Strategic Planning for Aesthetic Practices in 2026: Building Long-Term Growth Through Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Leadership

Let's get everyone in here. Right. Okay. Fantastic. Okay. So good evening, everyone, and welcome to the 2026 strategic live event from The Business of Aesthetics, a community dedicated to helping aesthetic practice owners achieve sustainable success and navigate the complexities of practice management with confidence. Tonight's discussion is strategic planning for aesthetic practices in 2026, dives into some of the

hidden drains that erode your profitability and the strategic levers that guarantee long-term scaling. I'm your host, Daan Adatia, and alongside our four expert panelists, we'll be uncovering actionable strategies to help stop the leaks, build unbreakable operations, and of course, create a practice that actually builds your wealth. Now, before we get started, few housekeeping notes so that you can make the best out of your time invested with us this evening. Firstly, yes, this session is being recorded, so you will receive a replay link in your email once it's done, so you can share with your partners.

But don't let that make you passive. The best is happening right now, so connect with us, ask questions, down here in the Q&A section. You can find the Q&A button and ask questions that you want me to specifically ask the panelists as we go along, or use the chat function and connect and network with your colleagues here. So keep it live, keep it engaging, and yeah, have a great time because we are here with you. Now, I would like to give a massive thank you to our platinum sponsor, Ekwa Marketing. Ekwa Marketing is founded by Naren Arulrajah, the very same

founder of The Business of Aesthetics community. And for nearly 20 years, Ekwa has been helping aesthetic practice owners across the globe stop being the best-kept secret in their own hometown. They believe that great care deserves great visibility. Right. So let's look at how we've structured our program here tonight. First off, we are going to start with a bit of a direct marketing Q&A session with the customer success director at Ekwa Marketing, is Omer Khan. And then we're going to follow that up with a very strategic session, a round robin panel session with Sean Duncan, Dr. Justin Harper, and

Carla Pearson. Followed by a live Q&A session for everyone here. But do feel free to drop in your questions as we go along. I might be able to weave them in to our panelists. If not, then we'll move it to the end over there. So that is how the event is structured for tonight. And yeah, let's get this started. So first up, we have the marketing Q&A session here. And right.

And let's meet- Here I am ... the wonderful person who's going to be guiding us through this conversation. Okay. Omer, would you like to do a self-introduction? Sure. So I'm engineer by background. I started as a computer science engineer. I worked at Google for a few years before I moved into marketing. Prior to COVID, I was working in the brick-and-mortar shopping mall retail industry for marketing. But after COVID, things got really tough and there was plenty for me to learn and then I met Naren about three years ago in a business conference and really liked what he had built and wanted to contribute and learn from him

and have been with Ekwa for almost two years now. I lead the sales team and recently we've created a new department called customer success because we realized there is so much at the table for our customers that we want to share that we want them to leverage. So I currently run the customer success department and the sales department at Ekwa Marketing. And Naren was supposed to be here, but he's traveling right now, so I'm chipping in for him here. And it's a pleasure to be here. Absolutely. It's a pleasure to have you here, Omer. Thank you. Now let's get into the marketing segment here. Sure. Yeah. So-

Yeah ... the owner's marketing dashboard, the only metrics that matter in 2026. Omer, start us off with laying it out there. What does a long-term marketing success look like for aesthetic practices in 2026 without relying on constant promotions? Sure. So the way the question is framed up, right, what I say to you today may be correct for 2026, but rest assured, it may not work as it works today in 2027 because the whole marketing landscape is changingAs we speak. But there are still a few golden rules, conventional wisdoms that have been true and are still true. Basically, it comes down to four things: customers finding you,

trusting you, are you converting them, and retaining, right, John? First, we need people to find us. That means strong Google Maps visibility, strong local SEO for the treatment, for yourself. I know previously we focused a lot on Med Spa near me, Botox near me, lip fillers near me, things like that. But there are a lot more keywords that are coming up, and you can look at it yourself for your particular geography, using Google Search Trends. So first, you have to show up where audiences are finding you. Second, we need our customers to trust us. And we've been trained by Google Reviews and all these

signals out there which are readily available, which were not available previously. And anyone, even without a bad experience, is now going to look at reviews before they choose their next provider. So this is where we have to focus. A lot of the providers don't worry a lot about this, but it is true. You might have the visibility, but a string of bad reviews can really hurt your new patient bookings for those weeks, as long as that review is present. So they have to find you. They have to trust you. Conversion is something new. We do conversions at Ekva from calls that we receive.