Distinguishing the value of clinical skincare vs. over-the-counter retail solutions often focuses on the science and strength behind the product.  Yet many products offered in physicians’ offices today are readily found on-line and in retail, and many of the practices in the clinical setting mirror those in retail.  How then does the consumer, and do you distinguish the value of skincare? Maintain its premise:  science and medicine. 

There must always exist a distinction based on both principle and practice. The practice of testing, sampling and incentives is an important aspect of experiential marketing and building loyalty both to a brand and to your business, whether in a clinical setting or in retail.  But don’t be mistaken; while the practices in concept are similar, the way they are implemented in practice vs. retail, must be distinct.

Testing
They are readily available on cosmetic counters, from lip color to serums and creams, tubes and bottles marked “tester” are a very familiar site and practice.  This is the most basic form of experiential marketing:  get someone to try something and allow the individual to “experience” its value first hand. The disconnect occurs when people randomly look across counters and shelves, pick-up testers, read the label, rub them onto the back of the hand, smell, touch and walk away.

Maintain the premise of science: Never display testers to allow random, blind sampling.  Reading a skincare label is as ineffective as reading a prescription label for a drug that has not been prescribed, recommended or may not be appropriate for the patient.  Blind sampling of the moment lends nothing more than an experience of the moment: the texture, scent or contact of a product.  Use sampling as part of the consultation, or even more effectively as the conclusion to a skincare treatment. The skincare specialist should ask for a client’s preferences and concerns, select appropriate skincare from the back bar that is available for retail, and use the application post-treatment to discuss it’s properties, benefits and science.

Respect the medical setting: By taking testers off the shelf, and putting them onto your client’s skin rather than into multiple clients’ hands, you not only limit infection, you control safe practices for dispensing, application and disposal or sterilization of applicators.   You also limit the risk of contamination with the use of barriers such as gloves and sterile or single use applicators.

Sampling
Foil packets, minis, deluxe samples, travel sizes and counter-dispensed and labeled samples are all a means to allow the potential buyer to experience skincare in a single, or a few days of application before making the commitment to purchase. Sampling is a practice that actually began in the fragrance industry—inserting scent strips of fragrances, or spraying willing shoppers with fragrance hoping to attract the shopper’s interest and purchase.  The reaction to fragrance is generally instant, whether the fragrance lingers or wanes, a consumer can instantly react to the bouquet.  Skincare however, has both instant response and a compounding response, and sampling must address both.

Science:  The initial “testing” of skincare in the consultation or post-treatment setting allows for an instant response.  Use this response as an indicator to further educate your client, and to determine interest in the product or it’s benefits.  Sample clients with a few days supply when they show genuine interest in the benefits and continued use of product. Sampling clients without any interest will create only one thing—waste.

Medicine:  Pharmaceutical companies sample prescriptions for one reason:  To increase the likelihood the physician will prescribe a specific brand.  Physicians dispense samples for two reasons: to allow a patient to experience the benefits and the side effects of a prescription before investing in a purchase, and to tie a patient over until he or she can get to the pharmacy.  Whether you use samples that are provided by the skincare companies or you dispense your own, do so only for the same reasons a physician would sample a prescription:  to allow an experience of the benefits and determine the risks are tolerable, or to tie a client over until he or she has the ability and access to purchase the product.

Incentives
Incentives hold two distinct functions:  reward loyalty with added value (added product) and create interest in complementary products where loyalty already exists.  In the retail environment incentives include gift with purchase, purchase with purchase, and premium purchase. Gift with purchase is something free, whether a skincare complement, a travel size, a mini to spur the launch of a new product, something useful like a terry headband, or something unrelated like a trendy tote. Purchase with purchase offers something of value at a “valued” price and the prerequisite purchase of a specific product or specific dollar amount.  The valued item may be skincare, may be a complement, may be a service, or may be completely unrelated—a pashmina or umbrella.  Premium purchase is similar to bulk buying--twice the product for only 20% more in cost, for example.

Science: In a clinical skincare setting focused scientifically based solutions, whether a gift with purchase, a purchase with purchase or premium, the only appropriate incentives are complementary to your clients’ conditions, concerns and purchases. The trendy tote or pashmina are simply glitterati, they have no purpose in supporting the goals of your practice to provide clients the very best science-based skincare solutions.

Medicine: The ethics of the plastic surgery profession, and medicine in general are quite simple:  never provide a gift or incentive to lure your client/patient to make a purchase or accept a treatment that he or she has not yet consented to.  In simple terms, if your client regularly uses that $200 growth factor serum an incentive is perfectly appropriate to enhance loyalty, to introduce complements and to create value.  But if the client has no interest, or is not an appropriate candidate for the product, any incentive is an unethical lure and equates your practice to the local retail counter.

Marie Czenko Kuechel, MA is a consultant devoted to consumer education, best practices and ethical operations in aesthetic medicine.  She has presented at numerous symposia and meetings for physicians and practice managers, is a regular contributor to consumer media and ABC Television’s The View, and is the author of Aesthetic Medicine: Practicing for Success, Quality Medical Publishers.  She recently also contributed to a new book authored by Renato Saltz, MD titled “Cosmetic Medicine and Medi-Spas.”