**Original article published in easrly 2020. Updated and re-published in December 2020.
20 plastic surgery marketing strategies are gifted to you to celebrate my 20 years as a plastic surgeon business and marketing consultant,
These are proven to be effective marketing strategies to improve your brand and get you more plastic surgery patients and profits.
Included are the graphics, along with a description, you are free to “swipe and deploy” these 20 plastic surgery marketing strategies for fast results.
Here are the 20 plastic surgery marketing strategies and examples……
As the marketplace gets more saturated and commoditized , your plastic surgeon brand is the most unique differentiator you have.
Do more writing, speaking, pro bono, PR, videos on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, train other surgeons, get voted Top Doc or Best Plastic Surgeon (even if you have to pay for it).
Use this Content Machine structure to cross purpose your content so you are everywhere prospective plastic surgery patients will find you.
Hint: Your content can be created from your “Daily Life of a Plastic Surgeon”; for example, videotape patient consultations and split up the audio, written, visual pieces to post on multiple media channels like this:
Not only are you competing against other plastic surgeons, you are also competing against non-plastic surgeons, NPs, PAs, RNs, Laser Techs and even aestheticians.
Consumers need to be educated why YOU are the BEST CHOICE.
Use this visual template to explain what it took for you to become a skilled board-certified plastic surgeon and the training that went into it. Be sure to include the number of plastic surgery cases you’ve done, as well as medical and PR logos.
Prospective plastic surgery patients are looking for proof that you are skilled and will give them the results they want. They find that proof in your before/after photos as well as your reviews.
Make it a priority this year to build up your before/after photos in your gallery. Use the same lighting, backdrop, angles and expressions to document your excellent work.
And be sure to show every age, ethnicity, body type so prospective patients can see themselves in the photos and want a similar result others have gotten.
Disclaimer: I did a screen shot of these google images for illustration purposes only. Use your own before/after photos and add your logo watermark to each photo.
It’s always faster, easier and cheaper to encourage your current patients to return for more procedures than it is to advertise to attract new patients.
Send monthly-themed emails to your patient email list AND turn your email into social posts so your patients can respond, like and share with their friends on the Internet.
Email Tips:
Social Post Tips:
Make word-of-mouth referrals comfortable and fun for new cosmetic patients to visit you with their friends. Give them a special price when they both come in to either have a simple treatment such as a peel or offer breast augmentation prospective patients a 2-for-1 consult fee.
Now you have two new prospective plastic surgery patients who can become raving fans and bring in more of their friends.
By the way, even if you stopped and didn’t complete all 20 plastic surgery strategies, executing only these first 5 marketing strategies would give you a big boost in your revenues.
Make it easy for new plastic surgery patients to say yes to you. Turn your business card into a “Get to Know Us” $50 gift card.
Or, put together a “Get to Know Us” skin evaluation package that includes a skin analysis photo session with your aesthetician, a wonderful exfoliating and moisturizing facial treatment to include one sample product of their choice. The entire package retails for $300; however, as a new patient, they get it for only $97.
Offer this on your website, social posts, social ads, pass it out to your friends and family and add to your goody bags for community events.
Internal marketing strategies for plastic surgeons are vital to leverage your patient base. Design a visual of all the plastic surgery services you offer (or just the non-surgical if you prefer) that a cosmetic patient could have performed to look their very best. Add it all up and offer the ULTIMATE package for a special price. This number will be a high price on purpose.
First of all, it improves your brand as a high-end provider. Secondly, the patient will see the high anchor price and then boast they don’t need all of this; however, they do need 4-5 of the services listed. This automatically increases their transaction value.
And, you never know when a patient wants everything you offer because money is no object and vanity knows no bounds!
Your plastic surgery advertising can get the phones to ring but it the responsibility of your receptionist to convert the caller to an appointment so be sure she is professionally trained to convert callers.
Give your receptionist these 5 Phone Fixes for plastic surgery to ensure they cover the phone fundamentals to increase conversion rates by up to 30% within 48 hours:
#1 Fix: Answer the phone within 3 rings by a human being/Use Verbal Cheerleading
#2 Fix: Get Caller’s Name/Find out how they heard about you
#3 Fix: Control the Call with Questions/Pre-Frame why you
#4 Fix: Ask for the Appointment
#5 Fix: Get Contact Information No Matter What
If you ever hear your patients say to you, “I didn’t know you did that” and had it done elsewhere, you need more internal marketing strategies like this menu of services creative signage.
This encourages the visiting patient to inquire about your other services without you or your staff pushing services onto them. It also increases your patient’s lifetime value since they will return more often for more services.
The easiest way for you to increase your revenues without spending another dime on advertising is to increase the transaction size of a visiting patient. They are already saying yes to you so they will likely say yes to you even more during their visit.
This in-house signage is educational and is displayed in the treatment room to keep your Botox patient busy while you prepare their Botox. Once they understand all of the various usages of Botox , they will most likely want more areas treated.
We are only half-way through the 20 plastic surgery marketing strategies proven to get you more cosmetic patients and profits.
Please be sure to execute these strategies so you see results. Let’s keep going…
A Complete Guide to Understanding Your Aesthetic Patient and Growing Your Aesthetic Practice. Catherine Maley, MBA went straight to the aesthetic patient to get the answers you need to succeed with your patients.
It can be a difficult discussion with a maturing patient who wants non-surgical treatments, even though they really need surgery for the result they are hoping to achieve.
Let this signage visually show them when surgery is necessary, so you don’t have to bring it up yourself.
You can also use this visual in social posts and in ads.
Prospective cosmetic patients are more confused than ever about the choices they have in surgical and non-surgical procedures and treatments. But with that choice comes confusion and a confused patient is a NO patient.
Help them decide by using this visual that compares and makes it easier for them to decide which way to go. The beauty (pun intended) is that you have presented it in a way for them to yes or yes. Because rather than them deciding yes or no to a procedure, they are deciding which procedure makes more sense to them.
Since a picture really is worth a thousand words, use digital photo frames to show off your plastic surgery before/after as well as non-surgical results.
The point is to use internal marketing strategies to cross promote ALL of your plastic surgery and non-surgery services so your patients have a one-stop shop for all of their cosmetic rejuvenation needs.
Not only is that more convenient for your patients, it will also increase their lifetime value and that helps your bottom line.
Place these digital displays wherever patients are waiting. This helps keep them busy while waiting for you, educates them and prompts them to ask you questions about what they saw.
So, rather than pushing services on visiting patients, let them start the conversation with you to learn more.
Put together specially priced combination services because they:
Consumers are wired to take medical prescriptions seriously so make your own prescription pad that cross promotes your NON-surgical services performed by your staff.
After meeting with your patients for a surgical procedure or at the surgical post-op appointment, check off a few services the patient would benefit from and have them meet with your non-surgical staff for the details.
This helps build up your non-surgical side of the practice, keeps your staff busy and increases your revenues without you being involved.
It’s imperative to your success that you have the right patient coordinator representing you.
She must have confidence and be professionally trained to convert consultations.
Use this scorecard to determine if your current patient care coordinator could use help and/or use this as a guide to rewrite your ad to find the best one for your practice.
The biggest reason patients don’t refer more often is that you didn’t ask them to and/or you didn’t make it easy for them.
This referral display prompts them for more word-of-mouth referrals and the referral cards act as “props” to remind them to talk about you when out with friends.
If you’re having trouble getting “good” reviews that make an impact, change up your process by offering your best post-op surgical patients a plastic surgery patient online review kit in a silver 6 x 9 envelope with your logo on it.
Enclose step-by-step instructions for various review sites (google being the prominent one), a heart-felt letter with starter sentences to help the patient write a great patient story and include a Starbucks gift card so they enjoy a latte to thank them for taking the time to write a great review!
Instructions to write the review:
Starter sentences to help patients write a good review:
I wanted plastic surgery because ________________________
I chose Dr. Smith because ____________________________
Describe the process and the care you received _____________________
How I feel about my results ________________________________
The smarter way to grow your plastic surgery practice is to put “golden handcuffs” on your plastic surgery patients so they stay loyal to you, return more often, refer their friends, give you great reviews, allow you use of their before/after photos and have surgery with you without discounting.
The KISS Rewards Club is the easiest patient loyalty program to date. It’s easy to use for staff and patients and increases your revenues effortlessly.
Retail does not sell itself so if you lock it behind cases, the patients can’t touch, feel, smell your products so they won’t buy them.
Sell More Skin Care by designing creative monthly or seasonally themed displays with skin care samples your patients can test.
And, there you have it. 20 Plastic Surgery Marketing Strategies for 2020. Execute one or all of these strategies and watch your revenues grow. I wish you much success this year!
Hello, and welcome to Beauty and the Biz where we talk about the business and
Hello, and welcome to Beauty and the Biz where we talk about the business and marketing