Patient segmentation for aesthetic and cosmetic clinics
More precise audiences. More relevant conversations.
Bring treatment history, recorded clinical areas and patient context into your audience. Combine who to include and exclude, keep dynamic groups maintained, then use them in your clinic’s broadcasts and automations.
At a glance
The right group starts with the right context.
A patient is more than a name on a mailing list. Use the information already connected in DappleOS to define who a communication is for, and who should be left out.
Start with their history.
Combine a particular treatment with previous appointments and upcoming bookings.
Include. Exclude. Refine.
Combine patient groups, including an exclusion based on a recorded clinical area.
Make timing relevant.
Build a birthday audience using the days until each patient’s next birthday.
Keep the audience current.
Let dynamic membership follow your criteria as connected clinic records change.
Use it across your marketing.
Choose the same saved audience in broadcasts and configured automation journeys.
A more useful starting point
Target with the detail your clinic already knows.
Start with a practical question: who has previously had an appointment for this treatment, but has no upcoming booking for it? Bring those conditions together in one query, then inspect the matching patients.
Start with the question behind the message.
A particular treatment. A particular next step.
- The particular treatment
Choose a treatment or treatment option, rather than treating every appointment as the same history.
- What happened before
Use recorded appointment history to define the relevant group.
- What is already booked
Keep treatment-specific upcoming bookings distinct from a patient having any future appointment.
More considered inclusions and exclusions
Include what matters. Exclude what does not fit.
Build your starting group, then combine it with another query using AND, AND NOT or OR. For example, exclude patients with Lips recorded in Clinical Areas from a relevant treatment-history audience.
Define the recorded area precisely.
Previous skin consultation AND NOT Lips recorded
One person, one membership decision. A matching recorded area excludes that patient, even when they also have other areas recorded.
Make the patient-level decision clear.
- Combine whole patient groups
AND keeps the overlap, AND NOT removes matching patients, and OR brings groups together. Queries are applied from top to bottom.
- Use the recorded clinical context
Clinical Areas comes from anatomical markings saved in the clinical note. No matching area means no matching recorded area, rather than proof of a patient’s complete treatment history.
- Keep the purpose appropriate
The resulting audience supports your clinic’s review. It does not determine whether a treatment is suitable.
Patient context, with the timing included
A birthday audience that moves with the calendar.
Use Days until birthday to find patients with a birthday today, in the coming week or in another chosen window. The rule follows the next birthday, so you can reuse the audience as membership refreshes.
- Define your window
Set numeric conditions such as zero to 30 days. Birthday month is available as another patient field.
- Use a meaningful patient detail
Birthday matching depends on a usable date of birth in the patient record.
The audience is the beginning
Make the message worth receiving.
A timely group gives your clinic a useful starting point. Choose the content, channel and communication workflow with the patient’s preferences in mind.
Membership that follows your criteria
An audience that keeps up.
Dynamic segments are refreshed automatically, with an on-demand Refresh action when you want to update the audience. Patients enter or leave when their records match or stop matching the saved criteria.
- See the completed refresh
Review Last updated, the member list and the available channel counts after population has completed.
- Keep deliberate groups deliberate
Use a static segment when your team should manage membership directly instead of recalculating it from a query.
- Review who can be reached
Customers, SMS, Email and App counts describe the audience and its channels. One patient can appear in several channel counts.
A query or a deliberate group.
Dynamic segments answer “who matches now?” Static segments keep the people your team chooses to include.
“A segment should describe the patients who meet your criteria today. The useful part is keeping that understanding current, so the next message or journey starts with relevant patient context.”
A saved audience, connected to the next step
One audience. More ways to follow through.
Choose a saved segment when preparing a broadcast, or reference it in an automation’s entry, exit or membership conditions. Keep the audience definition in DappleOS instead of rebuilding it in a separate exported list.
- See where it is used
Used by brings connected automations and unsent broadcasts into view.
- Keep refresh and activation distinct
Updating membership is separate from the manual Run now action for pending automation work. Saving criteria does not send a broadcast.
A clear basis for review
Know who is in. Know what comes next.
Inspect active and removed members, the refresh time and the journeys that depend on the segment. Review the audience before the next communication, then look to the connected campaign for message engagement and its configured goals.
Before the next communication
- Audience
Who currently matches, and who has left?
- Freshness
When was membership last refreshed?
- Next action
Which broadcast or journey uses this group?
Trust and compliance
Your criteria. Your review. Your next action.
Precise targeting starts with clear records and an appropriate purpose. Your clinic remains responsible for reviewing the audience and deciding how to communicate.
Feature availability depends on your plan, enabled features and access permissions.
- Encrypted storage
- Grounded in the record
- Queries use connected clinic data. Missing or incomplete information affects which patients match.
- Clear membership rules
- Named queries and explicit AND, AND NOT and OR operators make your audience definition reviewable.
- A separate communication decision
- Segment membership is not consent to receive marketing. Channel preferences and the communication workflow remain relevant.
- Clinical judgement stays with the practitioner
- Recorded history can define a group. It does not make a clinical recommendation or establish treatment suitability.
FAQs
Can we find patients using the treatment history we already record?
Yes. Build queries using connected patient information, including a selected treatment or treatment option and its previous and upcoming appointment context. This lets you define a relevant group without repeatedly rebuilding a separate list. The audience reflects the records and conditions you choose.
Can we include one group and exclude a recorded clinical area?
Yes. Combine your starting group with a Clinical Areas query using AND NOT. This removes patients with a matching recorded area, including patients who also have other areas recorded. It describes the clinic’s available records, not a complete history of treatment elsewhere or clinical suitability.
Can a birthday audience update without rewriting the dates?
Yes. Days until birthday is calculated using the patient’s next birthday, so your chosen window can stay the same as the calendar moves. Dynamic membership is recalculated on refresh. Patients need a usable date of birth for birthday criteria to match.
Do segments update automatically?
Dynamic segments are refreshed automatically from their saved queries. You can also request a refresh and review the completed result through the member list and Last updated. Static segments are different: your team manages their membership deliberately.
Can we use the same audience in broadcasts and automations?
Yes. Select a saved segment for a broadcast or use it in a configured automation’s entry, exit or membership conditions. Used by shows connected automations and unsent broadcasts. Saving audience criteria does not itself send a broadcast, and manual membership refresh is separate from processing pending automation work.
Can we review patients and available channels before using an audience?
Yes. Review active and removed members, Customers, SMS, Email and App counts, and Last updated. Channel counts can overlap because the same person may be reachable in several ways. Membership does not replace marketing consent, channel preferences or review of the communication.
What should we bring to a demo?
Bring a few real audience questions, such as a treatment-history group with no upcoming booking, an area exclusion or a birthday window. A DappleOS team member can walk through the relevant records, the query and the next communication so you can assess how it would fit your clinic.
Ask DappleOS
Ask how your clinic’s records could become a more useful patient audience.
