Abbvie, the maker of Botox and the Juvederm collection of fillers, has reported less-than-expected third-quarter 2023 financial results. What does this mean for your practice? You may also be experiencing lower-than-projected revenue, but your expenses have yet to go down or may have even gone up. This situation means less overall profit for the practice, making it a time for creative marketing, financing arrangements, rentals, and belt-tightening. Below are some suggestions my team and I have put together for your practice.
Instead of signing a long commercial lease, negotiate to have an out in your lease or consider renting from a flexible office space provider like a medical co-working space. If you’ve already signed your lease, you can still approach your landlord to renegotiate. We can review your lease before you do that to ensure your conversation doesn’t give your landlord the right to terminate your lease.
Several companies offer aesthetic laser rentals vs. buying. These companies allow you to rent for a year, and then if the laser is not as popular as you wanted or you find a better deal somewhere else, you can return the laser and don’t have to make any more payments. Let us know if you’d like us to make introductions. Aesthetic rentals is a low-commitment approach to adding lasers to your practice.
Another creative option is working with performance-based marketing companies that only get paid if the marketing campaigns they create are successful for you. That does not necessarily mean paying per lead because you may end up with mediocre leads that do not convert. For these types of arrangements, it is essential to have clear contracts that clearly define what constitutes success. Make sure you have someone great answering the leads that come in. Let us know if you’d like us to help clarify any agreements you currently have in place.
It can be up to 8x more expensive to acquire a new patient than to retain an existing one. Focus on patient retention efforts. Call, text, and email your patients who haven’t been in for 90 days. Offer them a booking incentive, such as a free facial or a gift with purchase. Make sure you have permission to text and email your clients. We can help you with the paperwork for this.
Another big opportunity is with membership programs. Memberships increase the retention of clients and the valuation of your practice if you ever decide to sell it. There are different types of memberships – banking vs. non-banking, procedure-specific, customer-type specific, etc. We have membership contract templates that we can share with you, and we can help you customize one for your practice goals. When you launch a membership model, make sure that you have a strong understanding of the profit margins, costs, and potential revenue gains from having membership pricing or deals. If you don’t know where to start, we can connect you with professionals who build personalized membership programs.
Focus on getting more Google reviews. Make it easy for your clients to leave you reviews. Send them direct links to your reviews page on Google. We recommend a couple of marketing companies who can help you with this, or you can also do this yourself. Your marketing will work much better if you have more reviews. One way to suggest to your clients to leave you reviews is to have canvases made of the good reviews you got and post them as decorations on your medical spa walls.