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By: Kim Virrueta

Your plastic surgery practice is your pride and joy. It took you years of school as well as surgical experience to be in the place you are today. That means everything to your patients. However, if you are neglecting your cosmetic surgery marketing online and not making sure to adhere to SEO best practices, your patients will not be able to find you online. Here are a couple examples of SEO best practices for you to start implementing today.

Content + Keywords

Using your keywords in your tags, testimonials, and links are very important, but what about the content on your site? Today’s patients are looking for information about procedures first, then deciding which doctor to schedule a consult with. By catering to exactly what your patients are looking for, you’ll be building trust in them from the very first article they read on your site. Your articles should cover each procedure you perform, healing times they can expect, pre-op procedures, as well as anything else specific to your practice that you feel they should know. This will make your online cosmetic surgery marketing effective with both patients and Google.

By using your keywords inside of your content, your web pages will get highly ranked by Google for each of the procedures you perform. This means that not only will your home page get found for the general keywords you are going after, but your internal website pages will also get ranked highly for their relevance to people searching locally for that specific procedure. That’s smart cosmetic surgery marketing if you ask us!

Videos, Videos, Videos!

Did we fail to convey that videos are extremely important? Videos not only teach patients in an easy, no-fuss way, they are simple to create and offer the greatest conversion rates, turning many more site visitors into patients than any other type of content on the Internet. We firmly believe in giving patients exactly what they came for in order to drive them from your website directly into your office for a consultation. Videos on your site should be optimized for maximum cosmetic surgery marketing effectiveness. This includes using filmed procedures, PowerPoint presentations about what to expect, testimonials with either live footage or before/after pictures, and introduction videos about you and your staff.

Additionally, creating a YouTube channel with all of your videos allows your patients to browse your whole collection, embed the video player onto their own blog site, and share it with friends and family. We always embed YouTube videos onto our clients’ sites because they are the best way to present the data while giving patients the greatest opportunities to share them.

Get a Customized Plan Made for Your Plastic Surgery Practice

If you are ready to plan out the most aggressive cosmetic surgery marketing strategy possible, we’ll get your site right to the top of Google. Contact us today. We’re ready to help you with a website analysis of your current SEO, provide a consultation to you over the phone, and we’ll even make a 30-second customized video for you to post on your home page or blog. Simply follow the links in the author resource box below to get in touch with us today.

About the Author

Kim is the owner of EggStream Marketing, an SEO Services and Internet Marketing company catering to cosmetic surgery marketing online for plastic surgeons. EggStream Marketing provides SEO, video creation and marketing, article marketing, social media marketing, website design, patient newsletter management, patient referral rewards programs, and business blogging services to her clients.

Contact Kim at EggStream Marketing by clicking here. You may also contact her by phone at 1-888-345-0849.

“We’re thinking outside the shell to stream patients to your website.”

(ArticlesBase SC #2263481)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – Cosmetic Surgery Marketing and SEO Success Starts Here

Author: Kim Virrueta

Save Time and Money by Choosing Experienced Professionals

Just as your expertise as a plastic surgeon is learned and perfected over many years; cosmetic surgery marketing is an acquired skill that takes time. Specially-constructed marketing strategies for the plastic surgeon are perfected for each individual practice. This type of strategizing goes far beyond the everyday SEO and Internet marketing that comes with standard companies. Here are the top three best practices of cosmetic surgery marketing to help you choose the right company.

Testimonials

As you know in your own practice, testimonials are extremely important to your success. As people report their satisfaction to you, you in turn use that information to market yourself. It’s the same with cosmetic surgery marketing. An experienced firm will have at least one testimonial listed on their home page and some companies have an entire page dedicated to client accolades. This is obviously a good sign for prospective clients – to see that others are happy with their performance.

Even better, however, is to see how the company uses patient testimonials on their clients’ sites. By making sure to include keywords for best SEO in their clients’ sites, that testimonial page could easily be the biggest seller of the entire website. It will get indexed and ranked well by Google for containing the keywords that are being targeted by the entire site. The added benefit is that the page will help to convert site visitors into potential patients when they click in to the page itself.

Keywords

Every SEO professional knows that keywords are the very basis for online success. Without carefully selected keywords, your website won’t be found by the audience who is searching for you in the search engines. This can be disastrous to your aesthetic practice! Imagine paying someone thousands of dollars to create your website, putting in pictures, information, and links…but you never see any additional patients from your cosmetic surgery marketing investment!

Instead, your SEO firm should already know what keywords to use on your site to help promote it to local patients who are searching for your services. These are ready-to-go site visitors who have the potential to grow your practice, if only given the chance to see your site at the top of Google.

Tags in Your HTML

Some people think that by using great keywords, it’s enough to get to the very top of Google eventually. Unfortunately, it is rare when it happens like that. Google looks for certain things when they visit a website, one of them is the use of tags in the site’s HTML code. Tags like the title tag (what you have named your site), the meta tag for your keywords (the keywords you’ve decided to target), and heading tags (also called h1 tags) all make a difference when combined. These tags should be used wisely, in the right places, and not too often so as to be flagged by Google as a spamming site. A cosmetic surgery marketing firm with SEO experience will know just what to do for your site to help it get favored by Google.

Get it Right the First Time

If you’re looking for someone to help you with making a plan for your online cosmetic surgery marketing, feel free to contact us today. We’ll be happy to analyze your site for free, offer you a report with a free consultation to discuss the findings, and even make a customized 30-second video for you to put up on your site.

We’re confident that we can help you because we have the experience and skills necessary to help your patients find you online. We hope this article shows just how much we care about helping you find the right marketing provider to meet the unique needs of your plastic surgery practice.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/cosmetic-surgery-marketing-best-practices-using-seo-in-plastic-surgery-2263393.html

About the Author

Kim is the owner of EggStream Marketing, an SEO Services and Internet Marketing company catering to cosmetic surgery marketing online for plastic surgeons. EggStream Marketing provides SEO, video creation and marketing, article marketing, social media marketing, website design, patient newsletter management, patient referral rewards programs, and business blogging services to her clients.

Contact Kim at EggStream Marketing by clicking here. You may also contact her by phone at 951.665.8360.

“We’re thinking outside the shell to stream patients to your website.”

If you’re like most plastic surgeons, you probably haven’t ventured too far into the social networking jungle. That’s a mistake, however, because social networking sites can boost your cosmetic surgery marketing results very quickly. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are great places for you to connect with your patients and potentials as well as give you a chance to educate, inform, and get to know them. Here are five ways to connect with your patients in the social networking world.

1. Be yourself. There’s no substitute for conveying who you are in a real and personable way. With cosmetic surgeons, especially, it is extremely important to connect with people to build their trust. Sure, you have credentials that prove your expertise, but being a real person that they can relate to will help draw patients right to you like a moth to flame. They will want to hear what you have to say, will be more likely to click in to your website links, and will be glad to refer you to their loved ones when the time is right.

2. Post useful information to engage your patients for optimal cosmetic surgery marketing results. Before you post anything on Twitter, T.H.I.N.K. about it. T is for thought-provoking. Is your Tweet something that will really get your patients thinking? If yes, post it; if not, find something else to say. H is for helpful. Are you about to post something that will help your patients learn something new and will help them make a decision to come in to see you? I is for imaginative. Your Tweets should be somewhat entertaining. In other words, say what you have to say in a more imaginative way to better engage patients. N is for news. Something that is newsworthy is great to Tweet. It can be a link to a cosmetic surgery article in the news, a new announcement from your practice or anything else you think patients would be interested in. Finally, K is for knowledgeable. If you’re posting to your Twitter account yourself, you’ll have no problem with this one. However, if you hire someone else to send out Tweets for you, be sure they have some Internet resources and medical journals handy so that every Tweet is full of knowledge to impart on your patients.

3. Use the retweet function to give props to your Twitter followers! This is a big one, trust us. Your acknowledgement of their Tweet helps to build a relationship while positively acknowledging that what they said was important to you and should be shared. Retweet anything from your followers that you found interesting and add a short note in your retweet. Something like “Must-see tweet from @patientname.”

4. Reply to people’s Tweets. Sometimes, patients will ask questions about an article they found, they may have questions about a procedure, or may even have a specific comment about someone else’s Tweet. Scan through your followers’ comments and get into the conversation by replying. Offer short replies, links to expert articles you have found online, or offer to have them call you so you can answer their concern in more detail. Replying is a great way to reach out to your patients in a way that none of their other doctors are…guaranteed.

5. Reach out to new followers. It may seem like it is completely unreasonable to keep track of dozens of new followers as they arrive at your Twitter account, but you can easily do this through free Twitter management tools available online. Hootsuite and TweetDeck are just two that work quite nicely. They can auto-send direct messages to your new followers the moment they follow you. Use the list of direct messages that the online tool has sent out to personally reach out to new followers within a week of their follow. It will take you as little as 10 minutes to build a lifetime relationship with potential patients.

These tips will help you engage your Twitter followers and grow your follower base. These are real, tangible ways to attract more patients to your cosmetic surgery practice. If you need help with your social media marketing, SEO, or would like a video made for your practice, we offer the following services for free:

• Website analysis to pinpoint SEO troubles and provide suggestions for improvements.
• Consultation with the owner for a customized cosmetic surgery marketing plan for your practice.
• 30-second video, customized with your practice’s information, ready to be put up on YouTube, your blog, or your website.

Contact us today if you’d like help with your online cosmetic surgery marketing. Kim Virrueta is the owner of EggStream Marketing, a cosmetic surgery marketing firm in Southern California. We specialize in SEO for plastic surgeons, patient newsletter management, patient referral rewards programs, website design, video creation and marketing, social media marketing, and article marketing.

The Explosive Reaction Between Social Media and SEO

Social media marketing is something so explosive for a medical practice that many cosmetic surgeons are actually afraid to light the fuse and let the explosion happen. They fear that once the “bomb goes off” they won’t be able to keep up with the increase in business and the time it takes to handle maintaining their social media profiles. This is not the case at all; in fact, neglecting your social media marketing can be as devastating to your cosmetic surgery marketing as trying to use wet matches to light your fuse. Here are some reasons why your site’s SEO and rank are highly dependent upon your social media marketing strategy.

More Links to Your Social Media Profiles = More Website Traffic

Google highly favors sites that have many links pointing to them, those that provide great information, and those that use keywords that are relevant to the topic of that site. Social media marketing helps to accomplish all three of those things. By using this type of cosmetic surgery marketing, you’ll be connecting with your patients on a different level than are any of their other physicians.

For example, you may discover that your Facebook fan page is bringing in 200 new site visitors per day. This influx of traffic means that potential patients are interested in your website and will likely link to it in one of their online communications (blogging, placing a link to your site on their site, emailing your link, and sharing it on their own social networking profiles). You’ll gain even more traffic to your social media accounts and to your website once this momentum gains speed. The end result is that your site’s backlinks will grow considerably; something Google loves. You have just performed an SEO tune-up on your site with hardly any effort!

The Results Speak for Themselves

Getting to the top of Google is no easy feat; it takes time and effort to gain in the ranks. However, with a social media marketing strategy in place, your website can be a reverse engineering of what we discussed in point 1 above. In other words, you can include links to your website so that your site visitors can connect with you in your social networking accounts. This type of cosmetic surgery marketing gives your practice that personal, hands-on touch that patients are looking for.

The influx of visitors to your social networking sites will increase and the cycle of people sharing links to your website and social media accounts can gain even more speed. Imagine it like a snowball rolling downhill; the bigger it gets, the faster it goes! Your SEO will naturally improve in this scenario as well.

No matter how you slice it, social media marketing makes good business sense. It may be an explosion at first with fast growth and a nearly unstoppable contagion. However, longevity of your social media marketing depends on getting that slow burn going where the fuse stays lit and people are continually referring friends, linking to you, and feeding your SEO results.

If you’re ready to implement your practice’s social media marketing strategy, give us a call at 951.665.8360 or use our contact us form. There’s no better relief than placing your cosmetic surgery marketing into our professional hands.

Learn How to Get the Most Traffic from the Google Search Engine and Dominate Your Competition

So you want your site to get to the top of Google, right? So do the other million or more Web pages that are competing for the top spot in the same game. That’s OK, though, because if you know what to do, you’ll beat out the competition and race to the top of the search engine rankings in just a few short weeks. It’s not an overnight success or a way to get rich quick, but with continuous link building strategies in place, your website will see a massive change in the right direction. Here’s how to implement an ultra-effective link building strategy.

Building links to your site from other sites is one thing; and a good one at that. However, if the links that point to your site are irrelevant or not in line with what your site is about, it can actually hurt your ranking in Google’s search engine. What you want to do is get links from other sites that are not direct competitors of yours, but rather provide an enhancement to what you do. Links you get from authoritative sites related to plastic and cosmetic surgery or even online medical office directories because they will enhance your own rankings in Google. Then, simply ask the sites to return the favor by linking back to you.

Who Should You Ask for Links From?

Who specifically should you target? One example in the realm of cosmetic surgery advertising to patients would be a site that provides medically-related education articles and videos. If you find a provider of accurate information that you feel would benefit your patients, then link to them! Your site should have a section for “Resources” or “Partner Sites” that is comprised of many links to valuable resources for your patients.

Spice Up Your Site’s Link Directory

You may even choose to section your directory into “Colleague Resources” and Patient Resources”. Perhaps you’ve had a great experience with a printer or a cosmetic surgery advertising firm; link to them on your directory page! In turn, ask them for a link back to your site and it will help your Google PageRank (your score from Google) instantly. You can also include embedded YouTube videos on your directory page and include a small link underneath the YouTube player that connects to the site that made the video. No one can argue with you when you show them how you’ve linked them and how good you’ve made them look!

Our Easy 10-Step Link Building Process

So, how do you approach the sites that you would like to link to you? Here’s a step-by-step link building strategy for you to start implementing right away.

1. Download the Google Toolbar from toolbar.google.com.

2. Once you have downloaded the Google Toolbar, open up Internet Explorer or Firefox/Mozilla. Look at the top right of your screen and see the small, light blue wrench? Click on it and select “Toolbar Options” from the pull down menu.

3. Now, a window has popped up that is called “Toolbar Options”. Look at the left-hand area of the box where the navigation links are. Click on “Tools”.

4. Next, you will see the “Tool Selection” menu. Check the box to select “PageRank”. Your Google toolbar will now tell you what you need to know.

5. Look at your browser again. At the very top, you’ll now see a small, long rectangle with a downward-pointed arrow to the right of the rectangle; this is the magic tool you’ll need to help with your link building efforts.

6. Go to Google.com and type in your city name followed by either “plastic surgery” or “cosmetic surgery” (do not include the quotation marks). See that page 1 includes the top sites that are receiving Internet traffic for those search terms? This is where the link building begins.

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7. You will now need to start by clicking on the top site located just below the area of “Sponsored Links”. In this case, the site would be “Kelly Gallego, M.D….”. However, since I am searching in Corona, CA and not in Sioux City I will be clicking on the #2 site: “Orange County Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Surgeon Newport Beach”.

8. Once you are on their site, place your mouse cursor over the Google toolbar’s PageRank information. You will be able to see, on a scale between one and ten, what PageRank that site has. The higher the score, the better. This site has a decent PageRank score of 3.

9. To find out which sites are linking to this cosmetic surgery practice’s site, simply click on the small arrow in your Google toolbar PageRank tool and select “Backwards Links”.

10. Now, you’ll be able to see all of the sites that link to the site you’ve selected. You can repeat this same process for every #1 site in the Google search results that pertain to the search terms you enter. Another reminder; you’ll want to repeat your Google search by city/town name and the type of practice you have (cosmetic surgery/plastic surgery and cosmetic surgeon/plastic surgeon). You can also search for city name plus the name of one of the procedures you perform and repeat the searches until you have found all backwards links for practices that perform each procedure in your area.

You’re Ready to Rock n’ Roll

Now, create a link to each of the above sites (where applicable) on your own site in a “Resource Directory”.

You’ll want to share this with each of the sites who link to your competitor’s sites.

Finally, you’ll want to contact each of the sites that are linking to your competitors’ sites. You should do this via an email directed toward each site (look for the webmaster’s information). The webmaster would likely be the right person to handle link building strategies and decisions.

Your email may look something like this:

“Dear Webmaster of (backwards link site name here):

I am a plastic surgeon in the (your city name here) area. I’ve found your site to be especially helpful in providing information to patients who visit my own website, (include your own website address here). I have found it to be so helpful, in fact, that I’ve added your site to our own site’s online directory of helpful resources for my patients to explore. You can view your site’s listing by clicking here (include a link to the exact page where their site is displayed so they can see it for themselves).

I would like to request a link back to our home page in exchange for the link of yours that I’ve placed on our site. Both of us will benefit greatly from this exchange of links, as will our site visitors.

If you would kindly respond to my email and confirm our addition to your site, I’ll be happy to place your link at the top of my directory page and include a picture of your logo as well. This will help your site receive the most traffic.

Sincerely Yours,

Dr. ____________ “

Now that you have the 10-step process for link building for your cosmetic surgery marketing and Google rankings, you have the tools necessary to make a huge difference for your medical practice!

If you’d like more information about link building or would like to hire us to handle your link building strategy, please contact us today. We’re happy to help teach you more about how you can do this yourself or provide you with a quote for how much we charge for our link building services.

How Social Networking Affects Cosmetic Surgery Marketing and SEO

You might be a beginner, a baby perhaps, at social networking right now. Maybe you’ve heard about it but never looked into how it can help your cosmetic surgery practice. That’s not a problem! In this article, we’ll teach you about how you can apply social media marketing to your medical practice and dramatically increase the number of patients and referrals who come in to see you. You can see our entire series on social media marketing by clicking here.

Participation = More Fans/Followers

Once you have established your social media accounts, you’ll need to engage your fans and followers. You will probably want to appoint someone to approve new followers (Twitter) and fans (Facebook). This will keep the momentum moving forward. As your number of fans and followers increases, so does the number of people who will receive a “feed” of your posts each time you publish something to your accounts. This means that when your fans and followers respond or comment on something you’ve posted, they will be sharing where they commented with all of their social networking connections. The implications of this exposure for your practice are obvious; you’ll be pleased with the cosmetic surgery marketing results that you see!

Web Page Content

Your web page content should include ways for your site visitors to share the article with someone by email and through Facebook or Twitter. This can be an amazing tool to explode the growth of your site simply by allowing people to share the content of your site with their own social networking connections. With some people pushing 500, 5000, or even 100,000 followers on Twitter, your reach is far greater than anything you could ever do by yourself.

Email Marketing as a Social Media Tool

Your email newsletter recipients should always be given a chance to connect with your social networking sites. You can run special offers or contests in your email communications from time to time such as “We’re giving away one free $5 Starbucks gift card to the first 50 new Facebook fans we receive.” This is a great way to increase your social media presence and patient numbers. The good thing is that you will be sure that the people who join your social networking sites for the gift card those who are already on your email list and are interested in staying in touch.

By using your social networking accounts, email lists, and your Web page content, you will quickly increase your social networking presence as well as your website traffic, cosmetic surgery marketing results, and SEO. That’s why we always recommend a social media marketing strategy to our clients. Even if you live in a small town and gain an average of 5 fans/followers per week, if just one of them comes in for a procedure and refers someone to you…it will be well worth the cost!

Contact us today so we can help make a cosmetic surgery marketing plan that will work best for you and your unique medical practice.

How Social Networking Can Help Your Practice Become Profitable Again

Your plastic surgery practice is probably experiencing what a major percentage of other businesses are going through right now: no matter what you seem to do, your cosmetic surgery advertising is yielding a sluggish flow of patients and referrals. It’s the elusive nature of the recession beast. However, there are several ways to counteract the fact that patients have less cash to spend on elective medical procedures. You must make a shift in both your thinking and in your cosmetic surgery advertising methods. Here’s everything you need to know about the connection between social media marketing and SEO for your cosmetic surgery practice.

Definition of social media

First, let’s take a look at the definition of social media. It is the gathering online of people who have a desire to connect with each other in a common place. It can be through a personal social profile on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace; but it can also encompass sharing like-minded ideas, interests, or beliefs. The latter is where your practice’s presence on these social networking sites is beneficial.

Answer their questions

This is more than a way to sell procedures or products to potential patients, it’s a place for them to connect with you in a more casual way. Most times, an office visit is rushed and some patients feel that they didn’t get a chance to ask some important questions regarding the procedure they are considering.  This is where you can take your social media presence and use it as a way to address the most common questions your patients have. Answering questions in your social networking accounts can actually play a big part in your overall cosmetic surgery advertising results.

If someone didn’t get a chance to ask it in the office, chances are someone else has asked you that same question before. Give them the answers they are looking for and watch your Facebook fans and Twitter followers increase dramatically. You can do this through the clever use of FAQ’s posted to your accounts.

Provide valuable information

This is, after all, the “Information Age”. The very best thing you can do is provide valuable and useful information to further promote your social media accounts and connect with patients online. This might be in the form of “Discussions” posts on Facebook that get people talking, links to articles on your site Tweeted to your followers, or a combination of both. You can also include links to articles or news stories on other sites that you feel your patients would benefit from. The point here is that once you show them that your purpose is to provide them with excellent information, they will see you as:

• An expert
• A trustworthy doctor
• Someone who cares enough to reach out to patients
• A doctor worth referring their loved ones to

Make a true connection with your social networking pals

This takes active participation in your social media accounts, with much of your efforts aimed at simply communicating with your online friends, fans, and followers. This can be an overwhelming task at first glance, but it really only takes about 20-30 minutes per day to post a few tidbits to your accounts as well as respond to comments and questions. It’s important to note that you can save even more time by opening a free account with a social media content posting site like Ping.fm. Sites like these will post content to all of your social media accounts in one fell swoop. This kind of cosmetic surgery advertising takes mere seconds to complete!

With just a little effort on your part, you can have a solid base of potential patients taking part in your social networking accounts. By answering questions for them, participating in the conversations, and providing useful information, you’ll be their cosmetic surgeon of choice when they’re ready to have a procedure done!

If you’d like to outsource your social media marketing and cosmetic surgery advertising to the professionals, contact us today so we can help you start building profits through social networking.

Inside the Mind of the Aesthetic Patient

By: Catherine Maley, MBA

Book Review – Your Aesthetic Practice/What Your Patients are Saying By Catherine Maley, MBA, Author

Introduction

A truly successful aesthetic practice is tuned into their individual patients’ wants, needs and concerns. They understand how fickle the aesthetic consumer/patient can be so they anticipate and constantly improve upon all aspects of the office visit so the patient gets that “WOW” experience every time.

Your Aesthetic Practice was written to help aesthetic physicians understand the nuances of the aesthetic patient. I interviewed 75 cosmetic patients directly to learn about their personal cosmetic enhancement experiences that included both surgical and minimally-invasive procedures and treatments. Most were female and the medium age was 44 years-old. They were asked yes/no and multiple choice questions and allowed ample opportunity to describe their experiences in detail so subjective information could be collected, analyzed and interpreted.

Survey Findings

The survey responses included the following statistical data:

• 61% went on multiple consultations before deciding
• Of the other 39% that went on one consultation, 82% of those were from referrals from friends, family or colleagues. And, hair stylists were the largest referral source averaging 100-250 referrals.
• 91% of the time, it mattered “a lot” that staff be courteous, informative, friendly and caring
• 86% of them referred at least two other people to that practice
• 40% researched their procedure on the Internet ahead of time so they felt they were well-informed
• 55% were charged for a consultation and 45% were not charged
• 96% would have liked computer imaging or skin analysis

Other important anecdotal comments from those surveyed included:

“If they are conscientious about their office, they will be conscientious about my procedure.”

“His printed materials show he is savvy, up-to-date and innovative.”

“He was such a gentle injector and was concerned about my comfort. I didn’t know it could be painless.”

Perceptions Vary

It was becoming very apparent from responses about different aspects of the practice that perceptions vary greatly from one patient to the next. Patients came to the practice with their own expectations, prior experience and beliefs and that was affecting their perceptions.

For example:

• While some thought the doctors were rushed and did not spend enough time with them; others thought too much time with them made them wonder why the doctor wasn’t busier.
• While some patients thought an aesthetically gorgeous office indicated pride and success; others thought it was over-the-top and intimidating and, while some thought the physician was so thorough explaining the various procedures available, others felt oversold and confused with so many options.

As those surveyed were probed further to understand why they choose one practice over another, one consistent response kept coming up – they felt a connection with the physician, the office and the staff. They felt comfortable there. It was also important to note females went with their gut feeling. They needed to feel it was the right practice for them.

“WOW” Patient Experience

The aesthetic patient wants to feel special – period. When a patient is spending their own money and time on elective cosmetic enhancement, they want to be treated respectfully, professionally and kindly by every person they encounter in the practice. Many of those surveyed said they needed to have a great experience and a good result every time or they would consider visiting a different office.

It is vital for the emotionally-charged aesthetic patient to have an excellent experience every single time they call and visit. A ‘WOW” patient experience starts with the telephone. It needs to be answered quickly and courteously. The patient visit is next. The staff needs to be friendly, courteous and professional. The office should look aesthetically-pleasing and, most importantly, clean and clutter-free. The flow of the practice and well established processes need to run like a clock so the patient never feels herded. All of these steps working together will keep the aesthetic patient returning and referring.

The Physician Consultation with the Aesthetic Patient

The physician’s consultation with the patient is one of the most important aspects of aesthetic medicine. Some of the other factors will be overlooked if the patient bonds with the physician. The physician’s job is to connect with the prospective patient, build rapport and set realistic expectations. Here are some comments gleaned from those surveyed about their experiences with the physicians:

“He was in and out so fast, I felt like I was on an assembly line.”

“She made me comfortable with her as a person before she jumped into the medical stuff.”

“He was so thorough and measured things with a precise tool so I felt like he was a true perfectionist and would give me the best result.”

“He asked me about my kids and I really liked that.”

Build Trust in Your Patients from the Start

A good consultation is the one where your patient likes and trusts you and then books the procedure. Your people skills are actually what make for a good consultation but there do seem to be certain aspects you can follow. Here is a description of the elements needed to carry out a successful consultation. The following steps are a great place to start as they are from the patient’s perspective and based on survey findings of what the patient wanted and didn’t want:

Step 1: Introduction

Knock on the door gently, greet the patient by name, introduce yourself while looking him/her in the eye and shaking hands

Step 2: Build Rapport

Use touch, commonalities and mirroring to build trust with the patient. Spend a couple of minutes learning more about the patient as a person. Comment on their occupation, or perhaps the person who referred them.

Step 3: Uncover the Problem

Hand the patient a mirror while asking an open-ended questions such as, “What brings you in to see me today?” Actively listen to their response.

Step 4: Attach Emotions to the Problem and Solution

Get the patient emotionally involved so they “feel” the pain and the pleasure of enhancement. Questions such as, “How long has this bothered you?” and “How do you envision this improving your life?” work well.

Step 5: Know Where You Stand

Determine where they are in the process so you can determine how much time and effort to put into your consultation as well as what approach to take. Examples include “What are you looking for in an aesthetic physician?” and “Have you spoken with anyone else?”

Step 6: Learning Styles for Educating Your Patient

It’s now time for you to respond with your recommendation. You must present your solutions in a way that particular patient can understand. Patients want to see, hear about and touch and feel results. Use samples, photos they can hold, implants they can touch, staff members they can talk to.

Step 7: Manage Expectations

The golden rule is under promise and over deliver. Use metaphors, analogies and anecdotal experiences of other patients to help set expectations.

Step 8: Differentiate Yourself

Qualify and differentiate yourself by establishing your value. Let them know about your experience with this procedure.

Step 9: Reassure the Patient

The patient wants to be reassured that you are the right physician for them. Let them know you are confident and they will get a good result.

Step 10: Closing

Prepare a closing statement so the patient knows you are eager to see them again.

Promoting Your Practice

To attract patients to your practice, you may have spent many thousands of dollars on mass advertising in print, cable TV or magazines. You have weeded through the price shoppers who just wanted a deal and you found solid, loyal patients from your efforts. Now that you have spent the time, money and effort attracting a patient to your practice – keep them there!

Never take an aesthetic patient for granted. They are too emotional and fickle for you to assume once a patient – always a patient. Others are vying for their attention and business so develop a marketing plan to keep in touch with your patient throughout the year using:

• Quarterly newsletter
• Seasonal promotions
• Email messages
• Invitations to annual Open House
• Birthday cards
• Frequent-user program
• Refer-a-friend program.

And, most of all, continue to thank them for their loyalty and their referrals. That can be a simple handwritten thank you note from you up to a complimentary treatment performed by your staff. Showing appreciation is vital to sustain their continued patronage.

Using the above concepts will help you build such a strong bond with your aesthetic patient, they wouldn’t dream of going to anyone else and that works just fine for you.

About the Author: Catherine Maley, MBA is President and Senior Marketing Strategist of Cosmetic Image Marketing. Her firm specializes in creative strategies to grow the aesthetic practice. Catherine is author of “Your Aesthetic Practice: a complete guide/What Your Patients are Saying”. Order the book online at www.CosmeticImageMarketing.com or call (877)339-8833.

(ArticlesBase SC #587568)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – Inside the Mind of the Aesthetic Patient

The Two Biggest Mistakes You Can Make with Patients and How to Avoid Them

Being a consultant to cosmetic surgery practices and being plastic surgery patient myself, I’ve picked up a thing or two about the mistakes that plastic surgeons make with their patients. In the following list, you’ll discover the top two most costly errors and how to avoid them. Avoid these at all costs and you will be on your way to profitable and lasting patient relationships.

Mistake #1:  Ignoring Your Patients

Do you know the biggest reason a patient never returns for a first (or repeat) procedure?

• It’s not your bedside manner.
• It’s not that they didn’t like the results they got.

It’s because you didn’t show them that you cared! You ignored them and let them go on their merry way…to another surgeon in the area who probably wooed them and treated them exactly how they wished you had treated them.

Use direct mail and email marketing to let your cosmetic patients know what’s going on in your practice, what new advancements are happening in the world of plastic surgery, and what they can get out of seeing you again (think promotions here).

Before you decide that direct mail is too expensive or that email marketing is too much of a hassle, consider this: the patients whom you had prior contact with are up to 80% more likely to book a procedure with you than a new client browsing around your website or trying you out for size in your consultation room. This is why your efforts should be spent on wooing these “goldmine” patients – they end up costing less in the end…AND they will bring in more profits!

• Direct mail can be a great way to put a tangible offer into a patient’s hands. One that they can hold on to, pass on to a friend, or bring in to the office to redeem your offer.
• It is always less expensive and more productive to reach out to patients who are already familiar with you and who like and trust you then to hit your head up against a wall trying to attract total strangers to your practice.

Hold seminars and workshop events to educate patients and build rapport.

• When you hold a topic-specific seminar, for example, you’d target your existing patients with a direct mail piece and/or an email inviting them. Plan to offer refreshments and announce an open-question forum for patients to ask for more information from you. This additional face time will build rapport while also establishing even more trust with them as they see your expertise and how caring you are.
• Be sure to always encourage them to invite a friend or family member to the seminar!

Mistake #2:  Assuming that You Made a Patient So Happy that They Will Refer

Look at how valuable just one of your patients is to your practice…

• It is a fact that the average person has about 200 people in their sphere of influence. That includes family and friends as well as co-workers, people they live close to, and the people they interact with in their usual daily outings such as at the gym, the hair salon, at their children’s school, etc.
• If you were to be able to have each of your patients refer just ONE person to you in their sphere of influence, would that help grow your practice much? You bet it would!
• So how do you accomplish getting those referrals from your patients? You plan ahead of time and have a system set up whereby you and your staff handle each patient after their procedure in a set way. This standard of communication ensures that they will help you grow your practice.

Here are a few examples that work for our clients:

Patient Photos

My own plastic surgeon was wise when he emailed me the digital pictures of my before and after results. You need to make it a MUST to give your patients their photos!

Have a high-quality camera (with at least 7 megapixels) that you can use to upload into the patient’s computer profile. It’s going to take some organization and consistent follow-through by your staff, but I guarantee that your patients want to see these!

In a book written by Catherine Maley, MBA, the following statistics were discovered:

• 82% wanted their before/after photos
• 76% would have shown them to others, if only they were made available to them

You also have to consider the timing of when the patient will be the most receptive to referrals. When are patients the happiest with their results? From experience, I know – it’s at the post-operative appointment. Right when they are the most excited about their results, give them a pre-finished, handwritten card with their photos inside that says, “Thank you for your trust” and be sure to include your name, telephone number and website address.

And according to Ms. Maley, this should not only be followed for surgical procedures. She recommends using this same process for injectable procedures also.

Gift Cards are Golden

I’ve learned that many of my plastic surgery clients offer gift cards or gift certificates for procedures that can be purchased for a patient’s family member or friend. The biggest problem is that they aren’t making the patients aware that they offer them! Display them in the front reception area and dress them up in open gift boxes or inside of tissue paper adorned fancy gift bags…get your patient’s eye to what you want them to buy. Have a sign that suggests them for all occasions…They will be most receptive to buying one when have their wallet out, right?

Patient Testimonials/Videos

There is no better way to convince patients of your skills and expertise than to show them with pictures and accolades from patients who love the results you gave them.

It’s hard to know who to trust when it comes to choosing a plastic surgeon, and as we’ve discussed in prior articles…the amount of information they can access can completely overload them to cause them to be especially “fickle buyers” of your services.

Whenever a patient is in your office and is thanking you for the amazing results, ask them immediately for a testimonial and permission to use their pictures.

• They can write it out, type it up, talk into recording software on a computer you have in the office, speak into your camera…be creative and get that testimonial!
• Video testimonials can be made and posted on your website and social media profiles. Written testimonials can be spliced into a video or posted as-is on your site’s testimonials page.

The more proof you have that your patients are delighted with you, the better able you’ll be to convert people into new patients.

Don’t Forget to Say Thanks!

When a patient does the best thing possible to help grow your practice – referring someone they care about to you – don’t forget to thank them!

Send them a handwritten card or letter on beautiful stationery (not your letterhead please), call them personally, send them an email, and thank them again the next time you see them in your office. Some of our clients even send out a small gift or a gift card good for future services. Whatever you decide to do, show them your sincere thanks…and then don’t forget to stay in touch!