Still asking whether your cosmetic dental, cosmetic dermatological or plastic surgery practice needs a digital marketing strategy? Here’s our short answer: Nearly three quarters of Internet users in the U.S. search for health care information online. The most common searches focus on conditions, procedures and physicians themselves (Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project1 and the California Healthcare Foundation).
That means more and more of your future (and current) patients will be trying to find you (or a procedure) online. Unless you do your homework, however, they may instead be finding your competitors.
Almost 80 percent of online health seekers say they began their last session at a search engine such as Google. According to a recent study by Optify2, the top three search results on Google receive over 60 percent of all search traffic. If potential patients do not find you among the top three results of their online search, your practice loses out.
In this kind of environment, search engine optimization and other online marketing tools are changing the game.
This fact is especially true for those who perform elective cosmetic services, such as cosmetic dentistry, cosmetic dermatology, and plastic surgery. In these realms of care, insurance guidelines and provider networks will not be in play. Patient choice and preference will be. These patients are increasingly choosing the Internet to find you.
Today’s social patients are also no longer satisfied with word-of-mouth recommendations alone. The Yellow Pages are a quaint relic of the past. Many are too busy looking at or listening to their phones to notice a billboard or radio ad.
In fact, one in five internet users already consult online reviews and rankings of health care service providers and treatments. This number will only grow in time.
So now what can
you do to capture or recapture this audience of potential clients? You need to look at your practice from their social perspective.
As we noted earlier, social patients want to find you easily on Google, Bing or Yahoo – because that’s where they start their search. But they also want to be able to check out your website on their laptop OR their phone. They want you to keep them engaged by sharing pertinent information through blogs and social media. They want you to reach out to them in ways that engage and excite them.
It’s up to you to make sure that your cosmetic practice continues to dominate in this dramatically altered medical landscape. That means you need a total digital platform to manage every aspect of your online presence, including:
- Responsive website design
- Search engine optimization
- Blogging
- Social media marketing and content
- E-newsletters
- And, last but not least, metrics for measuring the effectiveness of the above.
At CrystalClear, we do the heavy lifting on your behalf, using our fifteen plus years of experience to create the best total platform for your needs. Call us. Try us. We promise to give you the tools you need to keep your social patients happy and to grow your cosmetic practice.
