They're holding a 5.0 or a 4.9 star rating on Google. And I think by all available evidence that's what we see over and over again. Our top performing clients that have the best patient satisfaction ratings, it's reflected in their Google listing being a 4, 9 or higher. So if that's not you, I would focus on that review. Volume matters. We'll talk about reviews like Lauren said in a second. But yeah, pay attention to the photos. Go click through your listing, look what photos show up. You can't control all of them. Some are, some of them are user generated, client generated. But the COVID photo will largely determine what the first photo that appears alongside your listing is. So when you're selecting your photos, make sure you select a good cover photo that puts your best foot forward in terms of your brand, the perception and the vibe that you want to display to your prospective clients. So that's a good one. Lauren, jumping in. Should we, should we talk about reviews a little bit more?
- [06:31]
Lauren
Yeah, let's dive in.
- [06:33]
Ricky
Okay, so, so with reviews, we talked about the range of star ratings. Lauren. I think one of the other things is if you have a negative review, I just talked to somebody last week that they weren't replying to their negative reviews because they didn't want to get into a he said, she said. Now I think, yes, avoid the temptation to get into like a battle and an argument in your review that replies that's not a winning strategy. Keep in mind when you're replying to a review on Google, you're not doing so to win over that prospect. You're doing to get the benefit of the doubt from all future prospects that read that review. And so I think you have to be really, really strategic with how you manage those replies. But don't leave it with no reply because I'm going to explain what happens when you leave it with no reply. People assume that everything that was said in the review is true. If you, if somebody's on a debate stage and somebody makes a point and the other person has no reply whatsoever, the assumption is that whatever the first person said is true. So I would say don't leave them blank. Is my tip number one. Lauren, anything that you see or advise clients in terms of review management.
- [07:28]
Lauren
Yeah, I think a big thing for what we had realized too and what even I do when I'm looking at anything that I'm looking in the business or in the maps pack is. What are the negative reviews? Like, what are you getting bad reviews about? Is it my wait time was slow or it was hot in the office? Is it something dumb? You know, that really nobody matters? Of course those things still matter to experience. But is it, hey, I got botched injections and my face looks crazy. I'd go to the emergency room and is it something crazy like a horror story, or is it something, you know, that you can overcome?
- [08:00]
Ricky
So I think I had my wait time was 15 minutes or something like, like, right.
- [08:04]
Lauren
And it's still. Use that. You know, use that to your advantage and realize, hey, maybe we need to fix our wait time issue. That's something still take into consideration, have a great response on. But if it.
- [08:15]
Ricky
I want to pause on that real quick. I want to pause on that real quick. I think that's so important, Lauren, like what you just said. Take your reviews to heart. Especially if there's ever a common theme. Don't make your instincts to get defensive. And that person's an idiot and they didn't understand and, oh, they're just a, they're, they're just a lunatic. They're crazy. Like, if there's any legitimacy to it, try your best to take it to heart and make sure that you make an adjustment. And hey, is, is there any legitimacy to what that person said? Maybe we should work on our wait times. Maybe that receptionist wasn't that friendly. Maybe we didn't do the best job educating them at the potential downsides in the consult. Maybe we didn't show that we cared enough in the follow up. Like, whatever those things are, I would say make your default to take them to heart. Look internally and try to figure out what you might need to fix. Sorry, Lauren, but I think that was a good, good point and an important point. Yeah.
- [08:56]
Lauren
And I think with that too, think about from a viewer standpoint, like, if I'm reading a review where I see somebody said, oh, the wait time was 15 minutes, it pissed me off, or I was angry, sorry, um, then people want to see the response, say, hey, we realize this concern. We took this to heart. We actually implemented a new process in the office to where every wait time is less than five minutes. Now you'll be straight in the door. So imagine seeing a review and then seeing a response like that to the review where, oh, dang, this practice really cares about people having a great patient experience and how our feedback comes in. Then that's a, that's a negative review. But people aren't going to read that as a negative review. Right. So that's definitely a big thing to keep in mind. If you have those reviews where it's an appointment gone wrong, it happens to even some of the best of us. I think I definitely, Ricky and I talk about this all the time. It is not you wanting to win that battle through the reviews. It doesn't matter if you send back six paragraphs about why your provider was right and this person is wrong. Honestly, we recommend get that patient on the phone, offer them a refund and try to get that review taken down and remedy that situation fully as much as possible. At the end of the day, honestly, a 400 or $500 refund is going to be way more beneficial for your practice than having a review like that stick out on your feed at any point.
- [10:18]
Ricky
Yeah, for sure. Like even if you think it was like a load of crud and you got the raw end of it, like your choices leave a one star review up in perpetuity, where every future prospect now takes that into consideration for their purchase and it influences how many more 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 people from doing business with you in the future. It's probably more than worth, more than worth it to just give that person their 4 or 500 back the vast majority of times. And like Lauren said, try to get them on the phone, try to connect offline, see if you can make things right outside of a battle in the comments. If you're not able to get a hold of somebody and they're just kind of ghosting you, just be careful. Reply in a way that shows that there's another side to the story, but do it tastefully. Right. So somebody's complaining. You can say, I'm so sorry that this was your experience. As noted, we've tried to reach out to you multiple times so that we can address this, but we haven't heard back. We'd love the opportunity to make it right. Right. Even something like that that now shows to every future prospect that you're making an effort I think can be massive.
- [11:14]
Lauren
Yeah, absolutely.
- [11:15]
Ricky
This episode is brought to you by MedSpa Magic Marketing, my agency. We help med spas and aesthetics practices grow with more effective marketing strategies. Strategies. And I know that's a vague phrase. Right, It's a vague claim. So I have an offer for you. I offer this to any new prospects. If you're interested in exploring any of another marketing option, a new agency, or just getting into Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads for the first time, I'd love to show you why we're different what we're doing for clients. And we can do that via a one and a half hour planning session where I'll outline a specific marketing plan and I'll give you all of the blueprints that we would implement if we were to do business together. Now you can take that, use that on your own, hire someone else to help you execute it or work with us. We really don't hold anything back on that strategy call. And I think you'll have a lot of confidence in how you manage your marketing investment moving forward. Understanding some of the nuances that can help you implement more effective marketing strategies for your business. So if you want to do that, you can go to MedSpa Magic Marketing dot com. Cool. Okay, so we talked a little bit about review management there. The next thing. So that's your Google business listing kind of in a nutshell.
- [12:19]
Lauren
Last thing I want to add that I think is a big thing that people look over too is there are a lot of features now where I can respond to your reviews for you. And I think that is one of the use cases where AI has been a little bit abused and it isn't necessarily being used well because a lot of times those AI reviews are like, hey Kristen, thanks so much for noting. You had a great Botox experience. Like it just is regurgitating exactly what they said and it just sounds so impersonal. And I think it sounds so much better when our owner or somebody really just gets back in there and responds, hey, thanks so much for joining us. Like, we had a great experience with you too, X, Y and Z. So make those as personalized as possible. You can still use AI to your advantage and have it help you, but don't just spit out those auto responses. I think that's a place where people honestly miss too often.
- [13:07]
Ricky
Yeah, for sure. I like that.
- [13:09]
Lauren
Again.
- [13:09]
Ricky
Yeah, make sure you respond to the positive reviews to write a little nice note. Yeah, cool. Okay, the next things that I think we don't talk a lot about because I think this is a space that can feel very commoditized. It really can. And what I've always said is, hey, we're all selling Botox at the end of the day. So it's the, the, the incremental increase in the provider quality. Hey, we're just doing a little better. We're a little bit more careful. Our precautions, our strategy, our philosophy, our, the subtlety at which we provide results. They look natural but they, but they last. Right. And there's not a downside to, to it there's less chance of side effects. Like you can make that pitch. But I've always thought about this as it's, it is very commoditized and it is. But I do think pricing and positioning is an important thing to analyze. And I think this is a case of not fitting a square peg into a round hole. So if you're, if you're coming in with a 4.5 star rating on Google, an iffy reputation and not the best building in town, you're not going to be able to make a convincing pitch that you're the town's luxury med spa that has the highest price point on Botox. So be realistic with what you're trying to accomplish where you currently stand in the market. If you're new, you can try to be clear on this upfront and adjust as time goes on. But I do think you want clarity in your pricing and positioning. We have clients that are massively successful and they basically. The easiest formula, let's just put this on the table. The easiest formula is to maintain a great reputation and low price points. That's the easiest formula, obviously. So in lieu of anything else, that's the default rate. But if we want to maintain premium price points, how can we actually set ourselves up so that we are really positioned as a premium provider? And it's not something we're actually saying. What is it about our experience that sets us apart from other med spas? What is it about the way our providers are trained, the pay scales, the quality of our providers, the medical director, the office environment, the technology? Like, what things are we doing that actually help us justify the luxury positioning? Make sure that you have the goods, but be intentional about your pricing and positioning because even if you're running ads or promotions, you want to figure out what the long term retention strategy is. And you have to be clear on pricing and positioning, I think, to accomplish that. Lauren, anything to add to that?
- [15:08]
Lauren
I think it kind of goes with that. But a little thing that we also discussed pretty heavily is I think there's a different type of client that we're going to get to via different things. Right. So obviously we talk about people who are brand new to med spa services who have never tried a med spa service before, and then people who are the seasoned, you know, I've gotten Botox for the last 15 years kind of person we internally discussed, hey, if I'm looking to get Botox, I'm 25 years old and I need to get my first provider ever. I'm probably going to be a Little bit more hesitant with who I make that decision to go with. One, because I've never done it before, and two, because I'm scared of getting a needle in my face and making a change to the way my face looks. If you're somebody who's been getting Botox for 15 years, it's probably a little bit more and we're off in three months. It doesn't necessarily matter who does it. Those kind of people are probably going to look for the cheaper price point. They might end up sticking with you and love you because you had a great experience and it ended up going really well. But that's where I think kind of positioning yourself to both of those people is going to be really effective in terms of you have a solid price point, you still have a really luxury feel and experience, but you're attracting both types of clients too, not just one versus the other.
- [16:23]
Ricky
Yeah, good points. The other thing we talked about was putting pricing on the website. Controversial topic. There's a book by Marcus Sheridan called they ask, you answer. I think is the name of the book. And we've seen him speak. We attended some stuff with our agency team here. We've spoken at. And one of the things that he is a big proponent of is putting pricing on the website and being transparent about your pricing. I tend to think, especially for med spas, this makes a lot of sense. There's not a ton of explaining to do. I'll be honest, as a marketing agency, I don't want to look like a hypocrite. We don't put a lot of our pricing on the website. But I think part of the challenge for us is when we talk about SEO. If you see a price for SEO from us as an agency and a price for another agency, you're going to assume they're a relatively apples to apples comparison. They're probably not like, we're getting our clients featured in GQ and Forbes and somebody else might be building random directory links from like an overseas site that are completely irrelevant. Like, it can be a completely different thing in kind. If it's really, really complicated to explain differences in pricing, I understand keeping it offline, but if it's subtle and you could do it in a condensed format. I do think there's a benefit to putting your pricing on your website. If your pricing is. If your pricing is low, great. You've just added an advantage. Right? My pricing is low. Like, why would I not tell people about it? It's a reason that people would choose to do business with me. Price is a consideration. If my pricing is high, it's going to give me an opportunity to get ahead of that and to make the pitch as to why my pricing is high. Hey, like some of you, if you've got like a medical doctor on staff or owner injector, those people are charging more per unit than your junior team members. There's a reason why, right? They've got more experience, they're more sought after, they've got a more nuanced approach, they've got a longer track record, which means less risk of downside, better, more natural results. Maybe you get a little bit more lifespan out of it because the way that it's implemented. So if you do that, make sure that you explain the why. So if you have a premium price point, just explain the why like, hey, we are the premium provider, here's why. And then make sure that you're tying that to an outcome that's tangible for the prospect, not vanity things. So talk to a lot of people, they want to lean on credentials. Credentials are not convincing. You have to explain the difference in outcome that someone will receive potentially by paying a premium for the the service or the product. But pricing on the website, definitely something to consider. Target Personas and getting clarity in your target Personas. I think you can do this without excluding certain groups. We've talked about this on a previous episode. If you've got a certain vibe and feel you probably have in, in your office and among your team, you're probably going to attract a certain client roster, right? And if that's different, like the age ranges of your providers are going to directly correlate to the age ranges of your patients. So just be kind of clear with like making sure that you're hiring your team, structure your branding and the information that you're putting out in the world is consistent with the client that you're trying to attain. And again, you'll still get clients from other, other target Personas. It's not that you're going to do that at their exclusion but hey, have maybe have a focus in a specific angle. Also talked to people recently that. So I think there's two ways to go about this. Lauren, I'll be interested in your thoughts. We've always talked about, hey, making sure there's kind of continuity amongst providers. There's a similar look, feel, vibe, kind of like age range. Like that's one strategy. The other is to really like let every provider be very different and unique so you have someone who resonates with each different target Persona. I think you can go either of those two angles, but just kind of be clear in what you're doing and what you're trying to accomplish. Thoughts on that?
- [19:40]
Lauren
I think from a couple of my clients that I've talked to specifically about this, I think it's having continuity in your approach and your like, theme goal as a business so that you know, anybody can see anybody and still have a great result. But having people whose favorite thing or specialty is in a different area is cool. So like having a younger provider who is, hey, my specialty is mini lips and mini Botox for younger people who might just be entering the space. Or my Persona is I love treating people who need a full facelift just with Botox and doing things like that. So I think attracting both of those clientele is totally possible. I think there's just a very nuanced approach about how to go about it. And I think with that too, a big thing to keep in mind is what your space looks like. So I think that is a huge one that I've heard a lot of people talking about lately, even my clients, to where they say, you know, I've been thinking about it. My practice really looks like a medical facility. You know, it's kind of whites blues. It's very medical looking. And we have a lot of older people. We don't get many 25 year olds in here or 30 year olds in here that we want to see. Then I have the total opposite spectrum where it's, hey, my walls are hot pink and I have LED signs all over the walls. And I don't get a whole lot of high spenders. I get a lot of people who are, you know, 40 and under. So maybe that's kind of having a balance too of what your space looks like and what you're attracting to is also a really big part of that. Your providers, but the look of your office and feel too.
- [21:09]
Ricky
Yeah, for sure, 100% agree with that. And again, I think the other thing to layer into that is, hey, tell the story. Like, be show some personality in your marketing and in the content you're putting on the world, whether it's social media, the website, because your personality differentiates you, right? Where every person is unique. So in a large sense, one of your things that's going to be attractive to people is they're just going to, if they like you, they're going to want to do business with you. So don't be afraid to show some personality. Last couple things we talked about.
- [21:33]
Lauren
Sorry, I was just gonna say before and after zoom, are really good place to do that too. If people are looking at your page and it's all full facial balancing, they're gonna get a different approach than oh, this person's really great at mini lips. They're really great at full facial balancing. They're really great at filler thread lifts. Like have a good spread of services in your before and afters and Personas, people, ages, diversity is different, ethnicities, things like that too. If those are the things you treat hey there.
- [22:01]
Ricky
Wanted to briefly interrupt the episode to make a quick ask. If you're a podcast listener, it would mean the world to us if you leave a review for the podcast, whether that's on itunes or Spotify. It's something I hadn't really remembered or thought of asking for, but it does help us show up more frequently so that we can reach more people with the information that we're providing. So it mean the world to us if you'd leave a review on itunes or Spotify. If you're listening on audio, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit the subscribe button so you're in the loop for future videos and you don't miss any of the content that we're putting out. Yeah, before and after is very important. That was the next thing we talked about. People are going to want to see your work, I think. Bonus if you can add a voiceover to like a little video voiceover of the before and after, explain what you did, why you did it. Those little things can be really interesting to prospects as you talk through your process about why you perform treatment the way that you did and why you're excited about the outcome. Those help demonstrate expertise and build that know like and trust bucket. And then the last thing we talked about, which is social media. We're going to do a whole nother episode on this again soon on some social media stuff. But in the interim, one of the important takeaways was the organic social media is probably not your discovery engine. Ads can be, which we've talked about a lot on this podcast. But again, we're going to assume most people that stumble across your business and consider visiting or booking with your med spa. They're going to go at least scroll your social media accounts, Instagram at the top of the list. So make sure that what they see there is you're putting your best foot forward in terms of like we talked about branding, imagery, demonstrating expertise, building the know like and trust bucket, showing some personality. So think about it as a snapshot. If I were to go to your Instagram today and just look at the three pin posts and the most recent six to ten posts. Am I seeing things that are going to inherently get me excited about choosing to do business with you and maybe having some sort of a check in on like, what is the, what does the recent feed look like? I think one of the things we talked about, hey, yeah, it's okay to have some fun every once in a while, but I don't know that like dancing to the latest viral TikTok trend is the thing that's going to convince and convert a prospect. So be a little more intentional about treating social media as a way to get people over the finish line that are thinking about doing business with you. Demonstrate some personality, demonstrate expertise, build deposits in that no like and trust bucket. Anything to add that to that, Lauren?
- [24:06]
Lauren
Another big thing we talked about with that too is it's not necessarily the frequency of your posts. Right. But it's more about the recency and what is there in the meat of the content. Like Ricky said, it's really Easy to fill 3 posts a day if you're just dancing to random things or posting random pictures that have no relevance or bearing on anything. I would rather come to an Instagram page that has been updated as of two days ago with a really great educational video of the provider or a really great before and after picture rather than somebody who posted 20 minutes ago dancing to something. I think that's a big part is keep it up to date, keep it relevant. We don't want to go look at an Instagram where the last post was six months ago or a year ago either, because then we're like, what happened to this business? Right. So all those things kind of playing together. But it doesn't need to be a million posts every so often as much as it is up to date and, you know, relevant.
- [25:01]
Ricky
Yeah, that's awesome. So, so those were some of our takeaways from our team retreat. It was figuring out, hey, how do we make branding more tangible? How do we make sure that our clients and your business how are you putting your best foot forward so that when people do stumble across you when they're in the point of discovery and consideration that you're as attractive of an option as possible, hopefully that gives you some ideas, some things to revisit to establish a better, more clear brand for your med spa. Thanks and we'll see you on the next one.