One of the most overlooked opportunities within the clinic growth ecosystem is the re-engagement and reactivation of former clients. Those who stopped getting treatments for financial, personal or geographical reasons. They could date back months or years and are potentially receiving treatments elsewhere.
In this article, we will discuss tactics to reactivate former clients. As you will see, these tactics can also be used to achieve clinic growth by increasing the average number of treatments clients have per month (tpm).
Start with the Database
If nothing else, this article will hopefully communicate the importance of effective information gathering when it comes to your database. If you already have plenty of contact information for each former client (email address, mobile number, physical address) then you are in a powerful position. If not, this strategy may end up being a medium-term goal rather than something you can start immediately.
Define the Methodology
To a certain extent, how you attempt to reconnect with your database will be defined by the type of information you have. If you only collected mobile numbers then phone calls or text messages are your only options. Likewise for emails and physical addresses – but all marketing works some of the time, so don’t be discouraged by the information you have. Learn the lesson and improve it for next time.
Segment, Segment, Segment
Personalised offers are far more likely to have a higher response rate. Again, if you have gathered information on the types of treatments clients have had, and if it is easily accessible, then you can offer relevant and complimentary treatments. For example, if you have a group of clients that had multiple facial treatments and you now have a carbon facial device, this could be a suitable and highly personalised offer:
Hello Angela,
A quick note to let you know that carbon facials are now available in the clinic. I remembered how much you enjoyed our signature facial treatments in the past and thought this may be of interest to you.
Just in case, here is a 20% off voucher for you to use this month.
Hope to see you again soon!
Effective database segmentation also means that you are forced to get to know your clients more and understand their motivations for visiting your clinic.
The System
Automation, systematisation, process, whatever you want to call it make sure you have a method to reengage old clients on a regular basis. Doing this once will no doubt yield some positive results but having a system in place will mean that all former clients will receive additional communications at some stage. Define what constitutes a “former client.” Two months? Three months? Six months? Then you can build a system to make sure that when that time period has passed they receive a relevant and highly personalised offer that will encourage them to re-enter your clinic.
One final note: remember to remove clients that you do not want to return from your database. We have all had those ones.
