Marketing Aesthetic Practices for Physicians to Attract

Marketing Your Practice in 2008

Did your practice revenues increase this year? Did your overhead increase as well? Did you gain 20% new patients? Did you have excessive staff turnover? Are you where you want to be in terms of revenues, profit and loss and overall satisfaction with your practice?

If not, now is the perfect time to go over where you are and where you want to be at this same time next year. Since that’s not going to just happen by accident, you need a plan. A plan that will help you stay on target. It will guide you to know what you should be doing and when.

Getting your plan in place now at the beginning of the year and following through all year long will help to get you where you want to go. Keep it simple and get your staff involved.

The following is a simple checklist broken down into three areas to get you started:

Your Image:

Let’s face it – image can be everything in the world of aesthetic enhancement and details do count. Nothing is more important in aesthetic medicine than patient relations. When aesthetic consumers are using their own money for enhancement, they want and expect to be treated in a certain manner. The aesthetic patient is looking for a pleasant patient experience every time they are in contact with you. They want and expect to feel special and to be listened to and understood. This includes how they are treated on the telephone as well as in person. This also includes the ambience of your office as well as the rapport they feel with you and your staff.

How you are perceived by your patients as well as prospective patients starts with your image. Keep in mind, it’s not what you say about your practice, it’s what your patients are saying about your practice that really counts. Here are some insights to consider:

Your Office

Is your office clean and clutter-free? That means the dusty boxes gone and out of sight and the drawers organized?
Is your office updated and does it reflect your interest in aesthetics? Repaint and replace furniture every three years to stay updated.
Do you have fresh flowers, soft background music and tasteful artwork on the walls?

Your Staff

Are your telephones being answered by the second ring in a friendly way?
If you are putting callers on hold, do you have an on-hold message educating them about your practice and what’s new in aesthetic enhancement? Are you then inviting them in for a consultation to learn more? Are you asking every single caller how they heard about your practice so you know what prompted them to call you?
Is your staff friendly, courteous and professional on the telephone as well as in person? Are they making the aesthetic patient feel special and cared for?
Have you implemented a commission plan or some type of profit-sharing plan so your staff is a part of the team and motivated to help you succeed?

Your Processes

Are your office procedures and protocol efficient and organized? Is the flow of the patient’s visit smooth, un-harried and relaxing? That means the waiting times are minimal, a reasonable amount of time is spent with the aesthetic patient and check-out is efficient.
Have you invested in good patient database management software? Are you able to track everything, segment your database into special groups for special offerings and get superb reports from your system so you can analyze data to better understand who your patients are and what they are interested in?

Your Marketing Materials

Do your image-building tools such as your letterhead, business card, website and practice brochure include a distinctive logo, graphic, tagline, colors that depict your personality and are attractive to the aesthetic patient? Is your “look and feel” consistent throughout your materials, ads and website so patients recognize them as yours?
Are your ads making the telephone ring? If not, either change the ads or consider reallocating those funds to something that does give you a better result.
Have you perfected your patient consultation so you first bond with the patient as a person and then as a patient?
Have you learned the fine art of listening?
Are you reassuring the patient they are in good hands and you are confidant you can give them the results they are looking for?

Internal Marketing Strategies

Marketing to your current patients is the most effective use of your time, effort and budget. Your current patients already know you, they like you and they trust you or they wouldn’t be going to you. That means they are open to you and are much more apt to respond to your marketing efforts. Here are some strategies to implement:

Start with in-house signage. Be sure every single patient who walks through your door knows about every procedure, treatment and product you offer. “Ask Me About” tools such as lapel pins, procedure videos and before/after photo albums in exam rooms educate your patients on the aesthetic procedures you perform.
Add a cosmetic questionnaire to your in-take form that asks them about various concerns they have that they want to learn more about such as unwanted hair, blotchy skin, wrinkles, etc. This gives you and your staff a “lead-in” to a conversation to pursue their interests and offer them solutions.
Direct mail is still the cheapest form of advertising (with the exception of email marketing) because it is so targeted. Rather than throw a general message out into the world, you send a very specific message to a very specific patient list for a much better response. So, consider a direct mail campaign to your patient database at minimum 4 times per year. Pick one product or procedure to tell them about and add a special offer with a tight deadline date so they act now rather than wait.
Email marketing is now the cheapest and fastest form of communications today. With minimal cost, you can send out an email message and, within minutes, your telephone can ring – it’s that immediate. Build your own patient email database. Ask your patients for their email address and get their permission to send them exclusive Internet offers they won’t want to miss.
Send a practice newsletter at least 2-4 times per year informing your patients about what’s new in your practice – new staff, new treatments or updates on technology as well as what’s new in the world of aesthetic medicine. Make it personal and use it as an informative communication so your patients appreciate being kept up-to-date. Again, be sure to include special offers with a deadline date.
Institute a Refer-a-Friend program. A referred patient is golden to you. They are there because their family, friend or colleague has boasted about you and urged them to visit you. They will be less price-conscious, they will stay more loyal to you and they are much more likely to book a procedure with you than a prospective patient who just happened on you. Know who your advocates are by offering them something special for referring to you. Then track those referrals and be sure to thank your referring patients. Showing appreciation for their support will motivate them to keep spreading the word about you.
Invite your patients and their friends to your office for an evening of fun and education. This should be casual, include refreshments and provide short informative talks, by you, throughout the evening. Involve your vendors for support and sell products and procedures that evening. Have your staff on hand to book consultations on the spot.

External Marketing Strategies

Now that your current patients are up-to-date on what you offer and are referring their friends, you now want to go out into your community to gain new patients. Increasing your visibility and name recognition within your own community gives you credibility and access to new patients. Here are some strategies to consider:

Align yourself with neighboring spas, salons, gyms and other non-competing physicians. Cross promote your services with theirs and offer to pay for a direct mail piece introducing you to their database. This gives you instant credibility and brings in new patients.
If you want to advertise, pick one message that is newsy and informative and run it persistently in the same publication – one that your “preferred” patients would read. Attach some type of special offer and a tight expiration date and be sure your staff is tracking the results so you know if you are getting a good return. Or, better yet, use advertising to announce something like an Evening of Beauty or a Cosmetic Seminar and invite the public to attend. This will give you an opportunity to bond with them and make them a part of your practice.
Offer to speak at various events such as women’s clubs, real estate events, Chamber of Commerce events, etc. You will get free promotional value since your name will be on the announcements that are mailed out throughout the community. You can also attend the event to network with the guests.
PR is great if you can get it but how? If you have something new and of human interest, call your local television and radio stations as well as local newspapers and magazines and tell them about it. You can get the names and contact information of the editors, health writers and station managers on that medium’s website. You must be persistent in developing relationships with the media but it can really pay off.

The bottom line to effective marketing is to consistently and persistently keep your name in front of your “preferred” patient using different marketing and advertising channels.

Aesthetic patients are fickle consumers. They may not be ready for you today but they will be ready three months or six months from now and they will go to whoever is in front of them offering a solution for their particular concern.

I urge you to decide which of the above strategies work best for you and then develop a timeline for executing each of them throughout the year.

I wish you much success in 2008.

Catherine Maley, MBA
Author, “Your Aesthetic Practice: a complete guide/
What Your Patients Are Saying”
President and Senior Marketing Strategist, Cosmetic Image Marketing
www.cosmeticimagemarketing.com
Catherine@cosmeticimagemarketing.com
(877) 339-8833