Starting an aesthetic clinic is one of the most exciting (and high-potential) business ventures you can take on—but also one of the easiest to get wrong.

In fact, according to our data, over 90% of aesthetic businesses fail in their first year. Not because they’re bad at what they do—but because they haven’t built the right systems to get and keep patients.

After working with many top aesthetics and plastic surgery clinics across the UK and North America, we’ve seen the same mistakes crop up again and again.

Here are the top five mistakes new aesthetic clinics make—and exactly how to avoid them.

1. Competing on Price Instead of Value

Ever had a patient lead say “oh, XYZ clinic is cheaper?”

We get it: you’re new in town, and it feels like you have to offer cheaper treatments to attract patients. But here’s the truth:

Good patients don’t want cheap. They want results.

Competing solely on price creates a race to the bottom—and attracts the kind of patients who shop around and don’t return.

Instead, focus on positioning your clinic as an authority. Showcase:

• Your certifications and experience

• Patient testimonials

• Before-and-after results

• Your unique approach or technology

Then pair that with a hero offer that feels valuable, but doesn’t cheapen your brand—like a complimentary consultation, or first-time treatment discount.

We’ve made a course where we teach you how to craft offers that convert without discounting yourself into the ground. Read more below.

2. Thinking “Posting on Instagram” Is a Marketing Strategy

Just 4% of our aesthetics clinics patient leads, come from organic social media marketing

One of the biggest misconceptions we see is that marketing = content creation.

Don’t get us wrong—Instagram and TikTok are important. But posting pretty reels with trending audio isn’t a strategy if it doesn’t drive leads.

You need a full lead generation ecosystem:

• Paid ads to reach the right audience quickly

• Landing pages that convert

• Hero offers that drive action

• A follow-up system that closes the sale

Without this, you’re relying on luck—not strategy. At TooPixels, over 85% of the leads we generate for clients come from systems we can measure, test, and scale.

3. No Follow-Up = No Revenue

Getting patient leads is the first step, but closing them into consults is something else

You’ve got leads coming in—but your consultations arent being booked…

That’s a follow-up problem, not a lead gen one.

Most leads go cold because clinics:

• Take too long to reply

• Don’t know how to respond to objections

• Lack a consistent system for nurturing interest

Studies show responding within the first 15 minutes increases conversions by up to 400%. And the clinics we work with who implement our sales automations consistently double their show-up rates.

Here’s what your follow-up should look like:

1. WhatsApp or SMS within 10–15 minutes

2. Personalised call to qualify and book

3. Email confirmation with clinic info + booking link

4. Automated reminders 2 days, 1 day, and same day

We include all of these scripts and automation templates inside our patient lead gen marketing course.

4. No Clear Offer or Reason to Take Action

If someone visits your website or sees your ad, they’ll ask themselves one question:

“Why should I take action now?”

If your answer is “we do lip fillers,” you’re not going to stand out. Every clinic does lip fillers.

You need a clear, emotionally compelling value proposition and a reason for the user to act today. We call this a Hero Offer—an entry point that’s easy to say yes to.

Good Hero Offers:

• Promise a specific result (e.g. “Get your confidence back in just one session”)

• Include urgency (“Offer ends Friday”)

• Include emotional triggers (“Feel like yourself again”)

Poor offers include:

• Price lists

• Generic “Contact Us” buttons

• Vague treatment descriptions

Need help crafting your offer? The course walks you through our exact formula, with real clinic examples and scripts.

5. No System = No Growth

Running a clinic isn’t just about being a great practitioner. It’s about building a scalable system that consistently brings in leads, converts them, and nurtures them into repeat patients.

Most startups rely on guesswork:

• Random posting schedules

• DIY websites

• No ad strategy

• No tracking

And then they wonder why they can’t pay their team, let alone themselves.

Instead, you need to build a lead generation engine:

• Traffic sources (Meta, Google, TikTok)

• Landing pages with built-in trust

• Offers that convert cold traffic

• CRM system to manage and follow up

• Sales scripts and automations

That’s how we helped one of our clients go from 0 to 200 leads/month—and another scale from £500k/year to over £3M.

If you’re serious about building a business—not just doing treatments—this is the foundation.

🚀 Ready to Avoid These Mistakes and Build a Real Patient Acquisition System?

We’ve compiled all our proven strategies from years in the aesthetics industry into one blueprint:
📘 Get 100 Leads For Your Clinic – The Course – Just $27

Inside you’ll learn:

• How to set up your Meta and Google ads from scratch

• Our proven landing page and website templates

• The Hero Offer formula that gets cold users to take action

• Follow-up scripts, sales automation, and CRM tools

• Real-life examples from clinics that scaled fast

We’ve been helping clinics grow since 2017—and now you can use our exact system to do the same.