Weddings are a multi-billion dollar industry and can be a huge growth opportunity for your practice. With wedding season right around the corner, it’s a great time to capitalize on this time of year and attract new bridal clientele to your business. Marketing and advertising may seem like an obvious way to reach the future brides in your community, but they can be expensive. Knowing how to maximize your pre-existing social media presence can be a very inexpensive way of increasing your brand visibility and driving additional patient bookings.  Social media has the potential to reach a large audience within a short amount of time; and if you implement the right strategies, your practice can save money on marketing and receive “I dos” from new brides in no time.

Instagram is an excellent platform to help providers attract new wedding clientele. In this article, we’ll cover three  strategies you can implement to drive new clients to your practice:

• Instagram giveaways
• Effective hashtags
• Direct messages  

Host an Instagram giveaway

Instagram giveaways are typically a limited-time contest to promote your brand. They are a reliable way to attract new followers and subsequently, new clients. Giveaways may seem pretty straightforward, but there are significant differences between good ones and bad ones. Kristen Doezie, MSN, BSN, RN, states: “Social media can really be the best thing to happen to your practice if you utilize it the right way.” A good giveaway will help you reach marketing goals by tapping into target audiences, supporting your brand’s message, and helping to secure patient bookings. As a medical aesthetic provider, a giveaway prize can be a free or discounted service. The easiest and most common type of giveaway entry is through a tag, follow, and share entry requirement. This method is a clear and straightforward way to increase engagement through various channels on just a single post. The prospect of winning something will draw in your existing audience, but their reposting gives you a chance to draw in their friends.

When creating a giveaway, it is also important to understand what demographic you are trying to reach. Doezie suggests: “Try to research and hone in on who your ideal patient is. What does that person look like? Is it an influencer? Is it a mom? Is it someone you know that's a little bit older? Really try to understand what they want. For example, I'm doing a giveaway right now and it's tailored exactly to who my ideal client is. That way, people who enter my promotion already have an interest in social media, so hopefully, they’ll follow me and stay connected; and because of their engagement on social media platforms, the chances of them booking with me are higher. With this strategy, I’ve been able to fill my practice with my ideal clients.” When targeting new bridal clientele, make sure to tailor your giveaway toward upcoming brides-to-be.

Hosting an Instagram giveaway targeting brides starts with your practice following wedding-related brands and industries within your community. It would be mutually beneficial if you could also create partnerships with these brands, even if their industry does not completely align with aesthetics. Teaming up with a like-minded brand or one that has the same target audience is an easy way to leverage their following while ensuring that you are attracting the right kind of audience. For example, if your practice teamed up with a local salon or spa, you could both offer a joint bridal special that encourages current and future bridal clients to try out services from your respective businesses. Additionally, both brands could mutually post on Instagram, which would only further your brand’s visibility to other brides and bridal parties in the area. Regardless of the type of partnership, just make sure that your joint prize is relevant to brides and their wedding preparation needs. It could be products, services, or even an experience — you just want to make sure that it is alluring and enticing to both your existing and target audiences.

Use effective hashtags on social channels

When it comes to promoting your brand, hashtags are one of the key factors in boosting your post’s visibility and client reach. Hashtags are user-generated labels used on social media to index or categorize keywords and topics. Using hashtags on your practice’s social media accounts is crucial for potential clients to discover and understand your brand. There are hashtags for anything and everything, but wedding hashtags are especially popular on Instagram. Future brides are constantly searching for inspiration by clicking on popular wedding-related hashtags. By utilizing the popularity of these hashtags, you can reach new bridal clientele with pre-wedding day specials or services. Hashtags can also be utilized to market to anyone who will be involved with the wedding — from the bridesmaids to the mother of the bride and the groom. The possibilities of using hashtags on posts are endless. However, while using hashtags is great exposure, it is important that you remember to maintain brand awareness and consistency within your posts.

Some starter hashtags your practice could use to attract brides could be: #wedding, #weddinginspiration, #weddingdress, #weddingparty, #bride, #bridalparty, and #weddingplanning. However, do not forget to also include hashtags that are more industry-related such as #medspa, #selfcare, #lipfillers, #injectables, #botox, #wrinklecare, #skincare, and anything else that your practice wants to showcase. Using websites like best-hashtags.com is also a great way to stay current on trending hashtags within the wedding industry. While there are many general wedding and aesthetic injector hashtags for you to use, it is important to also use local hashtags to draw in people from your actual community. If your practice is in Los Feliz, CA, you should hashtag “#losfeliz” so that it also targets the demographic of people who live close by and could actually be potential clients. It would also be beneficial to research what hashtags your local dress shops, designers, venues, or salons use on their own wedding-targeted posts. Instagram allows 30 hashtags in a single post, but realistically, you should not use that many to avoid overwhelming your audience. The ideal amount of hashtags per post should hit around 15-20, with at least one branded hashtag to help followers find your content easier and quicker.

Slide into the bride’s DMs

Not all DMs are created equal. It is actually good to directly engage with brides-to-be in your local community through comments and direct messages (DMs). Discover bridal clientele by also following popular bridal accounts and influencers in your area. Direct messaging is an effective marketing tactic as it shows a level of personalization that other forms of marketing do not. Replying to a bride-to-be’s post or story regarding wedding planning can demonstrate a personal touch that may lead to them booking a service at your practice. Once a connection is made, you can also offer free consultations for the bride or groom-to-be as a promotional incentive. Wedding planning can be exciting, but equally as stressful — so if a practice is offering to alleviate and narrow down some wedding preparation choices, it would most definitely benefit all parties involved.

It would also be strategic to reach out to local fashion or lifestyle influencers in the community to further your brand outreach. Partnering up with local influencers can lead to mutually beneficial results. Influencers already have a pre-existing following that is invested in their personal journeys. Imagine if an influencer posted photos of their treatment results from your practice. Their audience may feel inclined to not only book the same treatment, but they will most likely seek out the practice that was tagged.

Conclusion

Marketing and promoting your practice can be an easy and inexpensive endeavor if you know how to make social media work for you. Everyone wants to look their best at a wedding, from the bride to their second cousins — there are so many different opportunities to connect and engage your brand with everyone who attends a wedding. Reaching bridal clientele through the three Instagram strategies provided in this article is not only a good introduction to the kind of services that you can provide before their wedding, but it can also be an opportunity to demonstrate how your services can be a part of a self-care routine that they should indulge in regularly.

‍