Marketing Mistakes

• Focus on client-centered marketing rather than self-centered posts.
• Understand and address client needs and concerns in your marketing.
• Demystify treatments and explain them in ways that clients can understand.
• Get into the client's head and create content that resonates with them.

Transcript:
You are listening to the Estheticians Earning More podcast with Brittany Hagemann, episode number 138. Hello, happy Monday. Welcome back. I hope today's audio is better. I'm really sorry. I feel like the audio has not been great with the podcast and I'm trying different things to improve it and it doesn't seem to be working, but we're going to keep...

We're gonna keep it on, right? Spotify, which is where I distribute my podcasts through, has now changed it that in June, you can no longer record through them, which is a big bummer because it's been really easy and I'm using a different software now that's very fancy. And there's a lot of things to keep like.

going to make it all right, and I'm a little bit overwhelmed by it all, but we're just gonna, again, we're just gonna keep trying until we get it right. So I hope today's audio is better. If it's not, I'm really sorry. Nothing is worse than really bad audio for podcasts. So, okay. Today I wanna talk more about marketing, specifically about a post I made last week about esthetician marketing posts that need to die. It's a real, I'll put a link in the show notes if you haven't seen it.
But basically the post was just talking about some of the same posts I see estheticians doing again and again and again. And I'm here to tell you that they are not growing your business. And of course maybe sometimes people will respond to these posts and you're like, no, it works, see.

Okay, that's true. There are definitely times these may help grow your business, but nine times out of 10, they won't. They won't grow your business. And basically these posts that I talked about are all aest posts, which is the problem.

We think, like, this is, I think, the train of thought a lot of us go through. It's like, I don't know what to post is really the big problem, right? So I'm just gonna post about my treatment room, my treatment setup, and just like a picture of a facial with like not a lot of education or just like me.

talking about how I'm hustling so hard, growing this business and it's been so much work and being a business owner is so hard, right? You're like, they say, you know, all the marketing experts say to talk about yourself, right? And like have people get to know you. So like, that's what I'm doing, right? Or like, I want to be thought as an expert and people trust me. So I'm going to just give so much detail and over.

everything and talk in esthetician talk and use really high-level words to describe these things so that people think I know what I'm talking about and I'm knowledgeable and I'm someone to come to. Right? So this is like the train of thought that I have seen many estheticians have and I myself used to have this train of thought as well. But I want to tell you why it doesn't work and I'm gonna tell you what to do instead.

The reason it doesn't work is because if someone's on Instagram, unless they're like your mom or your best friend or someone who's already your client that is like just already like bought into what you do, like is happy to hear about your business and excited for you because they like want to support your business. If it's just some random person looking for services that you do, they are thinking about themselves.

They are not thinking about you. I think that's a really, really important distinction here. Because all those posts I talked about, you're talking about yourself, the aesthetician, not about the client. Or if you're talking about how hard the business is and how clients are canceling and whatever, rigmarole, that's not talking about a client in a positive way.

I don't want to go see someone who is like bashing their clients on Instagram, even like low key bashing them. They're like, oh, you know, thanks for those of you who show up to your appointment on time because when you don't, it's really hard. Like I know that even before I was an esthetician, I knew that. Like I don't, that's not really that important to me. Like if I'm looking for someone to do services, I want to be able to see their work if possible. Sometimes I know that's not possible if you're doing like Brazilians or if you...or a newer business owner and you don't have like before and afters or like what you do isn't super easy to show, I get that. But if possible, I wanna see their work, but I want to feel like they're approachable, they know what they're talking about and not in a way that's like over explaining and I want them to feel like they get me. That is the thing I want the most. Like, If I am gonna go and get my hair done as a busy mom that has a lot of different things going on and I'm looking for a hairstyle that is like easily manageable, it's one of the reasons I got bangs because like my hair looks done even if I just washed it and dried it really fast or like just put dry shampoo in my hair like I don't have to do a lot to make it look done, I want someone to help solve that problem for me.
Like this is a really great hairstyle for someone who's really busy or doesn't like doing their hair. And why?

I want someone to feel like, I want to go to someone's Instagram or TikTok or whatever I'm looking at and feel like they know the problems that I'm having and how to solve them and that they are saying the things that I am thinking. If you've been listening to this podcast, you may know I am shocked with the amount of wrinkles I have gotten since having a child.

I feel like I've aged tremendously and the gray hairs, that's also been really shocking for me. And I am interested in doing something about the wrinkles this year. And I've learned about Procell only from my clients. But people I find have a really hard time describing what Procell is. I had a friend come over this weekend for Super Bowl and she's not an esthetician. She's not at all in the world of estheticians. She has no idea about any of these things.

And we were talking about Procell. And I was like, yeah, it's great, because there's no needles, and you're not gonna bleed, like micro-needling, because she had been told by someone that she could use micro-needling, but she's afraid of needles. And she had a lot of questions about Procell, and I can tell you what things that she didn't ask. She didn't ask to see a picture of the device. That's not interesting to her, right? She wasn't like...  She didn't ask like that beyond like, what is this supposed to do or how it works essentially. Like she doesn't want to know the science behind it at a very detailed level. Like she understood it builds collagen and that's what she needs in her skin. That was it. That's all she needed to know. She doesn't need to know anything beyond that, okay? She wanted to know the downtime.

she wanted to know how long she's actually getting the treatment with the device, right? Like, she's like, if I go to an appointment and it's an hour, am I gonna be sitting there for an hour having them do the pro cell on me? That's important to know. Again, when I was doing acne in San Diego, a new client would be 45 minutes of extractions. I made sure I put that in the service description, so they knew.

They knew they weren't coming and getting like two extractions and calling it a day that it was good. This is what we were doing, right? Like they could set themselves up mentally for 45 minutes of extractions or whatever, right? They need to understand what it like, she's like, what do I, what is happening? Do I get numbed? And I was like, oh yeah, you know, most people I know numb. She's like, oh no, I don't want to have needles. I don't want to be numbed. She thinks you were nurses and we could just use needle and numb you. She doesn't know. Maybe in some states.

That's the truth, but that's not, I believe not in California, and definitely not something that I would ever do, is take a numbsum with needles. I was like, oh no, it's a numbing cream. She's like, what? Oh, okay, right? So like, these are so many details about her and her fear. She's afraid of needles. She's afraid of pain. She's afraid of downtime, right? She's afraid of it being a really long service to sit there and have this device. She was like, what?

Is it loud? Is it like a punching sound? Right? Like all of these things are super important. What's not important is a picture of the device and just be like, it will target all your fine lines and wrinkles. Here's my website book. What? Okay. Maybe I'll just go get Botox because I understand how Botox works. Like that's a thing that most people understand that... put a needle in your wrinkle and the wrinkle goes away for a period of time. Like that, I understand how that works. I don't understand how this works. I don't understand what is micro channeling? What is micro needling? What does that mean? Are you using needles on my face? Like, are you taking a needle and poking my face 100 times? Like, what is this, what, right? So you have to get really good at figuring out.

What your client is thinking, what your client is worried about, what the questions your clients have, why your client is not coming in.

Getting really good at showing your treatment setup is not compelling. Like, honestly, I didn't really understand Procell because I have been kind of out of the device world for a few years and learning about all the new technologies. And so my clients were telling me, I was like, no, but how does it work? And they're like, it just, it microchannels. I'm like, I don't know what that, I don't know what that means. Like to my esthetician clients, you guys know.

I am loving but direct. So I'm like, I don't know what that means. You need to understand. Like if I don't understand what that means and I'm an esthetician, nobody else understands what microchanneling means. They just, guys, they made up that term, right? It's a made up term, which is great. They're doing, it's a great thing, great device. I'm very interested, but no one knows what that means.

Like channeling, what? And even like someone like, again, if I was doing acne again, maybe people don't even know what extractions mean. Like, what does that mean? Are they going to use like, you know, needles? Like again, like what, how? How is it gonna, is it gonna hurt afterwards? Does it hurt when it's happening?

Can I not go in the sun?

Can I, am I gonna look like Samantha from Sex and the City after she got a chemical peel? I remember when I was doing peels initially and I realized a lot of people had fears around peels. I know some of you may be too young and you're not a Sex and the City fan. Maybe like that's old people. But my generation, we all grew up watching Sex and the City as we probably shouldn't have been, but we were. And there's the famous scene where one of the characters gets a chemical peel from a-

I've been a dermatologist and a plastic surgeon and like her face is like raw meat and it looks absolutely horrifying. And so people thought that's what it was. So people were coming in and like, okay, we're gonna do a chemical peel. And they're like, no, I don't that looks painful. And I don't want my face to look like that for like two weeks. Right? Oh, no, that's not what it looks like at all. This is what it looks like. Right. So you're demystifying it. You're showing people.

you're telling them in ways they understand about things that they actually are concerned about, things that they worry about, things that they themselves want change in. Like again, I'm an esthetician, I understand like how these devices work, but I'm like, I don't wanna be in pain, right? Like I don't wanna feel pain on my face. That's not really that worth it for me.

Like that doesn't seem something like I wanna do. And then like how often do I have to come? Like what skincare do I have to buy to go along with it? All of those things I need to understand. And I think that it can be overwhelming, right? This can be overwhelming to figure out this, to figure out what your client is thinking. Or your potential client is thinking or worried about. I get it, because you are so focused on what you are thinking and growing your business and like what is happening for you that you cannot see what they are thinking. But the secret is, the key to this puzzle is you have to stop being in your head and get in their head.

And it can take a minute. Like my one-to-one clients that I work with on this, it can take like two to three months of them posting and me giving them lovingly direct feedback for them to be like, oh yes, I see. That makes more sense. And they also get feedback from like response from people to see kind of what resonates with people and what doesn't. But again.

It's a way of changing the way you look about your business. And once you do, once you change, once you get it, it is so easy. It is so easy once you get it.

But if you keep talking from your point of view, it's gonna be really, really hard for you to grow your business from that marketing perspective.