Branding is how a company makes a name for itself in any industry and uses that name to survive, despite any saturation or heavy competition. The medical aesthetic industry is currently valued at a whopping $53.3 billion for both service and product revenue, and this number is expected to climb. By 2022, the market is expected to experience a 5.5% increase and reach $73.6 billion.
Obviously, there’s competition. However, all industries worth pursuing are competitive – it’s your job to develop a goal of standing out, and to do that, you need a killer brand that will make enough of an impact to resonate with your patients.
Here are some tips to effectively build a brand that will make your prospects do a double-take, and help you to remain competitive, with an edge.
Use Storytelling to Become Memorable
The average start-up or smaller cosmetic medicine company doesn’t have millions of dollars burning holes in their pockets to spend on advertising. Many companies in the cosmetic industry use the often expensive power of mass storytelling to push their brand, create a lasting memory of their brand story, and most importantly, drill the name of their company into people’s minds.
The truth is, consumers, love a good story as much as they love a good product. Stories make you likable, and even more importantly, they make you human.
The objective here is to create a story that’s unique, and entirely your own. Even though your products and services may not be much different from the competition, the way you market them can and should be.
Weaving a compelling origin story, adopting a likable persona, marketing your products and services in a way that no one else has tried, and developing a rigid marketing strategy that’s well kept are all keys to making sure you can be found in the crowd.
The differences in your story should be very clear, and extremely noticeable. Imagine you’re starting from scratch and telling the story of a new product or service that’s fresh on the market, or imagine no one has ever heard of it before. The perspective you offer needs to be fresh, and extremely relevant. It also needs to be interesting.
It turns out, something that really piques the interest of consumers is hearing stories about average people that could easily resemble their own selves. In fact, 66% of customers surveyed would rather hear a story that features ‘regular’ individuals, whereas only 10% are interested in hearing the story of the brand’s CEO.
Find a Niche to Make it Easier
Naturally, it’s far easier to target a specific group of people and create your brand around their specific personas than it is to wonder what the general public wants. Smaller brands should place more focus on smaller groups they can easily benefit, offering specific services that may resemble common problems in that group, or answer common questions. This is called creating buyer personas and is an extremely effective content marketing tactic, as well as a branding aid.
In cosmetic medicine, your chosen niche could be a variety of things and people. Consider:
Specific groups
Your practice may consider targeting younger women in their late twenties or early thirties and place your brand’s importance on preventative care. Many younger women are interested in beginning Botox and similar treatments at an early stage to prevent the wrinkling and sagging of the skin. It’s very easy to sell young women on maintaining their youth!
You may also offer services for men; they’re interested in looking younger, too! Men have become increasingly interested in services such as Botox to appear more youthful and attractive on dating apps and social media. Many cosmetic medicine practices have a female focus, and it would give you an edge in the industry to target the male audience. Currently, it’s estimated that only 20% of plastic surgeon’s clients are men.
Specific issues
A large percentage of the population suffers from severe migraines, about 38 million people in the US alone, and many common remedies don’t work. In 2011, Health Canada approved the use of Botox to treat chronic migraines, and it’s been helping those that suffer drastically ever since. Offering drastic and quick pain relief is an effective area to focus on. For some, Botox injections helped with only one treatment, and dramatically decreased pain levels.
Other popular cosmetic issues that could use special attention in your branding are:
- Thinning hair
- Neck tightening
- Younger looking eyes
- Under-eye fillers
- Wrinkle removal
- Jowl treatment
- A youthful smile
There are so many benefits that come with trying to appeal to a niche audience, even if the strategy seems confined. These benefits include:
- Reduced competition
- Focused distribution of marketing time and resources
- Deeper brand understanding and recognition
- Thorough knowledge of customer personas
Implement a Killer Social Strategy
Cosmetic marketing in an online platform should be an entertaining, fun part of your marketing strategy. Social media has a large focus on creativity, stunning imagery, and encourages extremely shareable content. The cosmetic industry was built for this kind of digital experience.
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter are all places to do some aggressive social marketing. Believe it or not, storytelling works on these platforms, too, just in a far more visual way.
The goal of social media is not to be boring or to price and business-focused. Social media is a place to build an audience and a following, share the best of the best of your work, and interact with your visitors in a personal way. Humans are visual creatures, after all, and cosmetic medicine is all about happy endings and making dreams come true.
Before and after photos are the obvious choice for this branch of your marketing. Users eat up this kind of content, and it’s extremely shareable online. You want to leave your users with something that will make them feel happy and inspired while ensuring your page is attractive, organized, and completely unique to your brand. Implement your brand colours, your logo, and your brand message throughout so users will remember you.
Build a Brand that Caters to Your Niche
After you’ve identified your target market, you have to ensure your marketing efforts will cater to their exact needs and preferences. Branding yourself accordingly in a way that very obviously outlines your values and objectives will help your target audience to understand what you’re about, and what they can expect from you.
There are important questions to ask yourself when you’re building your brand. Some questions are:
- What matters in our business?
- What do our consumers care about?
- What do our consumers want to see?
- What do our consumers search for?
- What feelings do we want to leave them with when they interact with our brand?
- What do we want our audience to associate our brand with when they encounter it?
These are just a few questions to get the ball rolling. Ultimately, the goal of a brand is to identify a specific area of expertise and use imagery and colors that reflect the product or service you want to target.
Are you offering cosmetic dental services? Your logo may consist of a newly straightened, whitened smile, accompanied by your chosen brand colors.
Whatever niche market you’ve chosen, you need to make these elements clear through your brand strategy so when your patients come across you, you can be easily identified, and easily trusted.
Remain Consistent
After you’ve developed your brand, you have to be loyal to it. This is the only way to make sure it’s successful in being identifiable, reputable, and profitable. Here are some of the top ways to maintain brand consistency, both in the workplace and for your marketing efforts.
- Ensure all recruitment and training programs incorporate your set values
- Use branded items throughout your workspace, practice, and items such as your employee’s uniforms, coffee cups, etc
- Nominate certain employees to be brand ambassadors to promote the brand, specifically on social media platforms for increased online visibility
If you have your entire staff and patient base believing in and developing loyalty for your brand, chances are you’ll be able to thrive in the industry. In fact, 84% of adults in the US are loyal to retailers. With the right brand strategy, it’s only a matter of time before you develop your own strong base, completely unique to you!
Sarah Al Daghreer
Sarah is the owner and founder of Inbound Squad. She also specializes in local SEO and inbound marketing.