The pain in the arse patient - PITAP.

You all know them. The high maintenance ones. They might be rude, they might be aggressive, they may be condescending - they might simply just be very unkind. They might decide that they don’t have to adhere to your processes. They might push back against following your booking protocols. They may grumble about needing to fill out forms. They might be one of those who thinks the world revolves around them, or unreasonably demanding because they’re ‘THE PATIENT’ after all. Whatever it is, when you’re in the NHS you don’t have much choice but to hold your tongue, take a deep breath and do your best.

But when you’re an aesthetics practitioner, you can choose who you treat.

I get asked this alot.

The primary difference between GlowdayPRO and pretty much all other booking/patient record systems is that GlowdayPRO does all the things needed to keep your bookings and records in order, but it has been built to make marketing your aesthetics business easier.

We know that sorting forms and documentation is annoying, but it’s not going to make or break your business.

What will is your ability to market you, your services and your business appropriately.

Treading the line between advertising your business and adhering to the rules surrounding POMs like Botulinum toxin can be tricky.

Those who have a website and/or rely on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok to find new patients and communicate with existing patients need be aware of the rules that apply to marketing aesthetic services. Because, whilst there are no checks and balances in place for non-medical practitioners, medical practitioners have a statutory registration to protect.

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), together with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), issued an enforcement notice to the beauty and cosmetic services industry on advertising Botox and other botulinum toxin injections on social media platforms.

Here's the low down on what you can and can't do when marketing your business on social media.

Fundamentally, in an industry where competition is intense, but quality is varied, one of the main aims of your marketing is to demonstrate that you are likeable, trustworthy, safe, legit and deliver great outcomes.

You may know these things about yourself, but potential patients don't unless YOU SHOW and TELL them.

Here are five easy ways you can do that.

Many practitioners start their businesses with their phone calendar, WhatsApp, bank transfers and pen and paper forms. Whilst it’s a good idea to keep things lean when you start up any business, there are fundamental things that are needed to succeed - processes, systems and automations being crucial.

Understanding your patient journey and putting into place necessary automations BEFORE you begin to market your aesthetics business is an important step that will allow you to focus on marketing your business, rather than spending your time on low value admin tasks that could easily be automated.

Knowing your personal and professional boundaries, communicating them clearly to your patients and enforcing them will help you achieve a version of work/life balance that works for you and prevent you from becoming resentful and burnt out.

Read on to discover how to find, communicate and enforce your boundaries.

Many practitioners set their prices by looking at what their nearest competitors are charging…but this is ALL WRONG!

Understanding your costs BEFORE you begin to market your aesthetics business is a critical, but often missed, step to building a successful aesthetics business. Read on for how to figure out your costs to inform your pricing.

Many practitioners think branding = logo + colours, but it is so much more than that.

Defining your brand BEFORE you begin to market your aesthetics business is a critical, but often missed, step to building a successful clinic.

Read on for how to create your aesthetics business brand.

How do you market your aesthetics business? Well, before you jump headfirst into Instagram, or Google Paid ads…STOP! You need some foundations in place BEFORE you begin to build your business.

Here’s the FIRST thing you need to do…know WHO you’re trying to attract…

Not sure where to get started with marketing your aesthetics business? Struggling to figure out where to spend your time?

Here’s an introduction to marketing for aesthetic practitioners.

It makes sense to pop you booking link in as many places as possible to make it obvious, simple and as easy as possible for your patients. “DM to book” “Email to book” “Call to book” require your patients to do work.

Here are 6 places you should pop your booking link.

“My clinic is quiet!?” “I’ve never been so quiet!?” “Is it just me, or is everyone quiet?”

I hear aesthetic practitioners say things like these often. And often they then go bonkers posting on Instagram to try to drum up some bookings. If this sounds like you, you need to read this…

“There’s too much competition”

“The market is saturated”

“I can’t compete with non-med pricing”

Are you even an aesthetic practitioner if you’ve never thought these things?!?

Read on to find out how to assess your competition and manage that monkey on your shoulder!

Great, professional photography get 7x more views, 25% more bookings and generate 40% more revenue than those with poor, shoddy photography.

If you’ve not invested in amazing photos for your business, you’re missing out.

Should you pay VAT on your Botox? Are confused about VAT in medical aesthetics? Not sure what the rules are?

In this article, we will cover what VAT is, how it applies to medical aesthetic treatments, how to keep accurate records and what could happen if you’re not compliant.

Reviews make you feel good - everyone likes a pat on the back and the personal fulfilment they give. But for aesthetic practitioners, patients’ reviews hold lots more power and potential. Learn why.

Many aesthetic clinics are introducing Buy Now Pay Later financing options to their service offering to make treatments affordable for their patients. Here are 6 things to think about BEFORE you offer Klarna, Payl8r or GoCardless to your patients.

You quickly realise, when you set up your own aesthetics business, that you need to become not only an expert injector, but an expert marketer, designer, bookkeeper, admin and sales person!

One of the things you should quickly acquainted with is websites, Google, blogs and SEO.

This guide covers the basics every practitioner needs to know about SEO.

A Google Business Profile is something that literally puts your business on the map, yet it’s something that aesthetic practitioners often overlook.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to setting up your Google Business Profile.

Practitioners typically invest thousands in their clinical training and then think “Shit…I’ve got no patients…I better set up an instagram and Facebook profile…Now…what should I post?”

They then follow a ton of other practitioners and re-hash the content they see. And then wonder why their marketing efforts aren’t fruitful.

Very very rarely do practitioners actually put themselves in the shoes of their patients when thinking about marketing. This leads them to work hard on their marketing for limited return and get despondent when they don’t get bookings.

So we’re going to cover some of the fundamentals of marketing and apply them to aesthetic businesses.