2010 February :: Catherine Maley, MBA – Attract More Patients and Profit

Archive for February, 2010

Feb

Set Up System for Referrals

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If 70% of your new aesthetic patients are not coming from current patient referrals, shame on you.

Today’s fragmented media outlets have your preferred patients scattered all over the universe so there’s no easy way to get to them so you have to spend way more money trying to be everywhere they are – very expensive, tiring and ineffective.

Truly successful aesthetic practices know that word-of-mouth referrals are the life blood of their practice and well worth the effort.

The majority of patients I interviewed for my book, Your Aesthetic Practice, told me they would have referred you to others if they were only asked.

You cannot take patient referrals lightly.

Set up systems to help ensure your patients brag about you to their friends and family.

And, then by all means, thank your patients through personal thank you calls, thank you note cards and thank you gifts.

Your patients must feel appreciated and encouraged to refer to you because behavior that is rewarded is repeated.

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For more Free tips and videos, visit www.CosmeticImageMarketing.com. Catherine Maley, MBA is Author of Your Aesthetic Practice/What Your Patients Are Saying and her firm offers everything you need to succeed in aesthetic medicine. You can call Catherine at (877) 339-8833 or email her at info@CosmeticImageMarketing.com.

Categories : Business Growth, Successful Strategies

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Feb

Reactivate Your Lost Patients

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After your current patients, the next group of aesthetic patients to concentrate on are those lost patients you haven’t seen in over a year.

The good news is that while it takes 10 times the effort to gain a new aesthetic patient, it can take much less to win back a patient who already knows you. It’s well worth the effort to develop a campaign to win back your long lost patients – no matter why they left you in the first place.

Some reasons your aesthetic patient left your practice:

- Perhaps the patient was having a bad day when they visited you and couldn’t connect with your staff.

- Perhaps your staff was having a bad day and scared them off.

- Perhaps you made them wait too long.

- Perhaps they saw dust and clutter in your office and were turned off.

- Perhaps they went to your price-discounting competitor and want to return to you but are too embarrassed.

Well, you are never going to know unless you reach out to them….

It costs a small fortune to acquire a new aesthetic patient – but it costs next to nothing to keep them. The financial beauty of this relationship-based practice is to dramatically decrease your marketing and advertising costs since you are nurturing your patients and growing organically with their word-of-mouth referrals.

Winning back these lost patients will take extra effort. If they left you because they didn’t feel they were treated special, you’ll want to put in extra effort to make them feel wanted. Personalize your communications to them to get the point across how much they are valued by you.

Tip: Aesthetic medicine is all about the relationship the patient “feels” they have with you and how they “feel” when they are in touch with you – either on the telephone or in person.

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Categories : Business Growth

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Feb

Use the Right Media and Time to Communicate

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Have you ever spent a lot of money on mass advertising like newspapers, magazines, radio and TV and not been happy with your results? There was and is an art to it but that’s quickly becoming mute since media is dramatically changing.

Aesthetic patients no longer flock to their local newspaper, their local news station and their favorite radio station for news. Thanks to media fragmentation, your aesthetic patients now have hundreds and thousands of choices where to go for information.

How in the world can you reach new patients when they are EVERYWHERE – and Nowhere?

They jump from website to website, TV to cable, radio to satellite, magazines to etc. You do not have enough time, money and patience to be everywhere these patients are so you must be much more strategic in today’s divisive media world.

Direct Mail Makes a Come-Back
Direct Mail is fast becoming the cheaper way to communicate with your patients in a personal way that will get a better response than an impersonal ad or a mention in a magazine.

For the price of an envelope and stamp, you can get your patient’s undivided attention (for at least 5 seconds) when she is rifling through her pile of mail. You simply cannot get that kind of 1-on-1 attention anywhere else.

Hot Button Times to Communicate with Aesthetic Patients
There are certain times of the year your aesthetic patients will most want to hear from you. They are most likely to want to do something special for themselves during these times so use these as opportunities to reach out in a personal way to help them celebrate.

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Categories : Successful Strategies

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Feb

Communicate With Your Aesthetic Patients

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You thought you had a good relationship and now you realize you haven’t seen them in over a year – What happened?

The #1 reason patients leave your practice is not because of a bad result.

And, it’s probably not because they didn’t like you and your staff.

…..It’s because of your indifference.

They are being ignored by you so they don’t feel compelled to return. And, they still wanted aesthetic services so they drifted off to your competitors.

Did you know you lose 10% of your patient database with every month that goes by without you staying in touch?

They did not stop wanting aesthetic services….

They just stopped wanting aesthetic services from you…..

How Many Thousands of Dollars Do You Lose Each Year

By Ignoring Your Aesthetic Patients?

Make your patients feel your concern for them and their welfare by keeping in touch with them and reaching out to them regularly.

I promise you – they want to hear from you as long as you are educating them and giving them compelling reasons to return.

You most likely have a database full of prospective patients who came in for a consultation but didn’t book, who came in a couple of times and then wandered off and then those you haven’t seen in months or years.

I guarantee you – they did not stop wanting to look good.

They just went somewhere else where they weren’t ignored and were treated better and made to feel special.

Tip: It’s always faster, cheaper and easier to reconnect with patients who have visited you before than it is to attract total strangers to your practice.

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Categories : Aesthetic Marketing

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Feb

Increase The Amount A Patient Spends With You

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You are leaving money on the table if your patients don’t realize everything you offer.

Pareto’s 80/20 Rule tells us that 20% of your current patient database will give you 80% of your revenues. They would buy more from you if given the chance. They have the interest and the financial wherewithal to want a lot of your services.

I guarantee if they don’t buy from you, they will buy from someone else…the aesthetic surgeon/physician/med spa down the street or around the corner or at Sephora or the department store cosmetic counter, etc.

Have strategies in place so you never hear, “I didn’t know you offered that” and then had it done by your competitor or they bought elsewhere.

An aesthetic patient who is interested in one procedure, treatment or product to look better is most assuredly interested in other procedures, treatments and products that do the same.

In addition to that, if they were interested in treating one body part, they will be interested in treating their other body parts.

And an aesthetic patient is typically never satisfied. Not BDD dissatisfied but definitely open to the next improvement so when you rejuvenate one concern she had, she will often turn her attention to the next concern she has. She might not have even noticed that concern while she was obsessing about that one thing that bothered her, but now that you addressed it, she will move on and that is a huge opportunity for you.

Tip: 20% of your aesthetic patients would buy much more from you if given the chance. 5% of those would buy even more.

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Categories : Successful Strategies

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Feb

Understand the Decision-Making Process of an Aesthetic Patient

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The aesthetic patient is more confused than ever. They have many choices and are overwhelmed with the amount of information available today.

Know how difficult this process can be for your patients. This consultation with you is probably awkward and uncomfortable for them. They want to change something about their appearance that makes them feel insecure or unsure of themselves. They hope fixing, repairing, or enhancing it will make them feel better and more confident. They feel vulnerable and are looking to you for help.

That said, it’s important to note that patients also want to avoid making a bad decision. They do not want to regret their choice. A major part of your job is to reassure them they are in the right place for the right procedure and they will be happy with the result.

Note: If a patient is afraid, uncertain or confused,

they will opt to do nothing.

Aesthetic Patients Want to Experience Before Buying
You are in a tough position when it comes to promoting your intangible aesthetic services. You don’t have a product your patient can hold, touch and feel. You don’t have a product she can use all of her senses for to see, feel, hear, taste and touch to then determine its value to her.

With an intangible service such as aesthetic enhancement, she can’t “see” the quality of your materials or the effort that went into the details of producing the finished piece; which is the result she gets.

Since the aesthetic patient can’t see the excellence of your expertise and cannot touch or feel the superiority and knowledge that will go into the aesthetic service you provide her, you are at a disadvantage.

Give her as much as possible to touch and feel and use as social proof such as photos, testimonials, your credentials, celebrity, your office, your shoes, your greeting, your staff and any other detailed detective work she can experience to give her clues to help her determine you are the right physician for her to give her what she wants.

How Decisions Are Reached
The decision-making process is an entire subject on its own; however, here are some basics to consider:

- Decisions are quickly reached by emotion and then justified with logic.
- People act on prejudices, habits and past experience much more than on knowledge.
- It takes a patient a split second to make a decision but getting ready to make that decision can take a long time.

The point here is to address your patient’s emotional motivators for wanting enhancement but also equip them with the logical reasons why you are the perfect choice so they can easily relay that back to their family and friends if they are challenged.

The prospective patient is doing a cost/benefit analysis in their heads to decide if what you are offering them is worth the time, money and effort and if the benefits will outweigh the risk. Help them see and feel what you offer is more than worth it.

Tip: Aesthetic patients buy what they want – NOT what they need.

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Categories : Aesthetic Marketing

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Feb

Focus on the Buying Habits of Your Preferred Patients

Posted by: Catherine | Comments (0)

Consumer behavior is a complex subject since it involves emotions, personalities and life experiences. To understand your patients and their motives better, here are four groups of your typical aesthetic patients that will make up your practice.

Tire Kickers
This group doesn’t know what they want. They seem to have a lot of time on their hands because they will attend your events, eat your food, take your samples and never, ever buy. They may even book a consultation, go through the motions but never book a procedure. Do not exert energy on this group since it’s a waste of time.

Deal makers/price shoppers
This group is looking for the best deal in town, above all else. They have a tendency to regard cosmetic enhancement as a commodity and will spend much of their consultation negotiating with you and your staff. To them, it’s an art form to get you to lower your prices or throw in freebies. Beware of them. They will tell their friends they got a great deal from you just because they asked and this will set up a bad precedence in your practice.

Brand loyalists
This is your favorite group. They love you and would not go to anyone else. They wouldn’t even consider going to anyone else – even if they were ½ your prices! They are your cheerleaders, your advocates and your braggers. Treat them well and they are yours for life. Most of your efforts should be concentrated on this group and growing it to include their loyal friends, family and colleagues.

Luxury innovators/Quality shoppers
While this group wants only the best and will pay for it, they can be a pain in the butt. They want everything their way, you need to drop everything to stroke their egos and they have a tendency to flaunt their money (neuvo-riche?) and expect better treatment then your other patients get. While you should treat all of your patients with respect and special care, spending a little extra time and effort on this group can pay off since like people know like people and this can be a profitable group to appease.

Tip: Focus all your efforts on your brand loyalists and quality shoppers since they will make up 80% of your aesthetic profits.

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Categories : Successful Strategies

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Feb

Target Higher-Value Patients

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Not everyone will be able to afford your aesthetic services like before so it’s a good strategy to focus on those patients who are least likely to be affected by changes in the economy and last affected by changes in the economy.

So, one of your strategies should be to target your older, more mature patients who are more affluent versus your younger patients. That’s just obvious because your mature patients have more concerns such as wrinkles, crepe skin, sagging body parts and sun damage. They are also more likely to have the financial wherewithal to afford your services.

The affluent, mature patient will appreciate the quality of service you provide. They will notice, applaud and react favorably to your commitment to them and to being better than your competitors.

But remember, these higher-value patients want to be respected, they expect competence, and they want no hassle and no tension from their service providers. They can afford and are willing to pay for the best information, the best products, the highest level of competence and the best professional service available.

And, they too, are affected by social pressures. Many of these high-end patients are experiencing new phases in their lives such as:

- New job or job layoff
- New marriage or suddenly single
- Upcoming life events, etc.

The point is there are millions of Americans, especially 76 million Baby Boomers, who will do what they need to in order to enjoy a full, active life while looking and feeling good doing it.

By the way, this group of people will see the biggest transference of wealth in history in way of inheritance.

Tip: Identify who your high-end (mature and affluent) patients are and then focus 80% of your efforts on them.

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Categories : Successful Strategies

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Feb

Be Easy To Do Business With

Posted by: Catherine | Comments (0)

It’s important NOT to project your assumptions on your patients and not to spend their money for them. You never know someone’s financial wherewithal so keep your options open.

An aesthetic patient may have the cash but may not want to use it – especially during uncertain times or they may not have all the cash and need an easy-pay alternative.

If you don’t offer your patients an easy way to pay for your services because the finance company charges you a fee, you are getting 100% of nothing! The patient is not going to wait until they have the cash. They will go to your competitor to see if they are willing to help them get what they want now rather than wait. Now you lose not only that patient and the revenues from that procedure but you also lose their future revenues and those of their friends.

When you offer financial alternatives, it can change the mindset of the aesthetic patient. Because now the patient is thinking HOW to move forward rather than IF they should move forward.

Work with a vendor like CareCredit to put together great patient pay plans that are easy on your wallet as well as your patient’s.

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Categories : Successful Strategies

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Feb

Is Price Everything?

Posted by: Catherine | Comments (0)

There is one more false belief that can cripple your effective interactions with your aesthetic patients and that is the one about money – or lack thereof.

If you and your staff believe “nobody has any money”, “they can’t afford it” and “my patients are cheap”, you will project those beliefs onto your patients so they don’t buy as well as your prospective patients who will appear cheap to you because that is what you believe. But please consider this:

If pricing was the only determining factor, then:

- everyone would drive a Honda
- everyone would wear a Timex watch
- everyone would shop at Walmart
- everyone would eat at McDonalds and so on..

I promise you, the majority of your aesthetic patients are not looking for the cheapest price but they are looking for a good result at a fair price so it’s the value they want.

The point is if your patient is only concerned about price, it’s because you haven’t educated them about other variables they should consider when choosing an aesthetic physician.

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Categories : Marketing

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