About a 5-minute read.
The largest market in the world, split among thousands of centers
Spain's supply of beauty centers and aesthetic medicine clinics makes up the largest market in the world. Spain ranks above the United States, Brazil and Colombia in treatment sessions per capita, and it also leads the world in consumer spending, from both clients and patients.
That volume is not in a few hands. Roughly ten to twelve years ago, small businesses in this sector went digital in a wave, and since then thousands of centers and clinics have saturated online search by competing for the first page of Google, the leading internet search engine. The supply is highly fragmented: many small centers, and none large enough to hold that first page on its own.
That fragmentation has a direct consequence for your center. Except in very specific cases, people buy within a catchment area, and therefore by how close they are to the center or clinic. Proximity decides above all when the treatment on offer is the same one everyone else offers: with nothing to set it apart, the patient chooses the center closest to home or work.
The competitor 300 meters away advertises the same thing you do
Thousands of beauty centers and aesthetic medicine clinics compete for limited local demand that many other competitors already serve. Some small businesses in the sector spend very large sums of money to rank in Google's top results, for a small return. In large towns and cities, where competition is intense, that ranking is practically out of reach.
Many of these centers advertise, communicate and promote exactly the same offer as your competitor 300 meters away: the same treatments, with the same photos and almost the same text. When two ads say the same thing, only one variable is left to decide on, and that is price. That is where price wars come from, and in them good work stops carrying weight as a reason to buy.
The calculation worth making before you raise your ad budget fits in two lines: how many first visits came through that channel last quarter, and how much each one cost.
Differentiation starts with the business model, not with the ad
If your goal is to position your center, the first step is a thorough analysis of your business model. Define what you offer the patients or clients you want to attract and, therefore, what sets it apart from the centers around you. The offer you have in mind may already have little room, because your area has plenty of similar services or products.
Second, rely on a professional team that knows the annual statistics of the Spanish market. That team compares your service menu and your prices with those of the area where your center is, and tells you whether either one is out of line.
Consider, too, an annual digital marketing plan that helps you handle the changing complexity of Google's algorithms. On the operational side, that plan must give you technical support in the areas you do not master. On the strategic side, it must stay with you throughout the year according to demand, your preferences and the seasonality of consumption. Choose the professional carefully: ask how many beauty clinics they have worked with before you sign.
Your website and your reception must describe the same center
In most cases, the real image of your center differs from the one your online business cards project: the website, the search engine listing and the social media profile. The website or landing page must be light, because the result depends more on what the content says than on how much space it takes up.
An effective website uses light colors and a perfectly readable typeface, with simple navigation that saves clicks and scrolling. It shows the information with as few screen changes as possible. It uses photos of a uniform size, well chosen and in good resolution, and it develops its own corporate image style: a style of your own sets you apart more than copying what seems to work for others.
Your presence in the digital world weighs as much as your presence in the physical world. Both images must match to attract the same type of client. The patient who sees a polished website and walks into a reception that looks nothing like it notices the difference on the first visit.
A practical example: if your aesthetic medicine clinic is on Paseo de la Habana, in Madrid, focus your effort on your immediate market. That area holds your audience, and each euro goes further there than in ranking for all of Madrid, because patients from the Concepción neighborhood will go to centers in their own area.
The order of work, then, is this: first what your center does differently, then the service menu and the price that support it, and only at the end the digital investment, aimed at the neighborhood your patients already come from.
Your patient acquisition, built for your area and your client base
Standing out in a fragmented market requires your website, search engines, social media and reception to tell the same story, about treatments your center can deliver.
In our Marketing line of work, our team of consultants builds brand, website and patient acquisition within healthcare rules, piece by piece and in the order your center needs.
We have worked only with clinics and beauty centers since 1999, anywhere in Spain.