You know that your business must have an online marketing strategy. But with all the spa marketing ideas out there how do you determine which ones to prioritize for your med spa?
Finding the ones that are the best fit for you depends on what stage your business is in. Other factors that should drive which ones to use include your individual preferences, goals, and service offerings.
We’ve put together this short guide to the most popular marketing methods used by medical spa businesses. You can use it to help you choose which ones to focus on both near and far-term.
Strategy #1 – SEO
The world of SEO is so complex, it’s often split it into 2 categories – “on-page” and “off-page”.
On-Page
On-page SEO includes all the things you can do to your website pages that will get search engines to rank it higher in the SERPs.
These include:
- An organized URL for each page of your site.
- Title tags, meta descriptions, and alt image tags on each page that follow best practices.
- Keyword research
- The right heading/subheading structure for each page.
- Quick-loading and mobile responsive pages.
- High-quality copy on all your pages and blog posts (if you have a blog on your site).
- Internal links – use these to make it easier for users and the search engines to explore your site.
If you do each of these items correctly for each page on your site, you won’t need to spend much time on them later. Google Search Console and SEMrush each have a free version to help you get your on-page SEO accomplished.
Off-Page
As you may have guessed, off-page SEO strategies include things you’re doing “off” your site to increase traffic to your site. Some of these include:
- Guest blogging on sites related to your industry. This can “earn” your site backlinks (a link that’s on their site but links back to yours). The more backlinks you earn, the more search engines recognize your site as an authority.
- Social Media. This includes sharing your own content and engaging with your audience on your social media channels. You can direct people to your site, and your audience will be more likely to share your content on their own social media sites.
- Ratings and Reviews
- Brand Mentions
- Local SEO
Which One to Prioritize
If your business is new, you’ll want to prioritize on-page SEO. These are things you can work with your developer to do. Once done correctly, most of them don’t take too much updating.
You’ll want to put copy that is useful and relevant to your target audience on the top of your “on-page SEO” list. If you do everything else right, but don’t have the right copy that converts, you won’t get the results you’re looking for.
There is one part of on-page SEO that takes longer to get results (increased organic traffic) – content marketing (blogs or articles that you regularly publish on your site). This may not be something you want to invest much time and money into at first. It takes 3-6 months to see some small results, and well over 6 months to see substantial results.
Other Factors
There are a few other things to consider when deciding whether to go “all in” with SEO, including:
- Your business’ size. SEO is great for small to medium sized businesses that don’t want to spend a huge sum of money every month; think between $400-1800 a month depending on the type of business, number of keywords, etc.
- The state of your current website. On-page SEO content marketing and off-page SEO is ideal for businesses that already have a great website. For SEO to be successful, your website must be the solid foundation. If you’ve already optimized your pages and have great copy, it’s time to consider adding in content marketing and off-page SEO tactics.
- Businesses ready to invest time. Since it takes at least 3 months before you start seeing modest results with your content marketing, you may need to consider other, more short-term options once you’ve got your website where you want it. Plan on at least a year to get the most out of it.
Keep in mind, rankings and traffic don’t automatically mean more business. Again, it’s crucial to have your website pages ready to convert the traffic you’re attracting. SEO is a great start, but there are certainly other things you can do to convert traffic into leads and leads into repeat clients.
Strategy #2: Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
If you just need to get some traffic to your new or redesigned website, PPC is often a great choice.
PPC is typically separate from your SEO efforts.
You or an agency can perform keyword research, build a campaign, set a budget, hook up a credit card, and in a few hours, you can start running ads. If your ads are performing, you may even find yourself on the first page of Google (or at the very top) within a few days.
Just like SEO, it’s best to have a website that’s ready to convert. If you don’t quite have the budget to invest in all the optimization of pages and content strategy, PPC can work great to get some leads in for a smaller cost.
If you run your ads through an agency, most will charge a set-up fee and percentage of your AdWords spend every month. So, if you want to be in control of your budget and you don’t want to wait months to see results, PPC can be a great choice.
At the Med Spa Marketing Method, we typically use a unique combination of SEO and PPC. We’ve had a lot of success with figuring out just the right way to combine the two strategies for each individual client. Since SEO takes time and can be done in stages, we set up a PPC campaign to begin. As rankings increase and you get to the first page and possibly #1 rankings, you can decrease the amount of money you’re spending with PPC because you’ll have top rankings organically.
Depending on your budget and goals, we can also continue with your PPC ads, get a first page organic listing, and get listed in the maps. Then you’ll take up a BUNCH of space on the first page!
Strategy #3: Email Marketing
There are quite a few “marketing automation” tools and strategies. If you want to learn more about them, check out this in-depth article by Neil Patel. The best marketing automation for a med spa to start with is email marketing.
Email or drip campaigns are a great way to grow revenue for businesses of all sizes. There are many tools (from free all the way up to expensive). You can spend as little as $40/month on a tool like Constant Contact (low end), $250/month on SharpSpring (middle), or get a full-on marketing suite like HubSpot for $750/month.
When selecting the right email tool for your med spa marketing, keep in mind that you get what you pay for. Spending $40 a month on Constant Contact isn’t going to give you the same capabilities as spending $750 on HubSpot. Do some research before you sign up with anyone and make sure it’s the right fit for where your business is currently.
Email marketing is great for businesses of all sizes (or budgets) but it’s important to consider the size of your email list and whether you are continuing to grow that list. If you only have 20 contacts and aren’t regularly pursuing email addresses on your website, then email marketing may not work for you.
Email marketing is best for businesses that have a large email list and that don’t want to spend a ton of money; think $100-600 a month depending on how much you’re willing to do yourself vs. hiring an agency. If you already have the list and are willing to write the emails, you can get started right now for a few bucks.
If you want to work with an agency, they can help you identify your goals, put a plan together, and have the emails written by a copywriter who can optimize them for conversion. Since the average ROI of $44 per $1 spent, working with an agency is still very affordable!
Strategy #4: Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing (IM) is the granddaddy of all online marketing strategies. Inbound includes landing pages, calls to action, web design, analytics, split testing, forms, buyer personas, conversion rates, emails, workflows, eBooks and blogging, and more.
Think of it as SEO on steroids, or the Alex Rodriquez of online marketing. Essentially, SEO is going to get people to your website; IM is going to turn them into leads, nurture them through a funnel, and create revenue for your business.
Quite honestly, a lot of what’s written about in this post can be done in-house, but for inbound marketing to work you need a great team. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done in-house, but your marketing department had better be prepared to write, design, and analyze – a lot. You’ll need website copy, CTAs, eBooks, landing pages, blogs, forms, workflows, and emails. Once everything is in place, you need to analyze the data and make proper changes.
Is Inbound Marketing Right for You?
IM is right for you if you’ve got a large in-house marketing department, a big marketing budget, or if the profit margins for your products and/or services are high.
If you’re selling $10 t-shirts or $100 massages, IM may be more than you need (although it would work). But if one or more of your products and/or services makes a few thousand-dollar profit per sale, IM is worth the time and money investment.
While the cost of inbound marketing can vary, you can be prepared to spend a few thousand dollars a month. You’re going to need the right tools and team in place for it to work, and it will also take time.
Setting up the landing pages, forms, offers, eBooks, emails, etc. can take a few weeks on its own. While it will constantly need tweaking, you can have leads coming in for years after a proper inbound campaign is set up.
In the end, your online strategy should be tailored to your business, its needs, its goals, and its budget.
The Med Spa Marketing Method will always come up with the most cost-effective solution that will work for your business. It may include inbound marketing, SEO, or both. It might be PPC or social media, or a little bit of everything.
Quite often we’ll talk to a business that wants Inbound Marketing and after a few meetings we’re helping them with web redesign and SEO. It’s important to focus on what your business needs now instead of following the latest trends.
Before you hire anyone for any of these services or decide to do them yourself, you need to begin with the end in mind. You can’t possibly come up with a solid plan if you don’t know what the goal is. There are several online marketing strategies that can work; the real key is finding what will work for you!
