In both the film and the video games industry, it is commonplace to start marketing a product and build hype during the design phase, sometimes years before the product is released. This means that the product is not fully formed, may be subject to significant change and might not even be released. They do this to ensure that there is a large following when the product is finally released, to enable the product to gain maximum publicity and, therefore, sales when it is finally released. Even though the product will deliver sales for many years through various marketing phases, getting the initial awareness and audience base is critical to ensure someone is listening. In both the game and film industries, that initial hype at release generates lots of free marketing if they can get their product to rank in the sales charts (Brush, 2022).
While there is not a ‘top 40 chart’ for medical aesthetics and much shorter product and brand development periods, there is much to learn from these marketing techniques. Promoting brands by discussing courses and product ranges can be a great way of developing a following and getting some sales lined up when you are ready to launch. In this article, there will be a focus on premarketing a brand; however, these methods can also be used for a new product or opening a new clinic.
What is premarketing?
Premarketing is about promoting a brand and journey while creating a product. It is a chance for the business owner to talk about their brand and themself and share some of the behind-the-scenes on the product leading up to accepting customers. The objective is to spread awareness and develop a more intimate bond with those who will likely become loyal patients and customers. Premarketing helps, too. Your fledgling business will feel real and help you commit to your brand or product.
When should you start premarketing? Right now, you may still be unsure about what you will offer. Engaging with potential patients will get the feedback needed to determine what product or service will be offered. If you are considering setting up an aesthetic business but are still at university or have not started some specialist courses yet, you should still be building your audience and talking about what excites you until you are qualified and in a position to offer the service.
Getting started
While designing a brand can be exciting, it is essential to not spend too much time on this initially by trying to get it perfect at this point and becoming paralysed on getting your business running. You will keep changing it as you develop your service right up to the time of your release date, so do not worry too much about how it initially looks—it is essential just to get started. Let us go through some quick steps to get a crash course on premarketing and get your brand out there. Constrain your time on this to finish these initial steps quickly, so you can focus on building an audience and your service. Ideally, aim to complete this in the evening.
Name your brand
Start brainstorming names using Google to see if your brand name is already being used or if the name you have thought of is too similar to a large related brand. If the name sounds promising, you can use https://namecheck.com to quickly check if the domain name and social media handles are already in use. Remember: you can always go back and change the name without too much fuss until the launch.
» The Noun Project is a great way of getting some ideas for logos. It allows users to do a search on a noun, and it will present you with a list of icons that are related to that word «
Mock up your brand
Now that you have got a name that you are happy with, a colour palette needs to be decided for your brand. Take a look at https://coolors.co—it is a beautiful way of picking a complementary palette along with the hexadecimal values that can be used in a graphics editor. If you already have a graphics editor, such as Photoshop, a free online alternative can be found at https://pixlr.com. Another great site is https://www.canva.com, which has numerous preset layouts that can be played around with. Aim for a canvas size of 1920x1080, to begin with, and set the background colour to the one you selected on your palette.
Choosing a good font for your logo is easy, too, as there are hundreds of free ones at https://fonts.google.com, which can be downloaded and installed on your computer. Some quick effects that can be applied include making just one word of your brand name have a light font weighting for contrast, and another is to play around with the letter spacing to expand a word so that each word in your logo is the same size.
The next thing to do is pick a logo. The Noun Project (https://thenounproject.com) is a great way of getting some ideas for logos. It allows users to do a search on a noun, and it will present you with a list of icons that are related to that word. There are sites you can use that will charge a small fee (www.brandcrowd.com, www.namecheap.com/logo-maker and https://placeit.net/logo-maker are great places to look at, too). Make sure you download the picture as a PNG format file, as JPG files do not have transparent backgrounds.
Now that you have got a name, colour palette, font and logo, play around with the layout and set something up that feels good to you. Again, in all probability, you will change your mind later on, so do not get too obsessed with this initially.
Get a brand online
The next step is to use your brand assets to create Twitter and Facebook banner images. These are the images that are on the header. A quick way of doing this is to download a template image on Google and import it into a new file on an image editor. You can then fade out the template image and overlay your brand name and logo. If you are looking for free images for your banners, https://pexels.com can be a good source. Setting up a Facebook page and new Twitter account is a well-documented process and will not take long.
Next, set up a basic website that can collect email addresses. While email will never let new patients find you, it is a good way of turning mildly interesting people into fans for when a product is released by enticing them with an introductory discount. However, at this stage, it is critical not to become a design purist who gets hung up for weeks tweaking their website before it finally goes live. If you use a web building service (such as www.squarespace.com or www.wix.com), the chances are that the website will be up and running in less than an hour. While Wix will allow you to create a free site, consider purchasing a business package with a business email address, as that looks more professional. At this stage, a page that simply states that your fledging brand is ‘coming soon’ and to subscribe for updates is needed. Do not get carried away adding anything else to it—just upload your logo and a background image and get the site live as quickly as possible. There is plenty of time to tweak it later on.
Build a publishing schedule
Business owners now have the making of a marketing funnel for their brand. The purpose of social media sites is to turn unaware potential patients and customers into aware potential patients and customers, and your website and email list are used to drip-feed them with information. This turns them from aware potential patients and customers into full-blown paying patients and customers when your product is ready. The best way to drive building an audience is to create a schedule to publish something three times a week. The objective should be to post something with a specific call to action. This could be asking what the audience thinks about a particular topic or something you are working on, asking them to join your wish list or share the link to your social media. It could also be a small article where an opinion is shared or mentioning what you are doing to develop your brand or skillset.
Start with a recurring entry in your calendar called Tentacle Tuesday. This is where you look around on social media to post links back to your social media or website. Make sure you have got something small and interesting to share and ask for feedback. Use hashtags to pull in more potential views.
Next, set up Hashtag Friday. Do some research into who reposts links with a specified hashtag in the areas you are interested in. While it is great to do some industry hashtags, remember to look at the interests of your target audience. Keep researching where to publish and what hashtags to use.
Finally: Article Saturday. Publish a short article or photo to provide content for the above two days with a specific call to action. Aim to publish it in the early evening when social media is being accessed the most, then use the other two marketing days to either reach out to new groups or push content to established channels.
Of course, experiment with these days and their purposes. It is essential to build that interest in your brand even though you may initially feel insecure about promoting it. The only way you are going to do that is to put on your marketing hat for an hour or two per week, as opposed to your aesthetic/clinical hat. You can use likes or retweets to determine what works and what does not, but the biggest success indicator is the size of your mailing list.
Conclusion
If you are considering setting up a clinic, start by getting your online presence running quickly. Once this has been done, your business will feel real to you and your potential followers and help keep you motivated. Keep iterating—as you get feedback, or lack thereof, keep tweaking the parameters of your premarketing and see what resonates with your audience.