If you aim to increase the size and sales of your practice, you need a solid marketing strategy. Plastic surgeon marketing requires a different approach than what other businesses might employ. Learn how customer relationship marketing, or CRM, can help you to take your practice to new heights.
What Is Customer Relationship Marketing?
Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM), as its name implies, is a marketing strategy that primarily focuses on building and strengthening relationships with customers, both old and new. A CRM strategy will put your existing customers first and look to add more to the pool by demonstrating the quality relationship you have with your existing customers.
The beauty of CRM is that it is data-driven and targets specific groups in order to have the highest efficiency possible. When data gathered from your customers meets local, regional, and national trends, you’ll be able to market your practice more effectively than ever before.
Why CRM Is Essential for Plastic Surgeon Marketing
Plastic surgeon marketing relies heavily on word of mouth and customer opinion. One unsatisfied customer could cost you a dozen, while scores of happy patients will lead to many more. Why is the beauty and aesthetics industry so susceptible to public opinion? Crystal Clear Digital Marketing has the answer.
Plastic surgery produces results that are apparent at a glance. People who know your patients will quickly recognize that they had work done and will want to know more. Today, there is virtually no stigma surrounding plastic surgery, so the conversation is out in the open.
At the end of the day, no one brags about the work their gastroenterologist did. As a plastic surgeon, you must make sure that your customers feel cared for before, during, and well after their procedure.
What Are the Benefits of Customer Relationship Marketing?
The overarching goal of CRM is to help your business grow. CRM works on several factors that will accomplish exactly that when properly executed. Not only will it help your customers, but it will help your practice grow and evolve into one that puts your customers first.
Let’s take a look at eight reasons why CRM helps your practice grow and flourish.
Raise Customer Confidence
The decision to go under the knife is not one that people take lightly. Between the risks and costs of surgery, your potential patients are going to be extremely scrupulous. Building strong customer relationships means that your prospective clients will get stronger recommendations from others.
What’s more, as you build up more meaningful marketing content, new clients will trust your practice more. Show off your knowledge in the posts on your website and let newcomers see that once they step through your doors, they’ll be treated better than anywhere else.
Fine Tune Your Practice
CRM isn’t just about pushing out heaps of blog posts and sending clever emails. While that certainly forms one corner of the foundation of the strategy, you have to actually walk the walk.
A good CRM strategy also involves training your staff to give customers the best experience possible. Your web content may have gotten them in the door, but it’s your staff that will keep them from walking out. With some simple adjustments, your workers’ actions will speak even louder than the words on your marketing materials.
Keep Customers Long Term
The backbone of a strong CRM strategy is your existing base of clients. You want to keep them coming back for more. Fortunately, when you apply the principles of CRM, this is much easier than attracting new people.
The key to accomplishing this is to put the data you already have on the client to use. With that information in hand, you can send tailor-made communications to them and reap the rewards.
Consider a Case
How might this work? Let’s imagine that one of your customers comes in for a tummy tuck after pregnancy. Knowing the client’s age and medical history, you might be able to target them with other services that they are likely to want.
Just consider the other key component of the so-called “Mommy Makeover.” A breast lift is a common complement to the tummy tuck, and if they didn’t opt for it originally, you could send them a special offer with reduced prices for being such a valued customer. This is putting your customers first, and it yields results.
Better Feedback From CRM
Mass-marketing to everyone often produces very little valuable feedback for your business. A cornerstone of good CRM is to make sure you follow up with your clients and get information from them. There are many ways to do this, ranging from a personal phone call to online surveys.
Since actual customers with experience in your practice are providing the feedback, you’re far more likely to gain insight as to how you can improve your business and make customers feel even more at home within your walls.
If you’re having trouble getting customers to provide that feedback, consider offering discounts upfront if they are willing to take the time to give you a personal interview down the road. Simply spending 15 to 20 minutes with your clients will go a long way to making them feel cared about. The recommendations will follow.
Better Engagement and Conversion Rates
Targeted marketing is more likely to result in customer engagement and lead to sales. Use the data you have on your clients and the people in your area of influence to determine what messages to send.
This is the core principle behind one of the most successful advertising systems in the world: Google Adsense. Google ads track online shopping activity and deliver ads specifically aimed at your interests. They are far more likely to get clicks than random ads about things your customers might not care about.
Attract New Customers
You might be wondering how targeting your existing customers is going to lead to new ones. After all, how are they going to hear about your business if all your marketing is directed at your old clients?
Besides the aforementioned word-of-mouth factor, there are ways to deliver targeted messages so that other people can see them. The idea is to give potential clients a glimpse of the luxurious care that your customers receive.
Smart Social Media Strategy
There’s no better way to kill two birds with the same stone than with a good social media strategy. Crystal Clear Digital Marketing recommends coupling CRM with social media to make your customer relationships visible for all to see. How does it work?
You could field questions from clients or respond to issues on Twitter. Non-clients who follow you will see how you quickly handle issues and provide valuable information.
The same holds true for Facebook and Instagram. Post pictures of happy customers in your comfortable offices to give others an idea of what to expect from your practice. When it comes to plastic surgeon marketing, few things are as effective as high-quality images of your high-quality work.
Promote Other Products and Services
CRM gives you a chance to promote other products and services that your customers might not have otherwise considered. Since beauty products can be some of the most lucrative items on your ledger, you’ll want to market these products to the people who are most likely to use them.
If you just got done with a facial, follow up by advertising a face mask or lotion. Have you removed someone’s stretch marks? Sell the cream that keeps them from coming back.
Consider asking your customers about other services that they might want you to provide. That guidance could be crucial to planning your expansion and helping you reach even more customers.
More Bang for Your Marketing Buck
Fortunately, good customer relationship marketing can be accomplished at rates that are far more affordable than the traditional methods of TV and radio advertising. Broadcasting to everyone is more expensive than focusing on specific groups of people.
In addition, since your marketing is more likely to result in sales and useful feedback from clients, it will pay for itself in less time. In fact, the costs are probably far lower than you would expect. The benefits, as already shown, are well worth the investment.
How to Launch a Customer Relationship Marketing Campaign
If you are now convinced that putting your customers first with a customer relationship marketing strategy is the way to go, the next question is how. Plastic surgeon marketing may sound simple, but it can also be a time-consuming affair. You want to focus on your business, so bring in the experts who can focus on theirs.
Contact Crystal Clear Digital Marketing today for more information about how we can help your practice grow. Our expert staff specializes in digital marketing strategies for the beauty and wellness industry. We will design a customized plan just for your practice and help you rise above the rest.