Aesthetics Marketing: Let Your Network Help You

Welcome to the sixth installment of our 10 Tips for Marketing Your Aesthetics Practice series. Here, we’re looking at how you can harness the power of your network to help promote your new aesthetics business. 

Whether you’re a new Level 7 graduate or an experienced injector, The Beatles had it right when they sang about getting by with a little help from our friends...

Write a List of Everyone You Know

We know this may seem like a bizarre exercise at first but we promise, it’s worthwhile! To determine how best your network can help you promote your business, you need to identify who exactly is in your network.

Then you need to divide that list up into smaller chunks as we drill down into what exactly you’re going to be asking of them.

To start, write a list of everyone you know

When we say “network”, this simply means everyone you know and would be happy to reach out to. They can range from family and friends to work colleagues – anyone you’re confident about dropping an email to or picking up the phone to call.

Don’t worry about how long or how short it is. You’re likely to find that you remember more people you’d like to add in once your brain is clear on the process.

If you don’t know where to start, try copying down the names of all your Facebook friends or followers from other social media accounts. You should also go through the numbers on your phone as you’ll find there are people in your phone contacts who aren’t on your social media and vice versa.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll have a list of your network and can move on to the next step...

Divide your network list up

Think about the areas you need assistance with when it comes to marketing your injector skills. These are likely to fall into the following categories…

– having new clients

– spreading the word about your services

– getting reviews

– talking to other aesthetics practitioners about how they do things

– getting ideas from specialists in related fields eg marketing, social media, advertising

Essentially these boil down to three groups and you should create a column for each of these:

• Potential Clients
• Influencers
• Experts

Now we start allocating the names from your network list to these columns; people may appear in one, two, all or none of these categories.

Potential Clients:

Anyone from your network who already has or is interested in the aesthetics treatments you offer, should be listed in this column.

Influencers:

Connections who may (as per Potential Clients) or may not use your services themselves, but who are happy to recommend you to others.

Experts:

These are the people who may or may not use your services, may or may not recommend you to others, but what they definitely can do is provide you with advice on making effective aesthetics marketing moves.

Work out what you’re asking each list

Now you should have three lists – possibly four if there are people you aren’t sure fit into any of the categories we’ve just defined. They can always be revisited at a later stage, for now just concentrate on those you are sure about.

Let’s work out what you’re asking each list for...

Potential Clients:

These are the key points you’re going to need to communicate to your potential clients

– Let them know about your new venture, what you do, the services you offer, etc.

– Be vocal about your education and qualifications – explain why you are such a great – and safe – choice for their aesthetics treatments.

– Give them the information they need to find details of your services and prices as well as how to book.

– Ask them if they’ll give you a try!

We understand it can be uncomfortable asking friends or acquaintances to support your business but try to push yourself. If you aren’t comfortable asking people you know, it can be even harder to try to “sell” your services to strangers!

Influencers:

For people on the Influencers list, you’d just like them to know what you’re up to and help spread the word. This is a fairly easy group to start with if you need to build your confidence up before approaching potential clients.

• Let them know about your business, what you do, how qualified you are and why you’re a fantastic option for anyone looking for injectables.
• Tell them you’d love it if they could recommend you to any of their friends who get injectable treatments or are interested in aesthetics procedures that you offer.
• Send or give them something containing all the relevant information new patients will need to pass on to their network; this could be as simple as an email or a flyer. Be sure to include your contact details, social media accounts and a map of where to find you, if relevant.
• Ask them to follow your social media accounts, like and share your posts.
• If any of them use your services, ask them to leave you a review online.

Experts:

If you have any experts in your network, it’s fantastic to get their thoughts on your offering and how you are marketing it, or plan to in the future.

If they work in social media or marketing, simply ask them to take a look at your marketing materials and give you some feedback. This includes your website, social media channels, posters, flyers and any advertising you may be doing.

For those who are fellow injectors, talk about your approach to aesthetics marketing and find out how they tackle this. Use each other as sounding boards for new ideas and see what you can both learn. Comma, the medical aesthetics community platform, is great for this and Harley Academy students have an exclusive private network within this professional app for just these sorts of interactions!

Start making approaches!

Now you have your lists set out and you know what you’re asking each group, you can start making your approaches!

Again, try not to feel too nervous about approaching people you know about this. If one of your friends or colleagues made a similar polite request, you wouldn’t want them to feel embarrassed. Once you’ve done it a couple of times you’ll start to find it much easier too, so take that first step and see what happens…

Good luck – we hope you get a fantastic response – and do let us know how you get on either in the Harley Academy Comma or over on our Instagram account.