$0-20,025 for a Brand New Medical Spa Using the IV Method

Published: February 24, 2021. Last Updated: February 24, 2021

by Mason Yu

In 90 days after implementing our signature IV Method, we took a newly licensed med spa from $0 to $20,025 with a limited ad budget of $500 per month.

If the med spa was more established and had the budget to spend $5,000 per month (instead $500/mo) on ads, we would have made nearly $200,000 in 3 months.

In this article we’re going to explain exactly how the IV Method works and step-by-step instructions so you can implement it in your Medical Spa.

First, grab our Med Spa marketing campaign swipe file to use while you’re setting up the IV Method.

Let’s get started.

What is the IV Method?

Marketing a medical spa often seems like an endless amount of work.

• Sending newsletters
• Posting on social media
• Optimizing your website
• Distributing fliers

Those are all activities everyone tells you to do. And yes, you can ultimately get long term results out of them.

But what is the most impactful type of patient generation that can get you consistent, predictable, and measurable results?

What if you want sales, today?

This is where the IV Method excels.

The IV Method strips away the fluff in marketing and allows you to generate consistent and predictable appointments.

We used the IV Method to Get a New Med Spa from 0-$20,025 in one quarter using less than $500/m Ad Spend

In July, a brand new medical spa approached us for marketing, and they needed to grow fast because they were starting at $0.

We normally recommend a suite of services to new clients because it’s the combined whole of marketing that drives the best results.

Unfortunately, this client had less than $500 budget for spending on paid ads.

So, we wanted to test the limits of our signature IV Method.

We thought that if this worked for a medical spa with $0 revenue, then it would work for any spa.

Their results:

Day 1: They received their first lead.

Day 3: their first appointment scheduled.

Day 8: they had their first new paying patient.

Over the 90 days, they gathered a total of 216 leads, 56 appointments booked, and 39 new patients that amounted to sales of $20,025. In addition, they built a pipeline of leads worth almost $50,000.

Let’s imagine if they had scaled out their campaign, increasing their ad budget by $500-$2,000 per month (instead of only spending $500 on ads every month).

This is what their monthly revenue would have looked like:

At month 5 and spending $5,000 on ads, they would have reached a monthly revenue of around $66,750/month.

That’s $61,750 gross profit!

In addition, due to minimal staff, they could not service high ticket offers and had to stick with low ticket, quick services such as Botox.

Now, let’s imagine that these high ticket offers such as CoolSculpting or EmSculpting were available.

This is what their monthly revenue would have looked like, depending on which service we were promoting:

At $500/mo budget for each service, that is:

• EmSculpting: $18,000/month (7-8 new patients)
• CoolSculpting: $16,000/month (7-8 new patients)
• IPL Photofacial: $11,250/month (13-14 new patients)
• Laser Hair Removal: $10,800/month (17-18 new patients)
• Fillers: $7,200/month (17-18 new patients)
• Botox: $6,675/month (18-19 new patients)

Over this campaign we realized that, despite the low budget and despite the low ticket offer, the IV Method still works for all levels of Med Spas.

After all, this spa was able to build their business through a Botox offer alone.

So, what did we do?

The 3 Steps to the IV Method

There are three steps to successfully executing the IV Method.

Step 1: The Infusion – Launch offers proven to get new traffic into your business’ “bloodstream”

Step 2: The Absorption – Align leads to your brand and get them to book appointments

Step 3: The Delivery – Ensure they stick around to create long lasting results

As with IV Therapy treatment for your body, our process will re-energize your business and reduce anxiety.

We have outlined our steps for you to follow step-by-step below.

Step 1: Infuse Your Business’s Bloodstream with New Leads

For this, we will focus on your offers, your campaign, and avoiding the dreaded disabled ad accounts.

For getting new leads use Facebook and Instagram ads.

Let’s come up with your offer first.

There’s a very narrow scope of medical spa offers that are guaranteed to work on Facebook and Instagram.

We’ve been asked countless times to run campaigns for offers we know are not going to work. Inevitably, disappointing results ensue when the client is not convinced to follow our process.

On social media, you need an absolutely irresistible and clear offer. That’s why when using the IV Method on a low budget, we mandate that the client agrees on one of the following two types of offers.

1. Unbelievable Discount – 25-80% off
   Works for: Botox, Fillers, CoolSculpting, EmSculpting
2. Freebies
   Works for: Laser Hair Removal, Facials

We hear your silent protests: “but how are we going to sustain our business this way by giving such large discounts on our services?”

The thing is, a large portion of the leads that become patients through your offer will actually spend more than the one-time service price.

The client in our example was promoting a 50% discount on a $500 Botox service, but in fact, 41% of the patients that converted actually spent more than $500.

The average patient spend was $513, which is just above the un-discounted price of the service.

Interesting right?

Now that you’re convinced of promoting great offers, let’s head straight into Facebook Business Manager.

The point of this post is not to teach you the technical details of how to set up a Facebook campaign.

So, we won’t go into the details of pixels, lookalike audiences, and custom audiences.

Instead, we’ll just pop in and out of Facebook because you can still get good results if you only spend 20% of your ongoing efforts there.

So what’s the first step?

You might have been advised by online sources (heck, even Facebook Marketing reps) to start with a Traffic Campaign first.

Unless you want your first month of advertising to fail, do not go this route.

This is what you’ll typically see if you opt to run a traffic campaign:

We’ve found that two types of campaigns will work every time:

1. Lead Ads
2. Conversion Campaigns

Lead Ads are where your opt-in page pops up inside of Facebook itself, so the user does not have to navigate outside of Facebook.

It is simple to set up, and very quick to fill out for the user.

Now for Conversion Campaigns.

You need to be familiar with Facebook pixels and landing page setup in order to have the best chance of success.

But, you can create a more branded experience for your leads.

We’ve tested the quality of leads between Lead Ads and Conversion Campaigns.

Both types of campaigns provided similar results, but we found Conversion Campaigns to hold a minor lead.

In the end, Conversion Campaigns were 7% cheaper.

In this test, Conversion Campaign ads cost 30% more per lead but had a 30% higher appointment conversion rate than Lead ads.

Though not a conclusive test, this result is not surprising.

It is quick and easy to opt in to Lead Ads. But, a lead can take more time with a landing page, going through the FAQs, service details and doctor bios before entering their information.

Accordingly, these people have a greater chance of becoming an active, high intent lead.

With this analysis, it is up to you to decide which campaign to use.

Our recommendation is to roll out both side by side to test if one produces significantly better results than the other for your med spa.

Now onto setting up the Facebook ad.

Many people mistakenly think that it’s important to designate “specific targeting” but we have found the opposite to be true.

We have consistently found better results with ZERO targeting.

These days, what’s working is just a radius around your office where people are living.

If you’re in a big city, 4-5 miles is plenty.

If you’re in a less dense population area, you can expand up to 10-15 miles.

You want to avoid getting a lot of opt-ins only to have people tell you that your spa is too far away to travel to.

Now to the most important variables: the creative and the copy.

We like to start by brainstorm several copy angles. The below are some ideas, but you are limited by your imagination. As always, don’t censor yourself, because your audience will tell you what they like best. Sometimes we think we know better and judge an ad before it goes live, but your audience will surprise you.

Some angles could be:

• Professional: clean cut, straight to the point, not overly salesy.

• Offer: place your offer front and center, and the main point of your ad.

• Three Reasons: A little bit of info about the service.

• Shoutout: Call out to your target demographic. This example is fun, sarcastic, and a little risky.

Other types of ad copy could be the following:

• Testimonial
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Fun Fact

Next, gather several images and/or videos.

In this field, you are limited only by your imagination. Most of the time, videos will do better but, again, your audience will surprise you. We’ve had situations where a boring image beat out a funny, creative video.

Images and videos can include

• Your spa and equipment

• Your services in action

• Stock photos (these usually don’t work as well, so be sure to select natural looking photos)

Avoid Ad Rejections

We’ve encountered many ad rejections and successfully reinstated restricted accounts.

Avoid these two common reasons for getting your ads rejected and account disabled:

1. In your creatives: Do not use pictures or videos with any of the following:

• Before and After pictures (Save these for your landing page!)
• Zoomed in photos of body parts
• Needles

2. In your ad copy: Do not have any writing that includes:

• Claims.

Wrong: “CoolSculpting is Guaranteed to Trim Fat”

Right: “CoolSculpting is FDA Cleared for the Treatment of Visible Fat Bulges”

• Use of “you” or implying personal characteristics.

Wrong: “Do you want to Look Younger and Remove Wrinkled Skin?”

Right: “Soften wrinkles, Frown Lines, Furrowed Brow and Signs of Aging with Our Services”

Lastly, if your business is restricted from advertising due to too many ad rejections, don’t panic.

If you are proactive in the review process, Facebook generally resolves disabled accounts within 1 week. We have never failed to reinstate any of our client ad accounts which get mistakenly disabled.

Remember: If you have limited time, the most time you should spend on the Facebook ads portion of this method is the setup.

After you’ve set up the ad, you really don’t need to check more than once or twice per week on Facebook Business Manager.

A lot of people can hype up the work required inside Facebook campaign management, but you will not need a lot of time if you have put in the pre-work.

For those of you building this system yourself, don’t spend more than 20% of your ongoing efforts inside of Facebook Business Manager.

More effort should be spent improving conversion and retaining clients (Step 2 and 3)

Facebook’s algorithm is smart enough to figure out your targeting based on the words you put on your ad and the images and videos you promote.

Ads which are performing very well usually can run without your input for several weeks.

Step 2: Absorb Leads to your Brand and Get Them to Book Appointments

Now that you’ve got the “catheter” setup, it’s time for you to prepare for the infusion of leads and how to get the most of them.

Why You Think Facebook Ads Doesn’t Work

Skeptics about social media leads will tell you that ads don’t work because the leads are bad quality. They’ll say that leads either don’t respond or don’t remember that they opted in.

The reason is always because either you or your marketing company has started running lead ads without anything to “catch” them.

If you rely on yourself or your staff to manually contact each lead as you get a notification, you’re going to:

1. Burn yourself out, or
2. Only do it when you feel like it

This is a recipe for disaster and wasted money.

You don’t want to waste time and mental energy on every lead.

You and your staff’s time is precious.

That’s why you’re going to set up your first line of defense and only “absorb” into your business the high quality, high buy intent leads.

For this we will set up a proven nurture sequence on your CRM/EMR that will get people to respond.

Our campaigns typically enjoy 70-80% reply rates. This one below showed an average 72.17% reply rate:

How do we do this?

According to a study by Lead Response Management, internet leads need special care.

You can increase your chance of getting in contact with leads by 900% if you respond to leads within 5 minutes.

Harvard Business Review, in a similar study, concluded that you are 7 times more likely to qualify leads if you get in touch within 1 hour than after 1 hour, and up to 60 times more likely than if you wait 24 hours or longer.

Given that text messages can boast up to 98% open rates, our first contact action is almost always a text message sent within 5 minutes.

We also send an instant email confirmation followed by a 7-day nurture sequence.

We developed the IV Method in line with these studies to ensure that the chance of contact and appointment are as high as possible.

Through the method, you will no longer have to waste time with leads who do not reply. In essence, you will have a 24/7 employee, who only hands you “hot” leads, ready to book an appointment.

Set Up Your Line of Defense

Now, let’s get into setting this up.

Every electronic medical record (EMR) should have a customer relationship management (CRM) component. Though softwares may be different, they should be able to provide you with the basic functionalities of the below steps.

Let’s take a high level look at the successful workflow we’ve created:

Our med spa marketing campaign swipe file has examples for every step in this workflow.

First, before you create any workflows, it is important to set up correct time frames. We do not want your autoresponders to send messages at times of the day or night that are questionable.

Our default time frame restricts text messages and phone calls to certain times of the day. We trigger these to deliver half an hour before and one hour after business hours.

The extra time around business hours will allow staff just starting the day to take calls as well as at the end of a busy work day.

If your office is open on the weekends, you need to account for people sleeping in and take care not to deliver a call or text message before 10 a.m.

Now let’s go on to create a text message.

How do you create an impactful “engagement text” message? (the first step in the workflow)

Make sure that it asks a simple question at the end so that it is as easy as possible to reply to.

Questions such as “Can you let me know what day would work best?”

“What area would you like treatment?”

This makes it easy for your lead to reply.

Besides the question, the first thing you should mention is your company name and the offer they claimed.

This is because, as consumers, we opt in to so many promotions, it can be easy to lose track of them.

If a lead needs to refer to past text messages, especially from a new number they’ve failed to save, they will be able to reference and remember your thread.

In this day and age, it is very common to receive text messages from unknown numbers and just as easy to forget what they opted into.

Now onto email creation.

Even though most of your leads will be conversing through text message, you want to have a goal for your follow up emails. The most important one is to maximize your open rates.

Do not place images in your first email to ensure the best delivery rates.

Emails going into the Promotions tab or Spam folder do not get checked.

To get the highest chance your lead will open your email, make sure your subject line is simple.

As with SMS followup, don’t confuse your prospects. You should include one question or one button. Limit this to one call to action.

Frequently we come across business emails that say “please don’t hesitate to call, text, leave a message or reply”.

The result of that particular statement?

Inaction.

Don’t make it harder for the lead to make a choice. Give them clear next steps.

Studies have shown that buttons can increase click through rate up to 28%. If you’re going to include a call to schedule an appointment, it would be great to add a button to your email for it.

When creating your buttons, eliminate the friction words. Leads don’t want to feel like they’re being hard sold, you need to guide them into making a decision.

Hint: try “Check Availability” instead of “Book Now”

Now let’s try automatic calls.

If your EMR has the ability to trigger an automatic call, you should definitely use it.

Instead of relying on reminders to call leads, auto-calls will connect your newest lead to your front office or call center.

We generally set up an automatic call within 10-20 minutes of opt-in, provided the lead has given no response to our text message. After you are connected to your lead, follow your normal appointment setting scripts with your front desk.

What about voicemail drops?

Many systems now allow for the possibility of a voicemail drop and if your CRM enables this feature, then you should definitely use it. In fact, sometimes we skip the automatic call altogether, and just rely on this feature.

This feature allows you to record a voicemail from you or your staff that can be sent every time. Because the lead now has a live message from you, the voicemail feature is one of the main reasons our reply rates are so high.

We recommend that you send a voicemail drop within 10 minutes of opt-in.

If you have trouble recording a voicemail or knowing what to say, click below to download our proven template.

Optional but Highly Effective:

Depending on your budget, we’ve found that having an exclusive call center to make phone call followups after 10 minutes of opt-in can increase your lead to booking ratio 50-100% compared to purely automated CRM.

BTW We are now offering a call center package included for free for new clients of our IV Method. Check it out here.

Step 3: Deliver Your Services and Retain Your Med Spa Clients

Finally, you’ve gotten the lead to actually book an appointment

What do you do now?

It is very easy to just sit back and let the patients come in.

But before you do this, you need to set up your business for maximum retention.
We’ve got to first remind them of the appointment, set up follow-ups to collect customer reviews, and create a referral program.

How to Reduce No Shows

You should set up two appointment reminder campaigns.

The first campaign will be SMS based and more involved, asking for a confirmation engagement from the lead.

You will be sending several SMS messages, giving them several chances to confirm.

This ensures that the lead responds positively or remembers to reschedule or cancel, saving you valuable time. It will also allow you to gauge the seriousness of the lead.

The second reminder campaign will be more standard with confirmation and reminders.
Usually we send:

• 1 text and email confirmation immediately
• 1 email reminder 3 days before their appointment
• 1 email reminder 1 day before their appointment
• 1 email reminder 4 hours before their appointment

The reason that we need two campaigns is to differentiate between an automated and response-based sequence.

The one requiring a response will stop as soon as the lead confirms, while the second one will continue dripping out reminders.

That way, if the lead replies early, you still have a sequence active.

Now comes appointment time!

During your appointment with this lead, ensure that they have the best experience and make it memorable. In fact, the difference between great and good results with the IV Method rests on your ability to get the client to come back and refer friends.

The IV Method will help you optimize the chance new patients will show up to your door.

But you need to provide a great service to be able to create an amazing result.

Two med spas using the IV Method could vary considerably in result.

One of them could be making big profits while the other could struggle to close even one customer.

This is why we recommend spending more of your efforts on optimizing your own sales conversion rate. Check out the example below:

This shows you what happens when we take the same marketing budget and same number of leads, but one business closes at 17% while the other closes at 20%. A nearly $5,000 monthly difference for a tiny, 3% improvement!

Hopefully you can see the power of incremental changes to improve your business beyond just getting more leads. We have a few steps we do to help clients retain these clients and improve their bottom line even after the new patient comes in.

Ask for Reviews Boldly

It is important to get a review from a customer at the right stage of the customer journey.

You need to catch them at the most positive moment of their experience

Usually the best time is right after a successful treatment at the office.

For each client, we ensure that new patients receive a call through our call center after their appointment to check on their experience.

If they respond positively, we send a templated review request:

This will ensure five star reviews of their business. Our client increased their review count from 0 to 26 reviews during the three months they were using the IV Method.

Patients are generally receptive to giving out reviews provided you are creating great results.

Create Referral Programs

To magnify your results from the initial traffic, create referral bonuses and keep track of discounts you promise.

Creating a referral program is simple to get started.

The most basic kind would be to offer credit on future services.

Offer something like $25-50 off or percentage off their next service.

Not only will this encourage your new patient to spread the word, it will encourage them to be a repeat customer of your business.

In our sample case study, referrals made up 14% of our client’s new patient base.

Final Remarks

As with any new system, you need to keep track of how you’re doing

If you rely on intuition only, you can create unrealistic expectations of success.

Don’t make the common mistake of quitting too early. Sometimes our clients don’t even realize their return on advertising spend is actually 5-10x.

Now You Try It

Regardless of whether you are a brand new medical spa or a well-established one, the IV Method can help you increase sales measurably and consistently.

To get started, grab our top performing templates at each stage of the process.

Want Our Help To Implement The IV Method In Your Med Spa?

If you don’t have the time, expertise or desire to do all of the above by yourself, we can become your “Part Time Marketing Manager.”

Using the IV Method, we can help you grow your med spa business in the next 90 days!

First, we’ll start by getting your Facebook and Instagram ad system set up. Next, we will start qualifying leads as they come in with text messages, voicemail drops, email follow-ups and phone call follow-ups using our call center.

What you need to be successful:

1. Already have a med spa. You’ll need to have a med spa with at least one low ticket service (e.g. botox) or high ticket service (e.g. EmSculpting) you offer.
2. Willing to spend money on ads to get patients. You need to be willing to spend at least $500/mo on ads.
3. Willing to offer unbelievable discounts for first-time customers. You need to be willing to offer 25-85% off knowing most patients will come back and spend more with our referral program.

If you meet the above criteria and are serious about becoming the leading med spa in your area, click here to book a Zoom call with me or my team, where we’ll discuss your offer, ad budget, and what irresistible offer we can come up with for your patients.

If none of the times work, please contact me on mason[at]aretemedia.io with two times that work for you, and we’ll find a time.