As a plastic surgeon, you work hard to create a positive experience for your patients. Your expertise and commitment to high patient satisfaction are essential after you book a client, but how do you attract new prospects? Sometimes, it can feel like plastic surgeon marketing is a second full-time job. At Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, we have proven strategies that aim to help you grow your practice with online marketing.
Plastic Surgeon Marketing in the Digital Age
Why Online Plastic Surgeon Marketing Is Essential
From a marketing standpoint, there has never been a better time for you to expand. Reaching new patients through online channels is easier, cheaper, and more targeted than traditional advertising. More and more, people are finding plastic surgeons online as opposed to using the word of mouth approach. Even in the case of a mouth-to-mouth referral, prospects usually check a plastic surgeon’s social media as a vetting measure.
Ignoring the potential of digital marketing to attract prospects is like saying no to new patients before they even walk through your doors. When a prospect looks for a plastic surgeon online, he or she will find one, whether it’s you or one of your competitors. The good news is that creating an effective digital marketing strategy can put your practice ahead of the competition at very little cost to you.
How to Create Effective Online Marketing
The process of creating online marketing campaigns doesn’t have to be intimidating. First, you should understand what platforms will give you the best exposure to new patients. We’ll explain the most advantageous platforms when you work with us. Next, you should create content for these platforms with a good sense of aesthetics and some technological know-how. If you are too busy running your practice to invest time into the campaign, or if you just want some professional guidance along the way, we’ve got you covered.
Online Marketing Techniques That Can Drive New Patients to Your Practice
1. Maintain an Engaging Website
Business owners today recognize that if you don’t have a website, it’s almost like your practice doesn’t exist. Your website allows prospects to find you when they do internet searches. It gives them quick access to a listing of your services and your contact information. Furthermore, it provides you with an opportunity to make a good first impression by using content and visuals to portray your practice in a positive light.
It is not enough just to have a website. For prospects, dynamic, engaging sites are much more appealing than static, outdated ones. The days of treating your website like a gallery have passed. It needs to include updated content, video clips, opportunities to connect with you via social media, and other elements that encourage people to spend time browsing your pages.
An Important Note About Mobile Accessibility
In the not-so-distant past, the majority of websites were designed for and accessed through personal computers. Today, most of the visitors to your site will be using their smartphones. When you design your website, make sure it looks just as stunning on a phone as it does on a computer. This means making sure people who view your site from their phones have full access to all of its functionality.
One solution to the problem of aesthetics and functionality is to have two separate websites—one for computers and one for phones. However, this is not necessary. We offer a two-fold website design that looks great and works perfectly on all devices.
2. Keep Your Website Ranked Highly by Google
Your beautiful, engaging website needs to be seen! Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to strategies that help your site rise in the rankings of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. By understanding the criteria these search engines utilize to prioritize certain sites over others, you can design your website with the goal of being a top hit.
3. Take Out Some Online Listings
Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a way to create listings for your practice that invite people to visit your website and/or your social media. In the case of PPC, your listing will be provided by Facebook, a search engine, or another high-traffic page. While many people will see the listing, the amount you pay is determined by how many of these people actually click on it and visit you.
There are four major advantages to PPC advertising. First, you get exposure via visibility on a larger site. Second, you only pay when people actually respond to your listing. Third, you can see how many people saw your ad, and how many people clicked on it. This lets you know if your advertising strategy is effective. Fourth, you can use demographic settings when you purchase your ad to ensure that the people who see it are likely to be interested in your services.
4. Create Stellar Social Media Profiles
Maintaining attractive profiles on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter can give your practice greater visibility and provide opportunities for you to build a positive image with your followers. Like your website, your social media should showcase you in the best possible light with excellent quality photos and videos.
The difference between your social media accounts and your website is that the accounts offer a greater level of engagement between you and your patients. You should allow your patients to post reviews of your services, enable them like your posts, and encourage them to share their own content to your pages. Doing so will show that your practice is active and current. Visitors will see evidence of your satisfied customers. An added bonus is the fact that user-generated content is favored by search engines.
5. Always Post High-Quality Content
You want your social media to sparkle for prospects. This means going beyond just maintaining your accounts. High quality content is:
- Informative
- Relevant to trending topics
- Visually appealing
- Geared towards your visitors’ interests
- Demonstrative of your expertise
Examples of high-quality content include professional photos of your team in action, blog posts in which you explain some of your most popular treatments, and video clips that provide a tour of your facilities.
6. Communicate Online
Both messenger and chatbots provide a convenient way for you to communicate with prospects. Today, many people prefer to communicate over electronic channels. Messenger is a texting app that visitors can use directly from your Facebook page. A chatbot is an element of your website’s functionality that invites people to message you in a special window. When your page includes a chatbot, it is launched as soon as someone visits you.
Messenger and chatbots are similar in that they both allow your visitor to contact you the moment they have a question, without putting off the interaction and moving on to your competitor’s site. Chatbots take this advantage a step further by initiating the communication, possibly even before your visitor thinks of a reason to reach out. Ways in which prospects might use messenger or a chatbot include:
- Asking if you offer a specific service
- Bringing up initial concerns about treatments they are considering
- Seeking information about your availability
7. Use Targeted Email Campaigns
With email, you can reach an unlimited number of prospects and patients. The best part is, unlike traditional mailings, your costs don’t go up with the volume of the emails you send. With the right software, you can even create groups within your contacts. When you create an email that includes a survey or a special offer, you can choose which groups will receive it.
8. Gather Data Electronically to Inform Your Campaigns
Unlike traditional advertising, online plastic surgeon marketing gives you direct feedback. You can use this data to improve your campaigns and your services. For example, you can note how many people responded to a PPC listing and thereby determine if the advertisement was eye-catching. If it didn’t perform well, you can switch to different visuals or highlight a more popular service in your next listing. Similarly, if one Instagram post gets a lot of organic likes, you can plan to post similar content in the future.
Digital Marketing Means More Streamlined Growth for Your Practice
Digital marketing should be a key component of your growth strategy. It gives you control over the demographics you target and over how people form a first impression of you. It is cost-effective since all the materials involved are electronic and easily reproducible. You can stay organized and efficient as you plan your campaigns, with everything stored online. You can even benefit more quickly from the feedback you get as you interact electronically with prospects and patients.
While digital marketing requires a vision for your brand, a tasteful sense of design, and an understanding of the technology involved, there are plenty of resources that can make this process easy. Turn to the team at Crystal Clear Digital Marketing for more information about the services we provide and the resources we can offer. We can have the best software and support for your practice’s plastic surgeon marketing. Contact us today to speak with a team member!
