But purchasing high-end equipment is not enough. Your clinic may be doing everything right: offering science-backed acne treatments with advanced technology, a great social media presence, high visibility in search engines, and other initiatives. However, something is still not adding up. You find yourself struggling to appeal to your core audience. What might be causing this?

It may be that the coverage and communication of your acne treatment are seen as less reliable or trustworthy compared to your competitors that also use lasers for acne treatments. A 2021 consumer trends report² has shown that modern consumers of wellness brands are looking for products and treatments that are more science-backed.

What does this mean? To put it simply, the way you communicate your services matters. It’s not enough to have the technology—you must also let your audience know exactly how and why it works. To capture today’s consumers, you have to appeal to their science-consciousness. Here are some specific points to point you in that direction.

Know the details of your patient's treatment

The first thing you will need to do is to fully equip yourself with the knowledge of all the details regarding your treatment. This includes the specific type of device you are using for acne treatment. Here, we will be talking about the Nordlys multi-application device with 1550.

The Nordlys multi-application device can be used with various kinds of lasers. For acne treatment, the operation pairs the Nordlys system with a 1550 nm NAFL (non-ablative fractional laser). This type of laser is cleared by the FDA “for use in dermatological procedures requiring the coagulation of soft tissue, as well as for skin resurfacing procedures.” The CE marks its intended use as “skin resurfacing, striae, acne scars, and surgical scars.”

1550 uses the water content of the client’s skin as a chromophore, i.e. the molecules to absorb and reflect the fractional laser. This process utilizes a scanning procedure to deliver many micro-thermal spots per square centimeter of skin treated, known as a micro-thermal zone (MTZ). These zones are separated by areas of normal skin that serve to regenerate and remodel tissue for the MTZ.

This process allows for less downtime and faster healing time. With other treatments, the healing process between treatments may take weeks. But with 1550, it will only take a few days. While it might be tempting to promote this faster healing time, providing the reasoning behind it matters. Knowing this process and how exactly it achieves this faster healing time—separated MTZs—will allow your clinic to be seen as more scientific and trustworthy.

Don’t hesitate to compare your treatment with other alternatives

When marketing your service to your customers, your first intuition might be to promote only your own services exclusively. But customers are smart, and they are likely to do their own research for alternatives. Thus, it’s always a good idea to mention the alternatives to your treatment. This will increase your credibility and build trust.

For laser-based acne treatments, for example, customers will likely compare the 1550 treatment with another laser treatment. A common alternative is the PR530. This is an entirely different treatment that works by reducing supply to the sebaceous glands, slowing down sebum production while killing the bacteria that causes acne. However, this method requires four weeks of downtime between treatments, as opposed to the 1550 which generally requires no more than a few days of healing time.

While your treatment may offer a faster downtime, however, it is wise to consult them on a case-by-case basis. Each individual’s skin sensitivity is unique, and it is unlikely that your treatment will be better every time for every customer.

Being open and upfront about this will allow you to build a better rapport with your clients. It is always important to show that you follow the science to care more about their well-being instead of focusing on your profit margin. This leads to our next point: the importance of managing your client’s expectations.

Manage your patient's expectations

To the eyes of the customer—even a science-conscious one—a science-backed treatment can often sound very credible and promising. Cutting-edge technology can often seem like the best solution to all of their problems. While this sort of optimism has its benefits, it’s also important to manage their expectations³.

Customers who go in expecting super-fast and magical results are bound to be disappointed. While this might not necessarily be your fault in overpromising anything, it can still damage your customer experience. This is why it’s always important to also stress the details that might not be too palatable to your customers.

Like all other treatments, 1550 will not clear a client’s skin within a day. Rather, its strength lies in its relatively little downtime and faster healing. However, it will still take multiple trips—how many trips and how long a client should wait between the trips can vary. Additionally, clear skin is not always a guarantee, as it highly depends on the condition of the skin being treated.

Emphasizing these precautions from the get-go may seem counterintuitive, and you’ll likely lose a few customers along the process. However, the customers you manage to keep will appreciate your transparency and be more loyal to your services in the future.

Know well, communicate well

As customers become more aware of science and can easily do their own research, science-backed treatments become essential to any product and service offering health and wellness. This makes it important for clinics to be up-to-date with the latest equipment, such as the Nordlys multi-application device.

But having cutting-edge technology is only the beginning. The key is to communicate the science well and in a transparent manner. Be clear and concise regarding what you offer and manage your customers’ expectations. Should you require more information and assistance to grasp the details of your devices, Candela is here to help you.

With a greater understanding of your devices, your science-backed treatments will not only be a strength in the quality of your services but also help you position yourself in a competitive market.