Running a medical spa is an exciting rewarding process yet still quite challenging. In today’s age expectations are much higher and growing trends can make it difficult to keep up with. Medical spas are not to be taken lightly and they consider much care and detail to ensure that they are being run efficiently and are up to date with the latest trends and standards.
These challenges can be the deciding factor of your medical spa’s success or failure. In an industry that is heavily saturated and filled with high expectations it is easy for your medical spa to fall victim to these pressing challenges if they are not adequately addressed. The demand for medical aesthetics has grown tremendously and is slated to grow even more within the years to come.
Your medical spa has an opportunity to be an integral part of that growth. It is up to you to figure out the best possible way to identify and find suitable solutions to these challenges. We completely understand that this can be overwhelming to pinpoint every challenge that may be potentially faced when running a medical spa so we compromised a brief list of what we consider to be 6 of biggest challenges faced when running a medical spa.
Medical Compliance
Medical spas rightfully are required to be run pretty much like a typical doctor’s office. The main difference between the two is that medical spas offer solely aesthetic related treatments whereas doctor’s offices address all medical issues and concerns. The laws and regulations to be followed are comparative.
Patient confidentiality and safety is meant to be maintained. Along with the best medical practices being followed and carried out. All practitioners must be licensed and legally be able to administer certain medications and treatments offered at the med spa. Ensuring that your medical spa is up to date and practicing within all of the regulations and rules can be both overwhelming and time consuming.
In most instances your medical spa should seek the assistance of legal counsel to ensure that you are doing your due diligence and remaining up to standard at all times. Aside from the medical spa itself being within compliance you must ensure that each individual staff member is within compliance as well.
Brand Inconsistency
Maintaining a brand that is consistent with your overall message is imperative. It is important to create a brand that consumers are able to resonate with. In an overly saturated market it is imperative that your medical spa’s brand is set apart from the competitors.
When people see your brand they should know automatically who it is. Getting to this point takes a great deal of time, effort and resources. It is no walk in the park to establish your brand to a point that consumers are able to easily identify your brand amongst others.
The best thing to do is find what works for your brand and then stick with it. Do everything that you possibly can to push your brand in the right direction. Think of the successes and things that brands like Target and Chick Fil A have done to establish their brands in such a way that they are easily identifiable by millions of people.
Client Retention
Getting new patients to your doors is one thing but keeping them coming back is an entirely different thing. It can be challenging to impress customers so much that they want to return to your medical spa. It takes a lot of work and consideration to create a 1 to 1 initial experience that will captivate customers in a way that they automatically become returning customers.
With so much going on sometimes it can be challenging to leave a positive lasting impression on every patient that walks through your med spa’s doors. However, it is the duty of everyone on your team to provide and create an environment and experience that patients cannot deny. Team members must subtly portray the offerings of the medical spa as something that patients need and must be doing and cannot receive the same experience anywhere else so much so that they feel almost obligated to return.
Lack of Proper Med Spa Marketing Plan/Strategy
Not having a proper medical spa marketing plan and marketing strategy can work against you tremendously. Word of mouth and just having a physical presence and location is one thing but that won’t ultimately get you the results and ROI that you are looking for. You have to clearly communicate your goals and objectives and from there create your marketing plan and marketing strategy.
These help to guide your business with the promotions and advertising efforts. You cannot just say you want to run an advertising campaign without a proper plan and backing. You have to consider your why and how you will do everything when it comes to your marketing. If not you will fall victim to failed marketing with lots of wasted time and resources down the drain.
Your marketing plans contain your long term goals and visions of what you want to do in relation to your marketing as well as how you will do it. Your marketing strategy will speak to the why of your marketing plan. Ultimately carrying any sort of marketing out without a strategy and plan will be aimless.
Cost Management
To ensure that your medical spa is being run efficiently the operational cost will be high. Before starting a medical spa you should greatly consider all of the cost factors associated and prepare for them at least 1-2 years of being in business. It takes awhile for businesses to see an increase in finances initially so you must have a strong backing beforehand to ensure that you do not fall victim to shutting down due to a lack of funding.
Supplies, upkeep, and staffing can be costly. These cost factors must be taken into consideration initially and your business model should be designed around ensuring that these are included within the finances of your business to ensure that you will not run into the instance of putting out more than you are making at any given time.
Maintaining a Strong Team
Having a beautifully kept and maintained facility is not extremely difficult but having a team that is able to efficiently manage those facilities can pose a great challenge. Having great quality and loyal team members has been somewhat challenging to find in this economic climate. Medical spas are not able to just hire anyone as they require employees with special abilities and licensing which can be a challenge to find.
After finding these qualified personnel the next step is being able to retain them and keep them within compliance of the medical regulations. Continuous training and paying these persons their worth can become costly and if you are not able to keep up the employee retention rate will suffer. Your medical spa has to do its part in retaining the team by providing a good work environment where team members are prioritized to ensure that they will continue to ensure that the medical spa is run as a well oiled machine.
These challenges can make or break your business but with investing the time and resources your medical spa will be okay. Outsourcing as much as you can will help to decrease the level of trial and error that you may experience and will allow you the opportunity to solely focus on the operational aspects of your business. At Cindtoro, we pride ourselves in specializing in med spa marketing to help combat some of these challenges for our clients.
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