Archive for Marketing
New Success Strategy #2: Create a Great Patient Experience
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s more important than ever that every patient who connects with your office has a great experience every single time – while on the telephone or while visiting in person.
That includes a pleasant receptionist, friendly staff, smooth processes and a comfortable physical environment.
See, hear, smell, experience your office as a new patient would. Better yet, have your neighbor, a good friend or a 3-rd party stranger act as a mystery shopper and report back their findings on what they liked about your office visit and what could be improved upon.
This will help push you to be in a constant state of improvement so your patients enjoy their time with you enough to return again and again.
Do You Have the Right Team in Place?
It’s imperative every person employed by you believes in you, your services and your success in aesthetic medicine. They must represent you to the best of their ability and they must care.
The point is for them to work together as a team to provide the best service possible. That means you have a team that follows systems like a well-oiled machine – even when you’re not there.
Need more tips, tactics, strategies and resources to drive patients to your practice? Please watch my free videos by filling out the form to the right.
Thank You, and I encourage you to leave any comments or questions below.
Article by Catherine Maley, MBA, Author, Your Aesthetic Practice and President, Cosmetic Image Marketing
What Can I Do To Save My Aesthetic Practice?
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s a brief dose of brutal reality.
It was easy before now and you didn’t have to try very hard to fill up your office with cash-paying patients.
Consumers were spending like drunken sailors. Credit was available for everyone for whatever they wanted. TV shows like Extreme Makeover made it possible for everyday people to have a new life of love, wealth and health with cosmetic enhancement.
The demand was high, the patients were showing up for their appointments and the money was flowing.
But not anymore….The party is over.
Many of your patients have lost their jobs or are afraid they would lose their jobs soon so they stopped spending on aesthetics.
Others had their credit dry up and couldn’t afford aesthetics anymore.
Many of your patients who once considered aesthetic services a necessity now viewed them a luxury to be put off until things are better.
The media pours on doomsday stories about stocks sliding, businesses closing and the world coming to an end. Let’s face it – it makes for a good story!
There’s been a shift in wealth. The wealth is still there – it’s just in different hands now.
As a service provider, you now have to work at it to get the same results that used to come to you effortlessly.
That’s the difference and that’s why only the strategic will survive.
Remember those sayings:
There’s a silver lining in every cloud or when one door closes, another one opens?
The current state of the economy is doomsday for some and opportunity for others – so which group do you fall into?
Do not let highly publicized pessimism stop you from being excited and enthusiastic about your future in aesthetic medicine.
The good news is that with the right mind set and strategies, there is much you can do to survive and even flourish during this shaky time.
Rather than sit back and wait for things to get better, those who proactively “do something” will fare much better.
“Don’t you see – all is not over. It’s just different.”
You Are in an Enviable Position
You cater to a very hungry market – the patient who wants to look and feel better and will invest their time, money and effort to do so
These aesthetic patients want to feel better. That is not a one-time feeling. This is an ongoing, innate desire for an ever-growing, aging population.
Think about it. This patient has a built-in need now and for years to come because if they care today how they look, they are really going to care as the aging process takes an even bigger toll.
So, spending effort up front now to attract that aesthetic patient to your practice and nurturing that relationship, will prompt them to return again and again for procedures, treatments and products that help them look and feel good.
The point is, this is not a one-time transaction. The first transaction should always lead to another and another.
It can cost a small fortune to acquire a new patient – but it costs next to nothing to keep them. The financial beauty of this relationship-based practice is that your costs will dramatically decrease if you simply maintain your patient database you spent time, money and effort to get in the first place.
Need more tips, tactics, strategies and resources to drive patients to your practice? Please watch my free videos by filling out the form to the right, now.
Thank You, and I encourage you to leave any comments or questions below.
Article by Catherine Maley, MBA, Author, Your Aesthetic Practice and President, Cosmetic Image Marketing
Promoting Minimally-Invasive Procedures Using Internal Marketing – Part 3 of 4
Posted by: | CommentsNow let’s talk about promoting your MI procedures using internal marketing to your current patients. I highly recommend starting there. Your #1 asset is your database since they are your low-hanging fruit.
They already know, like and trust you and they are much more apt to respond to your marketing efforts.
By the way, next to email marketing, direct mail is still the cheapest form of promotion today because it’s so targeted since it’s going to people who know you versus advertising to total strangers.
And, you use direct mail to reactivate patients. Such as those you haven’t seen for a long time, those who came in for a consultation but didn’t book and those who need to return to finish their treatments. Some of those patients were simply saying, “Not Now” or “Not Yet”. Educate your patients about MI procedures using:
- Patient newsletter
- Fun postcards
- Email messages
- Birthday cards
- In-House Seminars
- Open House
- Vendor-sponsored events
How to Price MI Procedures
Since MI procedures often entail multiple txs. Sell packages they pay for up front.
This ensures they visit several times and gives you the opportunity to bond with them and it also helps ensure they receive the best result possible. Otherwise, there’s a chance you told them they needed 3-5 tx, they came in for one, never returned and now tell their friends it didn’t work.
Give them choices of packages that cross-promote comparable products and services so they decide which package to go with rather than decide if they should do it at all.
Here are some examples….
Free underarm LHR with leg LHR package. The reason being if the aesthetic pt has hair concerns on one part of their body, they most likely have it on other body parts.
Buy 4 and the 5th treatment is free – Free is always a good word in promotion.
Buy a facial package and get LHR ½ off. The point here is to introduce them to other comparable services you offer since an aesthetic patient. is most likely interested in lots of different treatments that keep them looking their best.
Every 4th visit = free product and that introduces them to your product lines.
Need more tips, tactics, strategies and resources to drive patients to your practice? Watch my free videos now.
Thank You, and I encourage you to leave any comments or questions below.
Article by Catherine Maley, MBA, Author, Your Aesthetic Practice and President, Cosmetic Image Marketing
Aesthetic Marketing Strategies for Tough Times
Posted by: | CommentsNow more than ever, your patients need compelling reasons to part with their hard-earned money. The media is scaring them and they are not sure they will have jobs so they are pulling back on their disposable purchases. Have you noticed a dip in your own revenues? Are you experiencing more no-shows? If so, that just means you need to be more strategic than ever before.
If patients don’t come to you as freely as before, strategically put a plan in place to make it happen. They are not saying no necessarily. They could just be saying give me more logical reasons to come to you to fulfill my emotional needs of looking as good as I feel.
Target Your Current Aesthetic Patients
This is not the time to start a new advertising campaign to attract total strangers to your practice. Focus on those who already know you since they are more apt to respond to your promotional efforts. Use proven patient attraction tools to wake up your sleeping patients and get them visiting and referring.
Need more tips, tactics, strategies and resources to drive patients to your practice? Watch my free videos now.
Thank You, and I encourage you to leave any comments
or questions below.
Article by Catherine Maley, MBA, Author, Your Aesthetic Practice
and President, Cosmetic Image Marketing
Difference between Marketing and Advertising Your Aesthetic Practice
Posted by: | CommentsMost aesthetic physicians I’ve worked with have distaste for marketing. They feel they are above it. They feel they shouldn’t have to prove themselves to anyone. They also prefer to delegate the task of marketing to someone else. However, once you understand the difference between marketing and advertising, it becomes obvious that the persons truly qualified to “market” your practice are you and your staff.
There is a huge difference with marketing and advertising. Advertising is someone standing on a corner motioning to the passerby to come take a look at what they’re selling. It’s the effort you put into getting your telephone to ring.
Marketing is everything that follows after the telephone rings. Such as how the receptionist handles the call, you introducing yourself, your sincere interest in the patient, your office’s appearance, its sounds and smells, the mannerisms of staff and, of course, the quality of care.
Promoting your aesthetic practice is an essential, integral necessity that’s very much a part of aesthetic medicine today, especially with greater competition growing every day, whether it’s through TV, cable, radio, print, direct mail or internet marketing.
Advertising is most effective when combining education and then an introduction to you, your staff and your facilities. One strategy is to use video about you, your staff and your office to professionally promote you. Add it to your website, add it to other vendor portals and show it in your office. Such a strategy becomes a more efficient promotion model with elements of both advertising and marketing.
Just know advertising is the first part of your success. Marketing is everything after that that will truly build your successful aesthetic practice.
Need more tips, tactics, strategies and resources to drive patients to your practice? Watch my free videos now.
Thank You, and I encourage you to leave any comments or questions below.
Article by Catherine Maley, MBA, Author, Your Aesthetic Practice and President, Cosmetic Image Marketing
Follow the Money in Aesthetic Marketing
Posted by: | CommentsHave you pulled back on your promotional efforts?
Or, do you see this as an opportunity to invest in your practice?
A great example of someone who understands opportunity is Warren Buffet who is buying up bargains like crazy right now because others have stepped away from the table out of fear.
The secret is to go where the money is. That means if you are even breaking even with any of your promotional efforts – keep doing them! Keep current patients coming in and attract new patients now. This is the perfect time to gain market share since your competitors are standing on the sidelines and ignoring their patients. Go get ‘em!
Those who conquer tough times are the ones who get into motion and do something. This is critical because money is attracted to movement and speed. It’s not attracted to those who are scared and standing still.
Get in the game…winners embrace these challenges and do what it takes to not only weather the storm but flourish in it.
Need more tips, tactics, strategies and resources to drive patients to your practice? Watch my free videos now.
Thank You, and I encourage you to leave any comments
or questions below.
Article by Catherine Maley, MBA, Author, Your Aesthetic Practice
and President, Cosmetic Image Marketing
What Can An Aesthetic Physician Do to Weather The Economic Storm?
Posted by: | CommentsThere is much you can do to survive and even flourish no matter what is happening in the economy.
I guarantee the answer is NOT to wait and do nothing. Those who proactively act will fare the best. And, since your competitors are sitting on the sidelines from fear, now is the perfect time for you to increase your promotional efforts. You can attract new patients (some of them from your competitors who are ignoring them) and you can reconnect with your own patients to ensure they stay loyal to you.
This is not the time to start a huge, expensive external campaign to attract total strangers to your practice. That will take too long, too much money and may not pan out. However, it is time to go through your patient files and set up a strategy to get them to return, spend more with you when they do and refer more of their friends.
Segment your lists by age and send them solution-specific messages to address probable concerns they may have. For example, send tummy tuck information to moms in their 30-40’s, facelift information to professional females in their 50-60’s, etc. This targeted messaging should give you a much better return on your investment than sending one-message-fits-all.
Can Aesthetic Patients Still Afford Services in This Economy?
Posted by: | CommentsDuring these shaky economic times, you want to be much more strategic about your promotional efforts when attracting cosmetic patients to your practice. Targeting those patients who are least affected by the craziness going on in the world or, at least, last affected by it.
Which Aesthetic Patients are Recession-Proof?
While most folks will be affected somehow, some way by the stock market collapse, the credit crunch and the housing debacle, not all will feel it the same. It will hit home hard for those who live paycheck to paycheck from companies who may go under and lay them off. It will hurt those in professions such as mortgage brokers, realtors and corporate middle managers.
However, those least likely affected are those who are typically more mature and more prepared for dips in income since they have been through it before and know the drill. They have saved for this and are less prone to devastation. They have reached affluence and will not be devastated by what’s happening. Some won’t even feel it because they know how to make money and hang onto it.
So, my advice to you is to cater to your more mature patients for now rather than more time, money and effort into the younger patient who has not yet established themselves.
