Wedding season is upon us — is your aesthetic practice ready to profit?
When someone thinks of the multi-billion dollar wedding industry, they usually think about venues, flowers, caterers, dresses, and entertainment. While medical aesthetics may not seem like an obvious player in the wedding industry, the two worlds could not be more intertwined. Marketing your practice to the wedding industry during its peak season is a great way to boost brand awareness and grow your business. In this article, we will expand on the following strategies to help grow your business during wedding season:
Before social media, word-of-mouth was typically the only way you would discover a new business. This type of peer marketing is built on one core principle: trust. As a medical aesthetic provider, you can utilize this same strategy by working with other like-minded businesses in your area during wedding season. Aligning your personal brand with other businesses can be mutually beneficial — both parties can grow by reaching new audiences only available through the partnership.
Aligning your practice with wedding-oriented businesses can help you reach the wedding demographic in a way that you otherwise would not be able to. The major types of businesses you should build partnerships with are wedding planners, photographers, beauty salons, stylists, make-up artists, and personal trainers. These different businesses all have one thing in common: they are all heavily reliant on making the soon-to-be-married couple look and feel good. A wedding planner or make-up artist can suggest aesthetic injectables to treat a patient’s frown lines; a personal trainer can suggest a QWO® treatment to target pesky cellulite, or a photographer can recommend a non-surgical rhinoplasty after trialing different angles for a client.
Partnering up with other businesses that have deep roots in the wedding industry opens the door for your brand to be a premiere practice for every bride’s aesthetic needs. Planning a wedding has so many moving parts; once a couple has developed a trust-filled relationship with a planner, stylist, or trainer, they most likely will respond well to personal referrals and suggestions. It bodes well for all businesses involved to have this mutually beneficial relationship because you can refer patients their way too. Supporting and collaborating with other local businesses also demonstrates your brand’s commitment to the community.
Social media and wedding expos are two easy ways to start exploring potential partnerships. Using hashtags, discover local businesses that seem to be popular with nuptial events. Engage with their accounts by following or commenting on posts to show that you are interested in what they do. Repost and tag other wedding businesses when it is appropriate. Attending wedding industry events can also be an excellent way to network and articulate how crucial medical aesthetics are to the wedding planning process. Building awareness can help professionals in other industries appreciate the importance of medical aesthetics for weddings.
A quick and easy way to spread the word about your practice is to make business cards listing seasonal specials specifically designed for weddings. These promotions will encourage brides and grooms to try out your services for the first time in a package deal as they prepare for the big day.
These customized business cards allow potential clientele to have something to hold onto and think over even after they go home. Leave these promotional materials with wedding planners, beauty salons, make-up artists, trainers, etc. The goal is to make your practice the ‘go-to’ spot for all wedding-related medical aesthetic needs. Make sure your promotions are widely accessible online and in print to help ensure brand visibility and longevity.
If you are having a hard time thinking of wedding special ideas to promote, consider marketing Botox® parties for brides and their bridesmaids. Utilizing this kind of promotional tool also helps educate people who are curious but not extremely familiar with medical aesthetic procedures – which could result in repeat appointments in the future. For example, you could partner with a local popular hair salon and organize a discounted Botox® party for bridal parties who are booked in for a hair-style trial run. This kind of atypical wedding planning event would also provide great content for social media sharing.
A local wedding expo might feel a little like speed dating for a bride or groom, but it is a gateway into the wedding industry. Wedding expos are wedding planning events designed to help alleviate the stress and pressures of planning a wedding. With so many choices, couples can feel overwhelmed and stressed, but attending an expo can help curb a lot of those anxieties by having all related industries under one roof. Attending a wedding expo as an exhibitor can help you network with other local businesses in the wedding industry and interact with potential clients in person.
Before attending an expo, make sure to do plenty of research on which businesses will also be in attendance. Make note of which businesses you are interested in potentially building partnerships with while you’re on-site. Using the expo to network with other experienced wedding-oriented businesses can result in learning some valuable business tips and advice, in addition to new partnerships. Expos are an easy way to demonstrate why your practice brings value to couples and other local businesses, and why aesthetics is an equally integral part of the wedding planning process. Other local businesses will be more inclined to recommend your practice to their wedding clients if you build and maintain mutually beneficial professional relationships with them.
Social media promotions and giveaways can get a business pretty far, but having an editorial feature can really help take your business to new heights. Studies show that printed editorial pieces are trusted and have more credibility than what is seen online. The more times your practice is mentioned or written about in print, the more credibility and recognition your brand has. Weddings comprise a multi-billion dollar industry, which means there is no shortage of publications dedicated to how to plan one. It would be wise to do extensive research on which publications you should pursue getting featured in — but ultimately, any feature would be a great promotional asset for your practice. It would be worthwhile to reach out to any wedding or beauty writers and pitch your practice to them prior to developing a feature.
A promising way to get your practice featured is to take beautiful photos of a bride or groom’s results before and after a procedure. The after photos should be taken at the wedding so that they can be appropriately featured in a magazine. It would also be smart to find a beauty writer, who may be more receptive to writing about your medical aesthetics practice and why someone getting married or attending a wedding should be interested. Lifestyle writers may also feel inclined to write about your practice and offerings as being a crucial part of the wedding prep process. Appeal to writers and publications by demonstrating to them that a feature about your practice is mutually beneficial for them as well.
Another marketing channel to promote your practice is a wedding planning podcast. Surprisingly, there are many podcasts devoted to just the process of wedding planning. These podcasts are typically hosted by a bride-to-be who is navigating the wedding planning process. The general demographic of these shows are also future brides. Similar to wedding magazines, these podcasts have an interested and overwhelmed audience that wants to be guided to the ‘right’ vendors and services. Being a guest on a podcast or possibly even advertising your services on one can have huge growth in your business thanks to this highly engaged audience.
Regardless of which avenues you pursue for marketing, having your practice be interwoven with different wedding-oriented media resources will prove beneficial. Features will help foster curiosity in medical aesthetics as well as general awareness of your brand and practice. As the saying goes, there is no such thing as bad press.
The wedding industry is vast and all-encompassing, but it is also highly competitive. Setting yourself apart from the crowd can be difficult, but placing emphasis on building relationships with other businesses can lead to prosperous results. Connecting with people at wedding planning events like an expo is a great way to put a face to your brand, making your practice feel more personable and approachable. A long-lasting successful wedding business is really based on just word of mouth and good reviews, which further demonstrates how personal these relationships can be. Focusing on consistently impeccable service while also nourishing your partnerships in the wedding planning community will also strengthen your relationship with wedding clients. Remember, a wedding is more than just the bride or groom, it encompasses its family and guests as well — do not pass up on the opportunity to make potential clients out of all of them!