In 2024, most industries and businesses are contending with these macroeconomic factors:
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Geopolitical uncertainties impacting global financial markets, affecting consumer spending.
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Profit-margin threats like stubbornly high inflation and increasing salaries.
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Evolving consumer habits and a shifting digital landscape that begs for a more sophisticated, omnichannel marketing approach to stay current and competitive.
Case in point: just in the Aesthetics industry, the average CPC (Cost-Per-Click for Google advertising) has risen 25% since 2022. In some cities, to target the most lucrative Aesthetics keywords, we’ve seen Google bids that are 2X the cost of what they were just 1 - 2 years ago!
Conclusion: The cost to get new patients has dramatically increased.
What’s important to understand is this higher cost of new patient acquisition isn’t attributable to inflation only. More so, it’s reflective of an increasingly competitive Aesthetics marketplace. Generally, Aesthetics practices are spending more to go after these same keywords, causing bid prices to rise. Adding to this, there are fewer users converting to purchase immediately, as compared to the glory days of the “Zoom Boom” (mid-2020 - late-2022) when aesthetics-related conversions reached all-time highs. It’s basic supply-and-demand and all of it factors into 2024 digital advertising costs.
So, what is the solution?
Don’t Knee-Jerk. Look to the Future.
In any challenging economic climate (like we’re facing now), the wrong thing to do is to knee-jerk, pull back and weaken one’s marketing efforts. Retreating may seem to “save” on a quarterly balance sheet, but that slippery slope comes with sacrificing longer-view growth. Not to mention it leaves one’s practice vulnerable to losing ground to competitors who aren’t shying away and letting up on the accelerator.
Per recent polling from McKinsey & Company (the reputed global management and strategy consulting firm), in the current economy, it is the businesses who are investing more in marketing despite the macroeconomics, that are winning (currently seeing upwards of 10% year-over-year growth).
Don’t Cut - Optimize Instead
To weather any temporary economic storm and achieve long-term growth objectives, the only sustainable answer is to optimize your marketing budget.
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Reallocation of resources towards channels and strategies that offer the highest ROI in the long-term. Don’t limit your budgeting to the short-term lead generation only.
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Diversification of your marketing approach to cover a mix of proven strategies, alongside exploring new and emerging channels to create a more robust and sustainable omnichannel strategy.
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Evaluation of your short-term strategies to account for the current market conditions. Also, closer evaluation of your customer data to identify patterns and preferences to devise more personalized and effective marketing efforts (incidentally, this is why we built LeadLoop, to help you accomplish this).
Let’s look at some sensible, tactical ways to accomplish this optimization:
SEO
While search volume may not be what it was in the post-Pandemic golden years of aesthetics marketing, statistically organic search is still the top lead-generating channel for most Aesthetics practices. As of January 2024, Google’s desktop search market share is 81.9%. Organic Search still drives 10Xs more website traffic than Organic Social Media. All metrics still point to SEO being the most stalwart long-term investment in the digital marketing game.
While SEO shouldn’t be your only strategy (always avoid an all-eggs-in-one-basket approach), it’d be foolish to ignore Google’s sustaining dominance. Everytime you add new SEO-optimized content to your website, collect a 5-star review or acquire new high-quality backlinks, you’re strengthening the digital foundation for the future of your business. The moral is don’t get so wrapped up in short-term lead gen efforts that you forget the long-term view.
Digital Advertising
If you’re running a quick-conversion lead generation campaign like PPC (Pay-Per-Click) and not seeing the same results as you used to, you may need to increase your budget or adjust your targeting to incorporate going after less competitive, longer-tail keywords. This is all part of adapting and capitalizing on the current marketplace.
In-Office Practices
During the “Zoom Boom”, there were so many leads available to every practice that some tended to overlook lackadaisical intake processes that converted a mere 10 - 15% and squandered the rest. If you’re seeing less leads than you’re used to, in this economy you can no longer afford such extravagance. The most immediate and cost-effective optimization of your marketing budget isn’t spending more, it’s converting more.
To this end, last year Studio 3 launched its new Conversion Coaching service to complement our LeadLoop software. This consulting service is led by a team with decades of experience in running aesthetics and medical practices. They work with your office staff directly to optimize your new patient acquisition protocols and gain more conversions from your marketing spend. In today’s economy, now is the time to get more juice from the squeeze.
Whatever actions you take to account for the current economic climate, the first key is to avoid falling into the trap of attempting the same tactics that worked in 2022, while expecting to see the same results today.
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
As your marketing partner, we’re in the trenches with you.
Unless you’re using LeadLoop, we can’t see what’s happening with your leads, but only you know how those leads are being converted in-office into revenue.
If you need help to further increase new patient procurement, let’s regroup and talk about how to optimize your marketing spend and in-office patient acquisition strategies. With good marketing, there is always a solution for your short- and long-term goals.
Bottom line: If you aren’t shifting to meet the needs of the current economic landscape, you will be left behind.
Don’t be Blackberry, be Apple.
If that seems daunting, we are here to help you every step of the way, as we have been since day 1.
