Why Facebook Ads Won’t Fix Your Appointment Book By Clare Lamberth

Why Facebook Ads Won’t Fix Your Appointment Book B y C l a r e L a m b e r t h

In my role as Creative Director & Salon Social Media Strategist at Social Style, I’m often approached by new businesses about running Facebook Ads to fill unwanted gaps and drive new clients int otheir treatments rooms.

online activity and supporting in-clinic marketing I often get an awkward pause before an admission that nothing lies in place.

When I quiz them further about what their current overall marketing strategy is for their current

Facebook Ads can be a very effective solution for targeting and acquiring new clients. However, they cost ALOT and without a well rounded marketing strategy to keep these clients in your business. Pouring money into Facebook Ads is just like pouring water into a leaky bucket. If you don’t have to hole plugged first those leads and all that money spent on Ads is just going to go to waste.

Here’s why I don’t recommend ads as a “goto first option” to drive new leads into your clinic.

Facebook leads are “cold” leads. Ice cold, at best. Meaning you’re spending money to market to strangers. Telling someone who doesn’t know, like or trust you to come and spend their money with you.

It takes around 13 times longer ( and costs much more) to convert a new lead into a “watcher” and then into a “clicker” and then eventually over time into a paying client, than it doesn’t to work on keep a client you’ve already seen.

So it’s no wonder seeing how long this conversion process takes that flicking the “Magic Ads Switch” on doesn’t always deliver the quick results you want.

Masking the bigger issue.

Often I’ve found the desire to turn to ads is masking a bigger undying issue, or hole in the businesses marketing strategy, around client retention and rebooking.

Ask yourself why do you want to run ads in the first place? Then ask why 3 more times and find the root cause of why you really want to run an ad. The answer is along the lines of “I have too many gaps and we need more clients.” Here is the root cause we need to address BEFORE we run ads. Otherwise you are just adding in more clients who won’t rebook and return and so the vicious (expensive) cycle continues. enough, at all or maybe you just haven’t asked them to. Having a revision of your rebooking & retention strategies, including keeping in regular touch with your customers in a real-life human way, shows you genuinely care. This will save you time, money and build your business over time.

Here’s 3 other options to help you get new clients for free without having to touch Ads Manager.

Refer a friend program. Using the clients you already have to know, love and trust you and then asking them to recommend you to their friends is an ideal way of bringing you more of what you know already works. An internal referral program where your existing “Hot” & “Warm” leads refer your services to their friends, and in return both get rewarded, is an effective strategy with both short term return and long term stability. I mean who doesn’t love a surprise gift just for raving about your favourite places to their friends! Win, win, win!

You can give a voucher, hold an event where clients can bring a friend (or three), or put together a package where it’s shared amongst friends. The options are endless.

Follow up marketing. Do you have followup marketing strategies in place to check in with your clients after their visit? At least at the 24hr and 1 month mark post visit. If the answer if no, you could have a weeks worth of client sitting right in your database waiting to be booked back in again. These are HOT leads. Meaning they already know, like and trust you and are more likely to convert to a booking than a cold lead on Facebook who has no idea who you are.

24hrs post visit checkin with your clients to see how their treatment was and to make sure everything was ok and they’re happy. If they had a great treatment and were happy these clients are more likely to rebook and come back to you. These are the clients you want to reach out to at the 1 month mark if no rebooking has occurred to check in, say hi and give a friendly reminder that to maintain best results you’d love to see them again.

If you have the first stage in place the recall is so much easier and becomes an extension of your amazing customer service rather than a cold calling exercise.

Pick up the phone

Be a real human. How many client appointments do you need filled? Pick up the phone calling clients you haven’t seen in more than 6 weeks is a surprisingly easy way to build your books back up. Yes, it sounds daunting at first. What I found through is if you go into it with zero expectation apart from developing your relationship with that client further, you really have nothing to loose.

You’re not cold calling them to sell them something. You’re checking in on a valued client you haven’t seen in a while. You don’t have to give them a discount or an offer. Just a friendly check in to say Hi, see how they’re doing and see if there’s anything you can help with. Can go along way.

From experience, out of 10 calls you’re bound to walk away with at least 1 new booking. A 10% conversion rate is much higher than a lot of ads deliver.

If you’re nervous write yourself a script. And practise makes perfect.

Socials Style works with busy business owners to help over come social overwhelming giving you back precious hours in your week to work on and in your business. Follow Clare & Social Style on Instagram @socialstyle_au for more tips and tricks on how to market to your clients with integrity and style online.