Promote Winter Cosmetic Procedures: 7 Tips for Success

Key Takeaways

• Winter offers natural advantages for cosmetic treatments, including reduced sun exposure and opportunities for recovery privacy, making it an ideal season to promote procedures.
• Effective strategies may include seasonal promotions, educational content, testimonials, influencer partnerships and easy scheduling to help engage and attract patients.
• Offering flexible financing options can help patients manage costs, which may be appreciated during the expensive holiday season, as well as help support treatment acceptance and practice growth.

Winter offers a unique window for cosmetic procedures, combining patient demand with natural advantages that help support outcomes and recovery. Lower sun exposure can help reduce pigmentation issues after procedures like chemical peels, while seasonal wardrobes and holiday schedules enable patients to comfortably conceal post-procedure swelling and scars and maximize their recovery time ahead of swimsuit season.

To help your practice capitalize on these seasonal opportunities, we’ve outlined seven tips, from seasonal promotions to safety messaging, that can encourage more patients to book winter cosmetic procedures and help you build stronger patient relationships.

7 Ways to Promote Wintertime Cosmetic Procedures

Highlighting the benefits of wintertime cosmetic procedures may encourage your patients or clients to move forward with the procedures they want or need. Here are seven strategies to help you promote your services this season and engage both new and returning clients.

1. Create Seasonal Promotions

If a patient or client is considering booking a winter plastic surgery or other cosmetic procedure, a great promotion may help them decide.

Seasonal promotions to consider include: 

• Bundling popular winter procedures. Bundling complementary procedures under a wintertime theme can be an attractive promotion. It can help communicate the benefits of seasonal procedures while feeling seasonal and fun for your patients or clients. Examples might include a “plus one for a friend” gift procedure in the package, which may help a client tick two items off their to-do list — treating themselves and holiday gift shopping.
• Limited-time discounts. Winter-themed discounts may help incentivize your patients or clients to book their procedures before the promotion ends. It can also provide an opportunity to remind audiences that now is a great time to book a procedure to maximize their recovery time before summer. Experts recommend a discount of at least 25% to stand out against the bombardment of holiday promotions consumers experience.¹
• Gift cards. Gift cards can be easy for gift-givers and popular with recipients. In the 2024 holiday season, gift cards were the most requested gift category in a National Retail Federation survey.² With gift-giving holidays landing in early winter, gift cards can be a great way to boost end-of-year revenue and book mid-winter services as gift recipients start using their cards in January.
• Holiday self-care campaigns. Ahead of the holidays, the promotions listed above and others can be framed as much-wanted self-care during a sometimes-stressful time of year. Blogs, social campaigns and other communications can help remind your patients or clients to gift themselves the cosmetic procedure they deserve — especially after spending so much time and effort delighting others during the holiday season.

2. Educate With Winter Skin Care Content 

Getting consumers thinking about their skin care during winter can help them start thinking about what procedures could benefit them most. November’s status as the American Academy of Dermatology’s National Healthy Skin Month may be a good time to lean into winter skin care education content at just the right time.³ 

Email marketing, blog posts and social media are all ways to distribute winter skin care content, including ideal wintertime procedures like chemical peels, laser skin resurfacing and more. Internal experts, like practice providers, can develop thought leadership content focused on winter skin care tips and advice via video, articles and even short social posts.

Email marketing in particular allows cosmetic care providers to segment their audience and customize content appropriately. For example, email recipients who are further along on their journey toward booking a procedure might be ready to read about winter skin care after treatment to help them envision their post-procedure lifestyle.

3. Leverage Testimonials and Before-and-After Photos

Patient and client testimonials, both written and in the form of before-and-after photos, can help build trust with your potential patients or clients and showcase the value of various cosmetic procedures and a provider’s skill.⁴ Testimonials can include a client’s real experience with the benefits of their wintertime procedure and recovery. For example, before photos could be staged in a cozy, wintertime setting, and after photos could showcase the results in a summer setting.

Interactive testimonial content can be extra engaging. A virtual event featuring your patient or client stories, like a live Q&A or workshop, is another way to deliver this powerful promotional information to potential clients. It can give participants an opportunity to ask questions and build connections with the practice.

4. Partner With Brands or Influencers

Collaborations with other brands or influencers may say to audiences: “You don’t have to trust us — trust these people who love us.” Consider cross-promotions with brands with similar goals, values and audiences. For example, a plastic surgeon might consider a wintertime cross-promotion with a beauty brand offering an advanced hydrating recovery cream or hyaluronic serum — both recommended for post-surgical winter skin care.⁵

Influencer marketing is huge in the beauty and fashion industries.⁶ Adding a winter promotion may help inform an influencer’s messaging. Cosmetic care providers who may feel intimidated by engaging celebrity-level influencers can still get in on the game. Nano- or micro-influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers or 10,000 to 100,000 followers, respectively, can be effective marketing partners.⁶ Well-known faces within the practice’s local community are another potentially accessible option.

5. Facilitate Easy Scheduling

During end-of-the-year busyness, cosmetic care providers can help patients and clients avoid that “I just can’t handle one more task” feeling by focusing on easy appointment booking. A 2023 study found that more than 60% of respondents prefer booking healthcare appointments digitally.⁷

Consider adding a scheduling link to emails, your practice’s website and social posts with clear messaging like “Book an appointment now.” Additionally, offering evening or weekend appointments can help your potential patients or clients find unexpected availability to squeeze in a procedure.

6. Highlight Safety and Comfort

It’s understandable that some patients and clients may be wary about booking in-clinic procedures during the wintertime cold and flu season. Feeling safe in care settings is important to a positive patient experience.

Including messaging about practice safety awareness in winter procedure promotions can give your patients or clients one less thing to worry about during the cold and flu season. In social posts, your practice’s website and other external communications, consider listing your in-office safety protocols or other illness-prevention measures.

7. Offer Financing Options

With Americans planning to spend an average of $902 per person on gifts, food, decorations and other seasonal items in the 2024 holiday season, the costs could quickly add up.² As a result, budgeting could be an obstacle for some potential patients or clients considering winter plastic surgery or other procedures. Providing options around financing for cosmetic procedures — and promoting them — can help your patients or clients manage the cost during an expensive time of year. 

When promoting financing options like the CareCredit credit card, your patients or clients may be interested to know about: 

• Revolving credit. They can use the card for additional out-of-pocket health and wellness expenses at locations in the CareCredit network.*
• Promotional financing. Easy, flexible, promotional financing options offer patients and clients a way to pay for out-of-pocket expenses over time.*
• A large, diverse network of enrolled providers. Over 285,000 health and wellness provider and retail locations accept CareCredit, including doctors, veterinarians, dentists, specialists and more.
• Easy, instant credit decisions. Patients and clients apply online or in-office and get a decision right away.

As a cosmetic care provider, you’ll appreciate the ability to receive payment for services paid for with CareCredit within two business days. As the end-of-year books close, offering financing options for cosmetic procedures can be beneficial to both your practice and your clients.

Make the Most of Wintertime Procedures

Helping your patients or clients understand the benefits of wintertime cosmetic procedures is both a patient education opportunity and a marketing opportunity for practices. Make the most of the last few months of the year with fun, engaging and educational seasonal promotions.

Offer Flexible Financing at Your Practice

If you are looking for a way to connect your patients or clients with flexible financing that empowers them to pay for the care they want and need, consider offering the CareCredit credit card as a financing solution. CareCredit allows cardholders to pay for out-of-pocket health and wellness expenses over time while helping enhance the payments process for your practice or business.

When you accept CareCredit, patients or clients can see if they prequalify with no impact to their credit score, and those who apply, if approved, can take advantage of special financing on qualifying purchases.* Additionally, you will be paid directly within two business days.

Learn more about the CareCredit credit card as a financing solution or start the provider enrollment process by filling out this form.

Author Bio

Natalie Burg is a writer, editor and editorial project manager with 20 years of experience. She uses her expertise from a range of industries, including economic development, business, sustainability and more, to create content that educates and engages readers.

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