Set Up a Cosmetic Patient Attraction Plan for 2020:
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Episode transcript:
How to Set Up a Cosmetic Patient Attraction Plan For 2020
Welcome to “Beauty and the Biz.” Discover how to grow your practice with effective cosmetic patient attraction conversion and retention advice from author, speaker, trainer and cosmetic practice business and marketing coach Catherine Maley MBA.
Hello and welcome to “Beauty and the Biz” where we talk about the marketing and business side of the plastic surgery practices. I’m your host Catherine Maley author of “Your Aesthetic Practice – What Your Patients are Saying” as well as consultant to cosmetic practices to get them more patients and more profits.
So, today’s episode is called “How to Set Up a Cosmetic Patient Attraction Plan For 2020.” So, if you want a steady stream of cash paying cosmetic patients filling up your schedule this year, this cosmetic attraction plan is for you. So, many plastic surgeons complain to me that they’re spending more than ever on advertising yet they’re not getting what they want out of it and they’re not sure it’s working like it should or it’s definitely not getting them the results that they want. So, here’s their other complaints inconsistent revenues of good and bad months that are stressing them out, social media has gotten confusing and very time-consuming and they don’t know for sure if it’s worth their time and effort that they’re putting in or if they’re outsourcing to social media efforts they have no idea if they’re getting a good return or not. Another big complaint is they’re spending a fortune on Google AdWords, but their staff is complaining that these are bad quality leads, so they don’t bother following up on them or their conversion rates have dropped, and they don’t have any reason why or their staffs not representing them professionally and it just goes on and on. So, if any of this sounds familiar I do have a solution that gives you clarity about what’s going on and how you can adapt to win.
So, let’s talk about the plastic surgery industry today. Obviously the insane amount of competition is the big change but so is the internet in general. It keeps advancing as well as the introduction of non-surgical treatments that can be performed by RNs, PAs, NPs, Med Spas, Laser Techs and even aestheticians. So, with so much choice empowering the cosmetic patient consumer to make decisions prospective cosmetic patients are gaining complete control over the decision making process. So, what do I mean by that? Well they’re comparison shopping like never before thanks to the internet. Now they’re taking a lot of time to research and evaluate their surgical and non-surgical options. So, that means attract a new cosmetic patients online has become a very big expensive and confusing challenge for surgeons. So, I’m going to walk you through how to transform your patient lead generation plan from a lack of leads with poor conversion rates to a constant stream of new plastic surgery patients hungry for your services.
Now this gives you an opportunity to dominate your market because you’re going to be firing on all cylinders while your competitors continue to run from one shiny object to the next burning through the time and money and then they’re going to complain nothing’s working. So, a much smarter approach is to map out a proven patient attraction plan that you know works and then you identify the practice gaps that most hurt your bottom line so you can turn them into money-making profit centers. I’m actually going to show you how to get a 5278% proven ROI from your efforts without wasting time redesigning your website again spending more on organic search to get ranked or hiring more staff. I’m going to actually show you how you get peace of mind because once you’re able to identify the new patient lead strategies as well as practice gaps keeping you from more patients more procedures and more revenues you’ll enjoy your life a lot more.
So, let’s start with the practice gaps most affecting your bottom line and then we’ll talk about the quickest fixes to turn things around. So, let me jump right in with practice gap number one. You need more patient leads. So, new plastic surgery patient leads are the number one priority in any plastic surgery practice okay. We all agree on that. New leads are the lifeblood of your practice. If you want more cash paying patients and surgeries you need more leads but where do these new leads come from and how do you get a predictable and steady flow of them? So, you already know you have to pay to play in today’s marketplace and that’s just because free organic SEO is no longer the go-to search ranking strategy that it used to be. Gone are the days of you being found by accident or just because you’ve updated your website and even social media platforms will only show your post to less than 10% of your audience because they want you to pay to advertise. So, the cards are definitely stacked against free organic anything.
So, the secret to attracting new plastic surgery patients is to go where others are not yet and here’s what I mean by that. For the most part old-school media channels have been replaced by digital media channels. So, you want to build a digital advertising strategy using these digital media channels because that’s where all the eyeballs went. That makes sense right? I hope you hear me on this. In today’s world it’s about demand generation not fulfillment. Now this may surprise you but the new trend in attracting cosmetic patients is this. Demand generation is greater than demand fulfillment. Do you realize only 3% of consumers who click on PPC ads otherwise known as Google AdWords, only 3% are ready to buy now. That’s called demand fulfillment but that’s also why it’s so expensive to advertise there because you’re competing for the same keywords your competitors are. So, it’s a contest of who can outspend everyone else. That’s why so many of you complain to me you have spent a fortune on Google AdWords, but you haven’t gotten the result you want. It’s because it’s a very big supplier. All of the surgeons are going after the same 3% and that’s not a good math for you.
Now here’s a smarter approach; it’s to go after the much larger group of targeted consumers on social media who could be interested in your services. That’s called demand generation. Now if you make it interesting and compelling for them you’ll make it a priority for them to become that 3% but do you see what I’m saying? If you go after this group that could be nobody else is going after them as much so it’s going to be cheaper and easier for you to compel them to become part of the 3% who are ready to buy now. I promise you this approach is cheaper, easier and it’s super targeted so you’re going to get way more leads.
So, the point being social media advertising is the single biggest opportunity in the history of advertising because for a fraction of the cost of TV you can now advertise online, and the best part is you can target exactly who sees your ad. You remember how expensive TV was. One of my first clients used to spend like 50 grand a month on TV ads and if you notice they just go all over the place. All sorts of people see them because you can’t define an audience as well as you can with social media. It’s just so darn targeted because I mean let’s face it somebody like Facebook they know everything about us every detail. They have hundreds of little data points about each one of us. They can say a lot about if we have a dog, what kind of food that dog eats, how many kids do we have, how much money do we make. I mean it’s pretty specific now and that’s super powerful because now you don’t waste money on targeting somebody that doesn’t care about you know plastic surgery or your services. However, the secret to this is your ad design and your copy in your social media ads are crucial to get the click. It’s got to be eye-catching, engaging and it must offer the consumer cosmetic patient something of value, so they actually respond because the only thing that counts at this stage is to encourage a prospective cosmetic patient to take the next step and that is to click on your ad. But here’s the kicker, leads are only one part of it. These leads need to be converted so let’s keep going.
Here’s practice gap number two – weak follow up on incoming leads. Now most plastic surgeons suffer lost profits here every day, every month and every year from this silent money waster and I think you’re going to be surprised at the stats when it comes to staff following up on leads that you spend a fortune to get in the first place. 48% never follow up at all. Isn’t that crazy? The average first follow up is 72 hours later. I mean you might as well not bother if you’re going to call three days later, that’s just silly. Only 25% of practices make two contact attempts and 64% of practices do not have any organized way to follow up on a lead. But it’s not your fault, it’s not your staffs fault. You just don’t have the tools or the training or the strategies of how to do this professionally. Now this is a game-changer for you and a way to dominate your market when you use proven scripts and strategies to follow up faster and better than your competition but there’s more.
Here’s the next practice gap. Gap number three – staff can’t convert callers or consultations. Every practices success is limited by their staffs ability to convert callers to appointments and appointments to paid procedures. It’s way too competitive to be mediocre at this stage of the lead process. Now take the phones for example. Almost every office is challenged by the phones and I’m talking about phone trees, answering machines, indifferent or unfriendly staff or new untrained staff and it goes on and on. Phones are taken way too lightly because it’s not enough to have a friendly staff person answering the phones. They also have to be skilled otherwise you lose money. Now look what happens when and not if, it’s when you lose one caller per day. If it’s only a call worth $2000 but in our industry I mean the average surgical procedure is 8000 but I don’t need to exaggerate this. If I just went with 2000. Have you ever done the math on that? 2000 a day times 22 days per month times 12 months per year, that’s over a half a million dollars in lost profits just due to bad phones. Now an easy fix is to get your receptionist the scripts and the training they need to keep you busy with booked appointments/ It’s time and money well spent but then after, let’s say the receptionist does her job she converts the appointment but here’s the next step.
What’s your coordinators converting rate? Now the prospective patient who calls you schedules an appointment and shows up is a hot prospect. They’ve already decided to move forward to find a solution to something that bothers them, or they wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble, effort and hassle to go meet you in person. Now your patient coordinator needs to be a well trained professional with proven scripts, strategies and tools to get the patients to a yes. For example, does your coordinator know how to position you the surgeon as the best choice? Do they know how to qualify the patient to prepare them for the quote presentation? Do they know how to present with confidence to get the patient excited about moving forward and ultimately do they know how to ask for a decision? Most coordinators don’t ask because they haven’t been trained to do so comfortably and professionally so they don’t bother. They end up saying so there you go. Do you have any questions? Okay, bye-bye out to go. The point is to arm your receptionist and your patient coordinator with the tools and the accountability they need to get really good at converting callers and consultations because you know as well as I do nothing else matters until the patients say yes and give you money. Until a transaction is made a lead is just the lead. We need your staff to move them along the buyers journey and convert them.
Now here’s one more deadly practice gap that’s costing you patients and procedures and that is practice gap number four – you ignore patients who would return, refer and review. Your number one practice asset is your list of patients who know, like and trust you. Many of these patients would gladly return, gladly refer and gladly review you if given the opportunity. They are not as price sensitive and they’re way more likely to say yes to you than an Internet stranger patient and we all know a majority of new patients come from your current patients. So, this is the new mindset you need to adopt to survive in today’s 2020 crazy, competitive world. Retention is the new patient attraction strategy because when you take your patients for granted and/or ignore them you open the door for your competitors to steal them away from you.
Please remember cosmetic patients have endless needs especially as the relentless aging process continues. Now your plastic surgery patients need your surgical and non-surgical services now and a month from now and a year from now and so on. So, you want to nurture your current cosmetic patients, so they return and refer their friends and family. You do that with strategic database marketing using segmented messages, themed emails, texts and customized social media banners. That way you’re connecting with your patients no matter where they are and there you have it, the cosmetic patient attraction plan for 2020. That should get you 10 to 30 more procedures per month because now you’re focused on new patient attraction and conversion follow-up and retention.
So, let me know if you need help setting up your own customized patient attraction plan for 2020. You can simply send me a message from catherinemaley.com and that wraps it up for this podcast and as always I sure would appreciate it if you would subscribe to “Beauty and the Biz” and if you’d give me a great review I’d greatly appreciate it and then if you would share me with your colleagues and your staff that would be super and then of course I’m always open to any comments or feedback you have. I can take it don’t worry. You can send it to me, a message from catherinemaley.com or you can DM me on Instagram @catherinemaleymba. Thanks for your time and we’ll talk again soon.
We hope you found valuable insight on this episode of “Beauty and the Biz.” For more episodes, tools and Catherine’s free book visit www.catherinemaley.com, that’s www.catherinemaley.com and be sure to subscribe to get the latest practice building strategies delivered to you and don’t forget to share this “Beauty and the Biz” podcast with your staff and colleagues.
