It has been hard to predict or quantify results from Facebook and Instagram ads this year, because results have varied massively.
I mean sure, some marketing campaigns don’t go as well as others and this will always remain the case.
But just when I thought META was becoming a saturated, declining advertising place for salons and skin clinics, producing lacklustre results with high cost per lead etc, things started improving.
META changed things so when businesses used their in-build “Instant Form” lead capture system, the cost per CRM’s (1000 impressions) is a lot lower that sending leads to a business’s own landing page.
What does this mean? It means we started getting leads a lot cheaper for our salon and skin clinic clients.
That’s great news, the only downside is most of these leads are cold and not of the same quality of Google ads leads, who are people actively Google searching for what you’re advertising.
Particularly for aesthetic treatments, this year has seen more leads from META campaigns, but only a small percentage of these willing to book.
The solution to get the best results from your META ads and close as many leads as possible?
Strike while the iron is hot with IMMEDIATE contact
When is best to contact new leads? Studies now show it’s within the first 5 minutes.
The ”5 Minute Rule” is as follows:
If you contact a new inbound within five minutes, you are 100 times more likely to reach them and 21 times more likely to successfully qualify them than if you leave it just 30 minutes. So, call or text them within the first five minutes.
Now I understand for many hair, beauty and aesthetic practitioners this is impossible.
The solution is an automated text message to start a conversation.
With auto SMS senders like Clicksend (or even your own booking software perhaps), you can blast out a short, sharp text message to a lead the moment they fill in their details.
You can automate this using software’s like Zapier – it’s pretty simple and 100% worth the time invested to set up.
And what should that short, sharp text message be? An open question. Nothing more.
Start a dialogue by getting them talking about themselves. Start building the relationship and nurturing your potential clients all the way to the door…..
This instant contact to create a dialogue is especially important when you’re running META ads, where most of your leads are pretty cold.
The instant messaging will help, however many of your cold leads will still need a bit more nurturing before they decide to visit you for the first time.
There’s a saying in the sales and marketing space:
The REAL money is in the follow up.
In other words, many (if not most) of your leads will need some nurturing before they decide to book. This is true in most industries; Hair, beauty and aesthetics being no different.
Others simply require a little persistence.
Indeed, one thing I’ve noticed that the most successful skin clinics we work with all do, is they have a fixed time system to properly follow up with leads, that includes phoning them 3 – 4 times in one week, then a bunch of text messages.
People are busy. Many don’t answer a first-time call. So a little persistence until they do pick up can go a long way…
And if you have a friendly, helpful phone manor, that creates a great first impression, even of your prospect does NOT want to book straight away (this will happen a lot, as they’re still in browsing mode and haven’t reached the “ready to book” zone yet), there is still a good chance that one day soon, they WILL want this treatment.
Create that great impression and you’ll be the first business they call, converting more of your leads into paying customers down the line.
….Like moths to a flame….
Scott Dance
Founder
November 2023