How To Get More Anti-Wrinkle Injections Patients When You're Not Allowed To Advertise
INTRODUCTION
Are you finding that your clinic isn’t getting enough patients through the door to create a ROI on your anti-wrinkle injections resources? If so, this article outlines a high-level three-step strategy on how you can generate a flow of clients without compromising the advertising restrictions surrounding anti-wrinkle injections treatment.
HOW POPULAR IS ANTI-WRINKLE INJECTIONS AS A TREATMENT?
Over two million anti-wrinkle injections are carried out in the UK every year, but while there is a high demand for this service, it is important to understand that these clients won’t necessarily automatically seek you out, so it is crucial for you to promote your services with a strong anti-wrinkle injections marketing strategy.
RULES & REGULATIONS
Unfortunately, unlike most other popular aesthetic treatments, there are restrictions now in place for advertising anti-wrinkle injections procedures. In 2020, the Committee for Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) launched a campaign to prevent anti-wrinkle injections from being unlawfully advertised.
The fact I’m having to use the phrase ‘anti-wrinkle injections’ instead of referring to the 5 letter brand name beginning with ‘B’ demonstrates how strict this can be.
And it doesn’t stop there. Google also has a rigorous Healthcare and Medicines policy governing the promotion of prescription medicine, with the manufacturers of these pharmaceuticals unable to use the search engine to promote them in the UK.
Therefore you won’t see any Google ads offering anti-wrinkle injections. Facebook is the same.
Industry guidelines say it’s illegal to advertise a prescription-only medicine (such as anti-wrinkle injections) to the general public, so in order to legally promote your anti-wrinkle injections facilities, the workaround is to mention the treatment as ‘a potential outcome of a consultation’, as opposed to promoting the treatment itself.
Naturally, this poses an obstacle for clinics offering the treatment and hoping to meet their ROI via their marketing and sales for anti-wrinkle injections.
HOW TO BOTH CAPITALISE & COMPLY
So, you need patients, but you can’t advertise. What now?
While we do run a lot of social media campaigns within the surgical and non-surgical aesthetics treatment industry, we usually advise our clients not to run campaigns directly on the subject of injectables; firstly because you are limited as to what you can say (you run the risk of your ad being rejected if it doesn’t wholly comply with the strict regulations), but also because the conversion rate is lower than it is with almost all of your entry-level treatments, such as skin treatments or laser hair removal, etc.
So, with the odds stacked up against your potentially profitable service, what are the options available to you?
THE POWER OF GOOGLE
The reality of modern-day marketing is you need your clinic or business to be appearing where people are searching. This is because people are more likely to book a treatment with a service that appears prominently. And where are they likely to search first (unless they’ve had a personal recommendation)?
You guessed it. Google.
GOOGLE MAPS
Those familiar with modern digital marketing will understand how reliable SEO (search engine optimisation) is for driving your target audience towards your company’s website, so working your content with Google’s algorithm will keep your page ranking high within the Google search engine. This creates a sort of loophole for advertising your anti-wrinkle injections services without directly advertising them (and running the risk of an ASA/CAP violation.)
And Google Maps is now the number one driver of traffic for ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses looking to get more local customers.
Why?
Because Google Maps appear at the top of the organic search results, just under the ads. It takes up loads of white space on the first page and all the businesses featured appear as ‘pins’ on the map image in the search results.
What’s more, you know that the businesses that appear in Google Maps have been placed there because of their credibility and authenticity.
The further benefits of appearing in Google Maps is that people can click on a business they want to use and they can immediately see where the premises is on a map, get directions, visit the website, read customer reviews, and even click to call the business directly from the search results.
So, just because you can’t advertise on Google ads (or social media) for anti-wrinkle injections, that doesn’t mean you can’t optimise your listing to make sure that not only are you the clinic they see first, but also the clinic they choose to contact first.
GOOGLE MY BUSINESS
To get your business onto Google Maps, you need to have a Google My Business (GMB) listing. If you do not already have one you can create one at https://business.google.com/create for your business.
This will allow you to direct potential anti-wrinkle injections clients towards your services while on autopilot and without breaking any advertising rules.
Bear in mind that Google only ranks businesses it can trust, and one measure of your trustworthiness is the consistency of information about your business across the web. For example, make sure your business’s name is identical across all of your other online properties—your website, Yelp listing, Facebook profile, and so on. The same goes for address information (for example, using “St” vs Street”).
REVIEWS
The final stretch towards anti-wrinkle injections lead generation is garnering positive online reviews. Google reviews are important because Google sees reviews as an authentic validation of a business, and so the more positive reviews a business has, the more Google is going to push them higher up the search results.
Aside from SEO purposes, the other reason reviews are important is because from the lead’s point of view, they provide firm evidence that your products/services are worth investing in. 88% of consumers view online reviews to be as trustworthy as a personal recommendation from a friend, so it is important to utilise these as much as possible.
AUTOMATION SOFTWARE
Using automation software for reviews will help you convert more website visitors into customers and helps visitors to instantly trust your business because Google provides them with authentic positive reviews from your previous/current clients.
Review software can automate the review-gathering process for you, which will allow you to:
- Obtain great reviews quickly from clients - including video reviews.
- Automatically filter any negative reviews, giving you a chance to contact the customer to discuss their feedback without the review getting posted
- Automatically post the reviews across your website, Facebook page, Google My Business listing, etc.
- Encourage clients to post their review on their own Facebook page using incentives and offers that you are running.
Because of the software’s auto reminder system, it also takes the awkwardness out of asking a client for a review.
There are a few review software providers but the one we recommend to our clients can be found at sotellus.com/ddreviewsystem/
CONCLUSION
Promoting anti-wrinkle injections services when you aren’t allowed to advertise isn’t easy. However, using services such as Google and automated review software can significantly help with increasing the visibility of your business.
As a former clinic owner, Delivering Demand was set up to help aesthetic clinics and businesses get more patients and grow their customer base using a range of digital strategies. If what you’re doing isn’t getting your business where you would like it to be, please contact the team at hello@deliveringdemand.com to discuss your goals and look at which strategy best suits your business.
