The Top 3 Areas to Reinvest Your Cosmeceutical Revenue

When you hear “increased revenue,” what do you envision?

More commas and zeros in your P&L spreadsheet? Padding you and your staff's paychecks?While those things are certainly nice, they don’t illustrate the true potential that lies within a bump in your cosmeceutical revenue.

We’ve talked extensively about how to grow your cosmeceutical revenue using educational strategies and digital marketing tactics, but what we haven’t dived into is what you can do with that added budget to continue growing your spa or practice to steadily and sustainably bring in more revenue in every area of your business.

When it comes to continuing to grow your revenue, the key to long-term growth is reinvesting. These are the top three areas of your practice you’ll want to funnel those funds from your cosmeceutical sales:

1) Uplevel Your Equipment

Services are every practice’s bread and butter, so if you let those slip, you’re going to find all your subsequent revenue streams will suffer.

One of the best ways to make sure your services, and the results they provide for your clients, don’t become subpar, is to upgrade your current equipment that is in need of a technological or operational upgrade or invest in new equipment that will allow you to expand your service menu.

If you’re looking at the long-game strategy with this reinvestment, by buffing up the quality and selection of your services through new equipment, you’ll also expand your opportunities to continue growing cosmeceutical sales revenue through selling more at-home care regimens and complementary products.

2) Grow Your Team

So, you’ve steadily increased your sales through services, and you’re well on your way to seeing a big increase in your cosmeceutical and retail sales, but you’ve also realized with growth comes great responsibility…

Okay, that may be a touch dramatic, but in all seriousness, it is your responsibility to evaluate and evolve in all areas of your practice when you’re experiencing significant growth in one or two key areas. And one of those areas is staffing.

By reinvesting your cosmeceutical revenue into team growth, you ensure that your business has the workforce to keep up with client demand and make room for more schedule availability, provide a higher-caliber customer service experience, and keep your staff’s attention and time devoted to the tasks they’re best at and enjoy most.

3) Build Out and Beyond

Once you’ve reinvested into the two biggest elements of your practice with your cosmeceutical revenue (services and staffing), now you can take a look at some of the outlying areas that could use a boost.

A few smart and strategic reinvestment areas include:

Building out a beautiful retail area - Maybe you’ve only sold cosmeceuticals through client conversations or only have a few shelves of product to display in your lobby. Those are great ways to get started, but once you see increased strength in your cosmeceutical sales, it’s in your practice’s best interest to dedicate a front-and-center space for your retail that’s visually appealing and gets your clients interested in the products you sell before they ever step foot into your treatment room.

Creating an enticing staff incentive program - Even the most dedicated of employees do better with incentives. If you actually want to make cosmeceutical sales a full-team effort, creating an incentive program that rewards your employees for peak performance is a good way not just to boost sales once, but keep your staff invested in the overall growth of your practice.

Open a new office location - Believe it or not, cosmeceutical retail revenue can be the sole source of funding for opening another location of practice.

As you can see, by reinvesting your cosmeceutical revenue into your practice in the right places, you stand a chance to grow your entire practice exponentially. And if you repeat your retail prices at multiple locations, you can envision how retail reinvestment can truly pave the way for building an empire.

So, when it comes to leveraging cosmeceutical sales, what are you waiting for?

3 Digital Marketing Strategies You Need In Your Practice to Leverage for Increased Cosmeceutical Sales

We don’t have to intimately know the ins and outs of your business to make the bold claim that your entire audience is online.

Yes, your entire audience. Even if you cater to mid-lifers and those that are older, the largest growing population of internet and mobile-device users fall into this age demographic.

Gone are the days where digital marketing meant just having a functioning website and posting to social media semi-regularly. Embracing the full digital marketing landscape is important because your audience has come to expect being able to interact with you across all platforms, including social media.  American consumers repeatedly report that the information they find on social media has a direct effect on the decisions they will make, not only for healthcare, but also for their aesthetics purchases.  

When it comes to booking a consultation or purchasing a service or product, they will likely check social media to find others who have been made happy with your work and recommendations. Digital marketing, and specifically social media, give you the opportunity to interact and build trust with your clients without you physically being there.  It does the talking for you.  So, how do you tap into this and make it work for you?

And if you can meet them where they are, and use strategy to leverage your online presence, it can mean serious business by way of increasing your cosmeceutical sales!

1) Use Social Media As a Conversation Starter  

You know your business needs a social media presence if you want to keep up with today’s digital marketing standards…that’s a no-brainer these days. What’s not so intuitive is how to use social media to make an impact on sales. Maybe you regularly promote your services, monthly promotions, and products on social media, but all you hear are crickets.

That’s because social media isn’t really meant for selling, it’s meant for socializing (hence, the social in social media). The more you think of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram as a place to meet and mingle with potential clients and customers, not sell to them, the easier job you’ll have of moving those people further down the sales pipeline a little later on. While selling directly on social works, it almost like a cold call.  You want people to be able to “warm up to you” so that when you do ask them to purchase, you already have a pseudo-relationship started, and your conversion rates will be higher.  

For example, rather than asking people to purchase their skincare regimen straight through social, use your presence to promote an open house-style event at your spa or practice, where you extend a welcome to come spend time and learn from you. Then, at your event, you’ve already sufficiently warmed up your potential clients and will be more successful with converting them into a paying customer.

You can also promote educational and entertaining content such as blog posts, demonstration videos, and client testimonials to build interest and credibility around your business without directly pushing for a sale. We strongly advocate this here at Aesthetic Influencer. People want to know who you are, and social media is a fantastic place to show off your best!

By using this predominately non-selling strategy, it makes your promotional posts, for example, when you directly promote a cosmeceutical product launch, much more effective because at this point, you’ve built anticipation and credibility within your audience.

2) Nurture and Sell Through Your Email List

Speaking of “warm” leads (aka people who are somewhat familiar with your business and are more likely to purchase at this point in their buyer’s journey), your email list is a fantastic pool of primed buyers.

Except…email, no one really loves email. Email may feel antiquated, but it’s still one of the best digital marketing tactics to get your audience to click “buy" or book a consultation with you. However, this still requires some strategic thinking.

It’s not enough to just ask for your potential client to buy with every single email you send; you still need to woo them.

One of the most effective methods of doing that is by bringing subscribers onto your list by providing high-value content that educates and informs and continuing to provide that nurturing content balanced alongside emails that directly promotes your products and asks for your subscriber to buy.

An example of this would be writing an email that educates on the wonderful benefits that growth factors have for skin, and if they are interested in experiencing those benefits themselves, you can purchase your full regimen by clicking “here”.  In our industry, education does many things, but most importantly, it builds trust, and helps you sell.

3) Generate Consultations With Highly-Targeted Ads

In case you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon already, know that this isn’t any rickety old cart that’s about to go bust with the next wave of digital marketing trends. We all know the power of a good aesthetic consultation when it comes to the opportunity to sell skincare products. Want a good way to have a consistent flow of them coming in? Read on.

In fact, it’s currently the most powerful advertising platform in the world…

That’s right, if you haven’t guessed, we’re talking about Facebook ads.

Facebook has the greatest targeting capabilities that have ever been available to business owners, making them a fantastic incorporation it into your digital marketing strategy.

From being able to target your exact ideal client demographics down to income and interests, to targeting by zip code and even to people who like the pages of your competitors, Facebook ads allow you to gather high-quality leads who you know will be interested in your offerings.

Facebook ads also allow you to track activity that you can directly tie to your cosmeceutical sales so you can determine the immediate return on investment of your ads (in case you haven’t learned by now, we are HUGE fans of tracking metrics here at AI).

The good news is when you consistently practice these strategies, your return on investment grows greater over time.

Because while someone might take three, six, or nine months to buy from you after being nurtured through meaningful and educational content via compelling ads, social media, or being on your email list, someone who only gets asked to buy over and over again not only isn’t going to buy, but will eventually tune you out altogether.

Of course, successful cosmeceutical sales are also supported by a variety of additional factors such as knowing your metrics and having a reliable sales process in your practice, but when you incorporate a multi-faceted digital marketing strategy, you’re ensuring your sales success for the long haul.

Any questions? Follow @aestheticinfluencer on Instagram and send a DM! Can't wait to see you there!

Successful Cosmeceuticals Sales Start Here!

If we’re being technical, the act of making a sale is quick. As soon as someone hands over their payment, you’ve officially made a sale.

The transaction happens in the blink of an eye, but anyone who’s sold, well, pretty much anything, especially cosmeceuticals, knows that there’s a much more extensive process to making a sale.

It’s a journey, almost like a relay race, and if your team isn’t 100 percent on board with walking your client through the sales process properly, you’re not going to make it to the close. Here’s how you can use your team to control the structure of the sale and ensure the baton doesn’t get dropped in the hand-off.

The Provider’s Seal of Approval
Every cosmeceutical sale should start with the provider for a couple of reasons. Introducing a product too soon in the process can be confusing for your client or can come off as an unwelcome advance. Sales is about relationship building, thus presenting a sale too soon can feel like proposing on date three…it’s a little off-putting.

The provider’s seal of approval anchors the sale and sets the tone for the rest of the process.  While the first reason is important, the second is truly critical because the provider is who legitimizes the medical use of a product purchased at your clinic, spa, or office.

The provider has the strongest tie of trust to the client, and they hold the position as the leading expert in the practice or spa, so it’s crucial their recommendation is properly communicated to the staff to carry out the sale.

Educating Your Client to the Sale

Because providers rarely have time to “sell,” or sit and go through the details, applications, and information on the product, it’s critical that staff take over this process and bring it to life. But, as we previously mentioned, their process and message must align with the provider’s. If it doesn’t, or the staff recommendations deviate, that’s where clients become confused, trust is breached, and a sale can be lost.

The way to ensure that this miscommunication doesn’t occur is by using supporting staff experts such as aestheticians and nurses to educate the client’s way to the sale. Some of the methods of educating to the sale include explaining the features and benefits of the product, how to use it, and why they should purchase it at your practice or spa versus alternatively-labelled products that claim to have the same results from different providers who may not be reliable in their cosmeceuticals’ quality.

Through the education process, a client will decide whether the product is for them right now (yay!), but even if it’s not the same day, know that the sales process still isn’t finished…

Closing with a Consistent Message

Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “the fortune is in the follow-up,” whether you have or not, know that it’s entirely accurate. There are hundreds of reasons why someone might be a “no” on buying a particular product or service today, however, that “no” can turn into an effortless “yes” (thanks to your educational sales process) down the line. That "yes" might come a day or two, a month, or even more than a year later, but you won’t know until you follow up.

Let your prospect know they can expect someone from your team to be in touch within a particular time frame and stick to that time window.  Also, know that your prospect might get back in touch before you follow up, which is again, why everyone on the team from the provider all the way down to the support staff who answers the phone need to be on board with a consistent message.  

Once you have this key component of your sales process solidified between all the members of your team, it’s time to start closing those sales and changing the lives of your clients.

Jasmine Hill, MBA serves as a co-founder of Aesthetic Influencer, a Los Angeles based organization assisting medical practices with developing their brand voice and digital strategies. She can be reached at jasmine@aestheticinfluencer.com. You may also follow @AestheticInfluencer on Instagram for more tips on digital tools like Instagram and Facebook for your aesthetic business. PS - She wrote this article from the view of being a former cosmecutical sales rep ;-)