What a small clinic or salon can do this month to win new clients, most of it free, and the Australian rules that come with each step.
This started as an email to a salon owner who asked us a simple question: what can I actually do to bring in the next client? None of it needs software, most of it costs little or nothing, and the order matters. Start with the free steps, and only pay for reach once you know the offer gets booked. This is general information, not legal advice.
Pick your three most popular treatments and offer them to new clients at 50% off until the end of the year. Show the real numbers, the usual price and the new-client price side by side, because a specific price gets booked and a vague “special” gets scrolled past. Put it on your website and your social channels, and make it bookable online so nobody has to call. Every other step in this guide points back to this one offer.
The discount has to be genuine: the usual price must be a price you actually charge, and if you say the offer ends on 31 December, end it then. If a registered health practitioner provides the treatment, the terms and conditions of the offer must appear in the advertisement itself. And no prices or offers at all for prescription-only cosmetic injectables. A consultation about the concern is the version you can promote.
The rules in detail: how to stay compliantPrint a simple flyer with the offer and a QR code that opens your booking page, then take it to the businesses around you: the café, the gym, the boutique next door. Ask if you can leave a small stack on the counter, and offer to do the same for them. Your next clients already walk past your door, and your neighbours see them every day.
A flyer is an advertisement, so the same rules apply: the usual price, the offer price and the terms belong on the flyer itself.
Offer $50 for every new client a current client sends you, as credit on their next visit, paid once the friend has had their first treatment. Mention it at checkout, print it on the receipt and add a line to your booking confirmations. A referred client arrives already trusting you, which is worth paying for.
Tie the reward to the visit, never to a review or a post. A rewarded review is a paid review, which consumer law says must be disclosed, and for regulated health services testimonials in advertising are banned outright. State the terms wherever you mention the program.
Give a handful of free treatments, four or five, to hairdressers near you. They spend an hour or more with each client, and “who do you go to?” comes up in that chair every day. A hairdresser who loved their treatment with you becomes the answer. Ask for nothing in return.
If they post about it, the post has to say the treatment was free: the ACCC has penalised a business for asking creators to hide gifted products. For higher-risk cosmetic procedures, Ahpra bans testimonials and makes you responsible for any advertising an influencer produces for you, so keep these gifts to treatments that are not prescription-only.
If the first four are not bringing enough people in, put a small budget behind the same offer on Facebook and Instagram. Keep the radius tight around your clinic and send people to the same booking page. It comes last because it is the only step that costs money whether or not anyone books.
Meta requires ads for cosmetic procedures to be shown only to people 18 and over, and rejects ads that play on how people feel about their appearance. Everything above still applies: genuine prices, terms in the ad, nothing about prescription-only injectables.
Gift cards are the one tactic with a season. Promote them in the weeks before Christmas: they bring in new clients, because the person who receives one has often never visited, and they bring next year’s revenue forward into this one.
Consider a discounted card, such as a $100 card sold for $50. The buyer gives a gift that looks generous, and you get a new client through the door. If you do, honour the full value with no exceptions, including on treatments that are already discounted, and make sure your team knows it.
Tell your existing clients first. An SMS or email to the clients who have agreed to hear from you is the cheapest way to sell them, as long as every message names your business and carries a working unsubscribe.
Most gift cards must be valid for at least three years, show the expiry date clearly and carry no fees after purchase. Give every card three years, discounted ones included, and you never have to work out which exception applies. The line on injectables holds here too: promote the card or a consultation, never a prescription-only treatment.
ACCC: rules for gift cardsWriting to existing clients: winning back lapsed clientsAsk every new client how they heard about you and note it on their record. After a month you will know which of these worked for your clinic, and you can drop the rest.
In Serene, gift cards and vouchers sit in the same checkout as everything else, every email campaign is checked against the TGA and Ahpra advertising rules before it sends, and the Clinic Advisor answers questions about your own clinic in plain English with a suggested next step. The gift card idea above came from asking it what it would do.
See how the Clinic Advisor worksA 30-minute demo on your own client list and treatment menu. No pressure, no obligation.
