Unlock the Power of Patient Emails: A Deep Dive into 23 Must-Have Templates

Ever wondered why your state-of-the-art clinic isn't seeing the patient engagement you expected? You've got the latest IPLs, top-of-the-line cosmetic lasers, and a team that's the envy of the industry. But let's face it: If your email game isn't strong, you're leaving money on the table. A lot of it.

You see, in the hyper-competitive world of cosmetic medical practices, every touchpoint with your patient matters. And guess what? Email is often the most underutilized touchpoint. Shocking, right? Especially when you consider that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average ROI is a staggering $42. Yet, many clinics either lack a robust email strategy or, worse, execute one so poorly it might as well be non-existent.

So, what's the fix? Glad you asked. You're about to dive into a treasure trove of 23 essential email templates that will not only revolutionize your patient communication but also drive those conversions through the roof. We're talking about emails that work—emails that patients open, read, and act upon.

Intrigued? You should be. Because what follows isn't just a list; it's a game-changer for your practice. Get ready to unlock actionable insights and proven strategies that will make your emails the powerhouse they deserve to be.

Your Emails Are Invisible, Even If You Don't Know It

You're a top-tier physician. Your skills are unparalleled, and your clinic is a marvel of modern medicine. But let's get real: Your emails are probably going straight to the spam folder, or worse, being ignored altogether. You're not alone; many physicians in retail medicine face this issue. But the good news? It's fixable.

The High Cost of Ignored Messages

Think about it. Every ignored email is a missed opportunity—a lost chance for patient engagement, a failed attempt at upselling services, or even worse, a potential patient who opts for a competitor. The stakes are high. In a market where every patient counts, can you afford to have your emails ignored? The answer is a resounding "No.

23 Game-Changing Email Templates

Here's where the magic happens. You don't need to reinvent the wheel; you just need to know which wheel to use. Introducing 23 meticulously crafted email templates designed to cover every conceivable touchpoint in your patient's journey. From appointment reminders to post-treatment follow-ups, these templates have got you covered.

And the best part? They're not just templates; they're a masterclass in effective communication. Crafted from 15 years of industry experience, these templates are your shortcut to email marketing success.

Don't just take my word for it. Clinics that have implemented these templates have seen open rates soar by up to 60% and conversion rates double. That's not just impressive; it's transformative. And it could be your reality too.

Instant Access to Your Game-Changing Toolkit

You're a busy physician; we get it. That's why we've made accessing these 23 game-changing email templates as effortless as possible. No need to wait or jump through hoops. Click the link below, and you'll get instant access to a downloadable PDF that you can start using right now. It's that simple.

Download it free here.

How to destroy your SEO when marketing your medical spa.

Everyone who is in cosmetic medicine is almost harassed by an endless list of self proclaimed lead generation specialists and marketers. From Facebook to Instagram to whatever they pitch is always around lead gen and how to build your business automatically.

If you fall for these pitches you’ll be noticed, but not in the way that you want to be.

Here’s an example of the kind of link spam that is left as a comment and that we have to deal with on Medical Spa MD.

Medical Spa Spam Links

We do what every other reputable publishing platform does. We both delete these links and at the same time file a warning with Google and other search engines that marks the website that these links are pointing to as spam.

The result is that your medical spa, the one that you’re attempting to promote, is penalized and will actually drop in the ratings over time. This is not a winning strategy for you, or your clinic.

The Subscription Business Model: Patient churn is killing your clinic’s profitability.

The single most important determining your success and profitability is how well you do one thing; create value for your patients.

Most providers don’t actually understand that sentence very well. They see ‘value’ as the effort they put in to provide good medical advice – but that’s just a tiny part.

When you don’t provide value and build relationships in the ways that your patients want – especially in cosmetic medicine – they’ll drift off for greener pastures – and that loss (patient churn) destroys the long term value of your business.

Here are the numbers.

The gap is just as wide in cosmetic medicine as in other areas because it’s competitive. The fact that your staff is friendly and offer free sparkling water is no longer enough to set you apart. It’s expected, and discounted as a basic requirement.

So what can you do to set your clinic apart in what’s become a hyper-competitive marketplace.

That’s actually simple to understand, but difficult to work through – you need to do the things that patients want AND that your competitors are unable or unwilling to do.

That is NOT EASY, because the top 3 things patients want demand TIME – and you don’t have any.

Here’s what patients want:

And you can’t deliver what patients want because you can’t simply work more hours and spend more time without impacting your practice and profitability.

There’s a reason that you’re working 70 hours a week but only spending 27% of that time working at the top of your licence.

Fortunately, there are now technologies that are coming into the market that let you automate much of the time-sucking, redundant manual tasks that keep you doing everything manually.

First, telehealth came along. That was good but all of the first telehealth solutions were built around insurance reimbursements. That meant that they were manual too, and didn’t save you any time as a provider. Patient’s no longer had to drive to your clinic and sit in your waiting room, but they didn’t really save you time as a provider – you were just trading 15 minutes in a treatment room for that same 15 minutes on a video call.

You added during Covid but you’re probably using a free telehealth service like Skype or Zoom, or a slightly upgraded version like Doxy, and none of these solve the base problem; there’s only 1 of you and you can’t be in 10 places at once.

Fortunately, technology doesn’t sit still.

The newest telehealth platforms integrate both your in-clinic care with on-demand access that allow you to automate almost all of the myriad of things you’re doing that are completely redundant and manual.

These new technologies were built for large health systems and clinical trials, but have become available to smaller clinics and individual providers, and they solve exactly the problems you need solved; How do I replace the low-level redundant tasks with automation in the ways that patients love.

Read that last sentence again because it’s important. The technology has to be loved by the patients, not just be another hoop to jump through.

These new technologies were designed outside of the insurance reimbursement ecosystem. They were designed for clinical trials and drug discover where it’s critical for patients to be engaged and love interacting with caregivers. The average cost of 1 patient in a clinical trial is now $3,600! There’s no way you can afford to lose patients in these ecosystems or you’re dead in the water.

And that’s exactly the problem you have.

These new platforms allow you to create ‘care pathways’ that automate any use case; new patient onboarding, triage, treatment, followup.. whatever you want. Best of all, your patients don’t differentiate between interactions on these new systems and live interactions. You can build these care pathways, and you can charge for them.

That means that you really can be in 100 places and once.

And because you can built it once and charge for it over and over, it opens up entirely new revenue streams and business models that allow you to scale your practice and business in ways that haven’t ever been available before.

Here’s what this looks like as recurring or subscription revenue over time.

If you’re interested in creating subscription or recurring revenue for your cosmetic practice or medical spa, you can learn more here.

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Links if you want to dive in further:

Advisory Board. (2018, February 12). Your staff is underperforming. Now what? Retrieved from https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2018/02/12/c-performers

Bailey, D. (2017, June 27). Unicom Teleservices, Inc. Retrieved from https://www.unicomcorp.com/blog/tips-to-increase-medical-practice-profits/

Brinker, B. (2017, November 26). 10 Warning Signs of a Disengaged Employee. Retrieved from https://www.aventr.com/blog/10-warning-signs-disengaged-employee

Carter, A. (2012, March 20). Front Desk Profits. Retrieved from https://empoweringyouconsulting.com/2012/03/20/front-desk-profits/

Easy Pay. (2014, October 16). Patient Payments Blog. Retrieved from http://www.easypaycollect.com/blog/5-front-office-staff-best-practices

Gooch, K. (2016, April 26). Patients' No. 1 complaint? Front-desk staff. Retrieved from https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/patients-no-1-complaint-front-desk-staff.html

Hamilton, K. (2017, November 18). 7 Surprising Reasons Why Your Medical Staff is Unhappy. Retrieved from https://getreferralmd.com/2013/09/medical-staff-employment-tips/

Nijjer, R. (2018, August 29). How Negative Reviews Impact SEO. Retrieved from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-negative-reviews-impact-seo/265991/

Quora. (2018, April 26). Why Soft Skills Are So Important For Medical Professionals. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/04/26/why-soft-skills-are-so-important-for-medical-professionals/

Russell, P. (2016, October 13). Do Receptionists Keep Some Patients From Medical Care? Retrieved from https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/870272

Sinsky, C. (2008, October 01). 10 Big Ideas That Could Make Your Practice Better. Retrieved from https://www.aafp.org/fpm/2008/0900/p33.html

Thomas, C. (2017, August 11). 11 Tips to Create a Profitable Front Desk at Your Salon Spa. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/11-tips-create-profitable-front-desk-your-salon-spa-chris-thomas/

Vanguard Communications. (2017, November 10). Online Doctor Complaints Primarily About Customer Service | Vanguard. Retrieved from https://vanguardcommunications.net/patient-complaints/

Wiggins, K. (2017, March 16). How employers 'manage out' unwanted staff. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/356ea48c-e6cf-11e6-967b-c88452263daf

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Medical Spa

Before you start promoting your cosmetic clinic or medical spa on social media, it's important to determine which social media platforms you’re going to use, how they’re likely to perform, and how much time it’s going to take to get results. Just “doing it” is going to lead to wasted time and effort that produces mediocre results.

How to Choose the Best Social Media for Your Business

To make an informed decision on where you should focus your social media marketing effort, start by thinking through what you’re trying accomplish and match that with what your resources and time commitment will allow. A focused effort is going to drive much better results than a spray-and-prey approach.

Let’s think through a few things..

1: What social media platform are your patients using?

Share of U.S. Adults Using Social Media, Including Facebook, Is Mostly Unchanged Since 2018. Source: Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (2019)

For most clinics you you likely won't want to bother with social media apps like Snapchat or Reddit because very few patients in the age group that you’re going to be targeting that use those platforms. Instead, you'll want to focus on the apps they do use—primarily Facebook and YouTube.

Note: For most clinic’s, the majority of the patients you’re looking for are going to be on Facebook and Youtube, but those also can be the most expensive since the competition is fierce.

2. Where are competing clinics and medspas focusing their attention?

If your competitors are having success with a specific social media app, you may also do well there. Conversely, if your competitors are neglecting a specific app, there may be an opportunity for you to capitalize on that neglected market.

It doesn’t take much effort to track down what your competitors are doing. Most companies display links to their social media profiles on their websites, so it should be easy to collect data on where your competitors are focusing their social media efforts. It's also good to actually visit their social media profiles and make sure they're maintained; a rarely used social media profile shouldn't be considered an active effort.

3: What is the reach into your desired patient population?

For the most part, succeeding on social media requires that you have followers or subscribers, with a few exceptions: YouTube videos, Twitter Tweets, LinkedIn Articles, and Pinterest Pins are indexed by Google, meaning people can discover that content through a general Google search.

Profile pages/channels are indexed by Google for all of the social media apps we're looking at in this article, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and even Reddit. It’s an easy way to pick up a backlink so you should default to having well designed and professional looking profile pages on every social network, even if you don’t use them much.

Resource: https://workhorse.design can help you out here if you need design help that knows the industry and they won’t cost you agency prices.

Note: individual posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram are not indexed by Google, so the only way to get those posts in front of an audience is to either publish it for your network or get others to share it to their networks.

Additionally, the algorithms these platforms use can have a major impact on whether or not your posts are seen, even by people who follow you. For example, Facebook made a change to its algorithm in early 2018 to prioritize posts from friends and family, and as a result, organic reach on the platform severely declined for many brands.

The result: Facebook doesn’t work as well for organic distribution to a wider network.

4: Does the social distribution fit the content you’re creating for your clinic?

Instagram and Pinterest are focused on image content. YouTube is focused on video content. If you mostly produce text-based content and use stock images, you’re dead in the water there.

Unless you plan to add designers or videographers to your payroll to create these assets for your social media efforts—or plan to learn how to do these things yourself—you'll be better served to concentrate on text-focused sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Resource: LinkedIn is a surprisingly good venue for medical spas, if you do it right. We have a course on the training academy that teaches you exactly how to build your influence on LinkedIn.

5: Should you use paid advertising?

Low organic reach isn't necessarily a barrier if you're willing to spend money on ads. Each social media app offers advertising opportunities, though some are more detailed than others.

For example, apps like Facebook and LinkedIn have deep data-sets that let you target potential patients in a very specific audience. Popular YouTube channels often offer sponsorship opportunities but often don’t work well for a specific geography.

In most cases you’ll be paying extra to get in front of people who will never become a patient.

Question: Is anyone else tired of the endless stream of “we get you patients on Facebook” pitches by “medical spa consultants”

6: How much time should you devote to social media?

One mistake that many businesses make when they're getting started with social media marketing is trying to continually update every social media app. The problem: Keeping multiple social media accounts updated is a lot of work, and unmaintained profiles can reflect poorly on your clinic.

The more realistic approach is to focus on one or two platforms—no more than you realistically have time to keep updated, and to point your other profiles at these maintained accounts. This will give you more time and attention to really grow your audiences on those channels and actually engage with the people who follow and interact with your business.

For example: You may create a profile on Pinterest, but just include a message that says that you spend most of your time connecting with people on Facebook and warmly asks them to follow you there.

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Recommended Resources:

• Workhorse Design - Medical spa design work that won’t kill you on cost.

• MeetEdgar - Social media scheduling. Get $10 off with this link.

• Pebble - On-demand cash flow for your medical spa

Jobs To Be Done + Your Medical Spa

It’s not about the client. Jobs To Be Done is a new methodology that forces you to look at your products and services the way that your patients and clients do.

What is “Jobs To Be Done” and how can it help your medical practice?

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen is the author of The Innovators Dilemma and a well regarded business thought leader. He described “Jobs To Be Done” in this paper he wrote with one of the best tech entrepreneurs and product marketers of all-time, Scott Cook of Intuit.

The theory simply asks, “What job is your product or service hired to do?”.

The answers might not be exactly what you might usually think. For example; if you ask most people directly why they bought a lawnmower they would probably say to “cut the grass,” but if a lawnmower company examines the higher purpose of cutting the grass, say, “keep the grass low, neat and beautiful at all times,” as a business looking at what job needs to be done, it might switch from investing in better, more capable lawnmowers to develop genetically engineered grass seed that grows to an exact height.

The example that Clayton Christensen uses most is that of McDonalds milkshakes and what the “job” is that causes people to buy a milkshake. Here’s a video. The results are pretty surprising but led to a 300% increase in the number of milkshakes that McDonalds sells and a conclusion that the size of the market is 7X what they thought it was. You should watch this.

This is the power of the JTBD concept and technique: It helps a business understand that customers don’t buy products and services; they hire various solutions at various times to get a wide array of jobs done.

So what is the best way to define the customer’s job-to-be-done? Keep in mind that the reason the jobs-to-be-done theory is so powerful is because it allows companies to analyze the job like it would analyze a business process, providing a new and effective method for uncovering and prioritizing customer needs. Consequently, the job must be defined as a process; an activity that consists of a series of steps that customers take to complete a task or achieve a goal or objective. This means that the job-to-be-done is always a functional job; not an emotional job.

Over the years we have developed a set of rules that we follow to define the job correctly. Here are three of the dozen or so rules we use to get it right along with some jobs-to-be-done examples:

1. We think about the job from the customer’s perspective, not the company’s. For example, a company that supplies herbicides to farmers may conclude that growers (the job executors) are trying to “kill weeds”, while the growers might say the job-to-be-done is to “prevent weeds from impacting crop yields”. To avoid this mistake, don’t ask “what job are people hiring my product for”, rather ask, “what job is the customer trying to get done”. Because customers often cobble together many solutions to try and get the entire job done, the answers to these two questions are often very different. We see many jobs-to-be-done examples in the blogosphere that get this wrong.

2. We think big; to encompass the entire job, not just a piece of it. A narrow focus will hurt a company because customers are looking for products and services that help them get the entire job done better. For example, a company could focus on helping a grower “prevent weeds from impacting crop yields”, but they may want to consider helping them get the entire job done, which is to “grow a crop”. Customers do not want to have to cobble lots of incompatible solutions together to try and get the entire job done. They prefer to get the entire job done on a single platform.

3. We define a market around a functional job, not the emotional goals that accompany it. A company that offers a product that “prevents people from getting lost when driving” would do themselves a disservice to conclude that their customers are hiring their product to “achieve peace of mind”. A focus on “peace of mind” will not deliver the insight that’s needed to better prevent people from getting lost. Knowing the customers’ accompanying emotional jobs is helpful, of course, but only when it comes to positioning and messaging, not innovation. Once again, we see many jobs-to-be-done examples offered in the blogosphere that miss this point.

People buy products and services to get jobs done; and while products come and go, the underlying job-to-be-done does not go away. This notion is at the heart of jobs-to-be-done theory.

If you remember anything about jobs to be done, remember this: they are completely neutral of the solutions you create (your products and services). While a customer JTBD remains fairly stable over time, your products and services should change at strategic intervals as you strive to provide ever increasing value.

As Christenson says, “at a fundamental level, the things that people want to accomplish in their lives don’t change quickly.”

Additional reading:

• The JTBD Framework: https://strategyn.com/customer-centered-innovation-map/

• Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done

• Clayton Christensen Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn6-KksdOgE

The money is made in the consultation room.

The single most important determining your success and profitability is how well you do one thing; consultations. The 10X Consultation Playbook is a proven, step-by-step system that teaches you and your entire team exactly how to conduct consultations that convert in precise detail. It shows you exactly what to do every step of the way to guide each patient along a journey that they already want to take.

Reducing Patient Churn in Your Medical Spa

Customer churn or attrition happens to all businesses and your medical spa is not immune to it. It can’t be helped, there are patients switching to other providers for reasons. However, you can reduce the incidence of patient churn.

Know why patients leave your medical spa, and how you could reduce patient churn or attrition. It is a common occurrence, but some medical spas fail to realize is that you do not keep track of patients who never return. According to Solutionreach, most patients leave due to indifference. This is caused by poor customer service, so it is imperative to improve your service.

Running the numbers on churn rate would help give you an idea how many patients you are losing. HubSpot argues you should measure customer satisfaction so you can know who are the unhappy patients. In turn, if you do not account for those who never return (and if there are more who churn), then it is likely your medical spa will fail.

Here is a simple calculation that businesses use, that could be applied to your medical spa, on how to measure churn rate:

Annual Churn Rate = (Number of Patients at the Start of the Year - Number of Patients at the End of the Year) / Number of Patients at the Start of the Year

For example, you have 3000 at the start and 2000 at the end.

3000-2000 = 1000/3000 = 33%

As for the monthly churn rate, just change year to month.

As for an ideal churn rate, it seems there is none, but according to some experts, it is less than the example we demonstrated. However, these numbers should only serve as a guide while it does cost a lot to acquire a new patient, it still is good for business to acquire so long as you are measuring your numbers often.

What Actions You Can Do to Reduce Patient Churn?

Prioritize Communication in the Patient Journey

Aside from these metrics, communication is a huge factor in reducing churn. Patients appreciate it if you communicate with them in every step of their journey. They need to feel valuable to avoid being seen as “indifferent”.

Always ask for feedback from patients, regularly send them personalized emails, and remain transparent with them. Do not forget to thank them also.

Learn how to build high-touch patient journeys >

Emphasize Value

The reason patients could be returning to your medical spa is because of the value you provide. According to Sam Suthar, you could show testimonials to your patients to prove to the others about why patients keep coming back to your medical spa.

Not only the value of your services, but you should value your relationship with your patients. Engage with your patients, and strategize how you can retain your current patient base. Offer incentives or make sure they are getting their value for money in your medical spa.

Strengthen Customer Service

In NGData’s article and in other blogs, customer service is vital in reducing churn. Your staff has a huge role in making sure patients return. One of the things your staff can do while patients are in your medical spa is to be attentive and responsive. Make sure they treat patients nicely as well.

Birkett, A. (n.d.). Customer Satisfaction: The Ultimate Guide. Retrieved from https://www.hubspot.com/customer-satisfaction

Bulygo, Z. (2018, July 13). 6 Ways You Can Improve Churn Rate and Increase Revenue. Retrieved from https://neilpatel.com/blog/improve-churn-rate/

Edgar, H. (2017, May 31). Importance of Patient Retention: 8 Benefits That Every Practice Loves. Retrieved from https://www.practicebuilders.com/blog/importance-of-patient-retention-8-benefits-that-every-practice-loves/

Gandolf, S. (2014, July 11). 9 Essentials of Improving Patient Retention. Retrieved from https://www.healthcaresuccess.com/blog/medical-marketing-advertising/the-9-essentials-of-improving-patient-retention.html

Hicks, P. (2017, March 2). Effective Strategies To Reduce Customer Churn. Retrieved from https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/03/effective-strategies-to-reduce-customer-churn.html

Law, R. (2017, February 3). Churn Rate: How High is Too High? A Meta-Analysis of Churn Studies. Retrieved from https://www.cobloom.com/blog/churn-rate-how-high-is-too-high

Plaksij, Z. (2018, May 16). Customer Churn: 12 Growth Strategies to Stop Churn Right Now! Retrieved from https://www.superoffice.com/blog/reduce-customer-churn/

Referal Saasquatch. (2018, March 15). Calculating Churn Rate and 12 Customer Churn Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.referralsaasquatch.com/calculating-churn-rate-12-customer-churn-statistics/

Shewan, D. (2017, March 27). How to Calculate (And Lower!) Your Customer Churn Rate. Retrieved from https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/05/12/customer-churn

Smart Insights. (2016, July 20). 17 unbeatable ideas to reduce churn rate. Retrieved from https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/integrated-marketing-communications/17-unbeatable-ideas-reduce-churn-rate/

Solutionreach. (n.d.). 6 Ways to retain your patients | Infographic | Solutionreach. Retrieved from https://www.solutionreach.com/infographics/6-ways-to-retain-your-patients

Stringfellow, A. (2018, June 28). How to Reduce Customer Churn: Tips from 32 Gurus – NGDATA. Retrieved from https://www.ngdata.com/strategies-to-reduce-customer-churn/

Suthar, S. (2018, June 25). 11 Proven Strategies to Reduce Customer Churn Rate Proved By Experts. Retrieved from https://acquire.io/blog/reduce-customer-churn-rate/

Vardhan, H. (2017, December 13). Reducing customer churn: A complete guide | Hiver blog. Retrieved from https://hiverhq.com/blog/reducing-customer-churn/

When Your Marketing Goes Too Far: How One Dermatologist Got Suspended for Dancing and Rapping during Procedures

Don't get yourself in trouble by failing to think through what you're doing and how it can damage your clinic and your reputation if something goes wrong.

You may have seen something about the recent case of  dermatologist Windell Davis-Boutté The “Dancing Doctor” who has been suspended for "negligence" after posting videos of herself dancing and rapping while performing surgeries. The physician used the videos to market her practice, where she was seen rapping and dancing, that it ended up having her patients file lawsuits against her with some of them claiming to be severely injured. (CBS article)

To get real for a second, this was a stupid thing to do for lots of reasons. Anyone who has been around for a while knows that it's not if you get sued, it's when you get sued since your patients have been pretty well conditioned to expect perfect results based on their own criteria.

The result: Dr. Davis-Boutté was sued by 7 of her patients and was forced to agree to a 2.5 year suspension of her medical license.

According to Gutierrez and Johnson (2018), there have been other instances like Davis-Boutté’s where physicians are singing and dancing while doing procedures. It causes immediate alarms to go off for patients, as physicians are expected to be focused exclusively on their care and the procedure. 

So what did Dr. Davis-Boutté get so wrong?

1. She wasn't focused exclusively on providing the best care: Patients expect perfection from their treatment and if they're unhappy with the outcome in any way they're going to be looking to the doctor for answers. Any indication that the physician wasn't focused exclusively on providing the best care is immediately going to be the peg on which they're able to hang blame.
2. She turned her patients into props: No patient really likes to be filmed when they're unconscious on the operating table.
3. She made it public: Of course that was the whole idea. These were 'marketing' videos and they were produced and posted online in order to increase visibility for her practice.

While this went completely off the rails from the beginning for Dr. Davis-Boutté, there are some lessons to be learned. Here are a few things Dr. Davis-Boutté could have done to meet her goals without dropping a bomb on her dermatology practice.

1. Use patients only for live testimonials: The social proof of happy patients is probably the best general marketing you can use, but they need to be aware of what they're doing and how it's going to be used. I'd suggest that if you're shooting live videos for promotion that you let patients "sign-off" on the final product before you actually release it. Make sure that patients 
2. It's not about you: Patients want to be treated by a physician who's nonthreatening, caring and personable, and who puts them at ease, but they don't far beyond that because they're focused on themselves. Your efforts need to be focused on them as well. 
3. Focus on what's actually important: There's only one thing that you're looking to have patients think about you if you're performing cosmetic treatments; that is that you're "the best" at what you do. Marketing campaigns that promote you as being the funniest, hippest, or best looking have no place beyond getting some initial interest. Successful clinics focus on outcomes for their patients and strive to earn new patients primarily by word-of-mouth.
4. Think it through: All of this could have been avoided with a few simple "what if" questions were asked 

Below are a number of resources around the ethics of marketing physicians and procedures. In some cases it's a little head-in-the-clouds but remember that cosmetic medicine has really caused headaches for the medical ethics community.

Read more

Continuous Care. (2018, March 15). Ethics of healthcare marketing for physicians and medical practices. Retrieved from https://www.continuouscare.io/blog/healthcare-marketing-ethics-for-physicians-medical-practices/

Cătoiu, I., Geangu, I. P., & Gârdan, D. A. (2013). Applying Marketing Principles in the Field of Medical Services – An Ethical Challenge? Procedia Economics and Finance, 6, 449-456. doi:10.1016/s2212-5671(13)00162-7

Gandolf, S. (2014, July 22). 7 Dangerous Legal Issues to Avoid in Doctor Advertising. Retrieved from https://www.healthcaresuccess.com/blog/doctor-marketing/dangerous-legal-issues.html

Gutierrez, P. L., & Johnson, D. J. (2018). Can Plastic Surgeons Maintain Professionalism within Social Media? AMA Journal of Ethics, 20(4), 379-383. doi:10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.4.msoc3-1804

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2011, November). Women's Health Care Physicians. Retrieved from https://www.acog.org/Clinical-Guidance-and-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Ethics/Ethical-Ways-for-Physicians-to-Market-a-Practice

Medical Spa Pricing Strategies To Increase Profitability

Pricing your medical services is a key factor in your clinic's success.

Your pricing strategy helps to determine how patients respond to you, and their feelings about your clinic. It's as likely that you're charging too little as it is that you're charging too much.

There are plenty of different pricing strategies; bundling, discounting, subscriptions...   let's take a look at a few and the research that can help give you a guide for what might work in your situation.

Before we start, let's settle on a point of view and the outcome we're looking for. In general, we're discussing how to maximize gross revenues. There are some strategies that you may employ with other goals in mind; for example you may want to work only 20 hours a week and so your focus may be on maximizing hourly revenue rather than focus on a total. That's an entirely justifiable goal and we'll discuss it and other areas around this in future posts.

For now  let's just begin with maximizing gross revenue.

Pricing High or Pricing Low?

In some cases physicians combine "lowest cost / cheap" with "value".

This is completely wrong.

"Value" is the primary buying criteria for every person and every purchase. The difference is that while cheap or the lowest cost is an external measurement that's easily quantifiable, "value" is completely internal and emotional. Value is personal.

Buyers who purchase high-priced services or pay more do so because they perceive the value from these purchases to be higher than cheaper alternatives. I many cases this is completely without merit but there it is.

So... economy pricing could be a hit and miss for your medical spa. With many reports of botched patients and reviews about horrible side effects and complications, medical spa may want to avoid the "cheapest" label for a number of reasons. The problem with being the lowest price is that there can be only one, and you can get stuck in a race to the bottom with competitors who are also pursuing a "lowest-cost" pricing strategy. And a patient who comes to you for price will leave you for a lower price just as quickly.

So, it may be that premium pricing is a much better option if you're able to execute. 

Break it Down or Bundle it Up?

For this specific strategy, you would need to consider different ways to implement this. Breaking it down refers to x number of treatments for this price per treatment. Example, you can price a  treatment for ___$ a session as opposed to using a “starting from” price implementation.

A bundle pricing strategy could also work for patients who need multiple treatments (e.g. laser hair removal, non-surgical fat contouring) or multiple procedures that could reduce wrinkles but if you break it down, patients could also see how much the treatment is per session as opposed to bundling it up. 

Bundling is a common strategy for treatments that require multiple treatments to see an effect and satisfy a patient.

The answer may be to do both.

Some medical spas utilize a “membership plan” method, wherein a patient is given an option to avail of similar procedures, for this certain price. This is essentially that 'concierge medical model' but it is an uncommon practice in cosmetic medicine, yet it’s something that has serious advantages.

Should it be a 5, 9, or 0?

Pricing with the ‘9s at the end is called Charm or Psychological Pricing. It’s when you dock a cent off from its perceived value. Grocery stores employ this strategy thus many customers, and many are enticed when they see an original price and see the lower priced amount.

However, it doesn’t work all the time. You simply can’t have all treatments priced $_99. 

The answer: price treatments differently.

However, consider the “psychological” aspect of the patient when they browse your price list. Round numbers like 0s work well for people who rely on emotions because seeing the number would make them “feel good”.

One of the most effective pricing implementation strategies online is a discount or "credit" on a first treatment inside a specific time window. Sumo (see below)has done their research on the matter, and found that most customers signed up after learning they could receive store credit, and that the company’s email list grew by 87%. 

Slashing off or Discounting?

The strategy works well definitely for costly treatments. Instead of offering a $4 discount for a $12/unit of Botox, better to have it as such: $150 off a $450 for a treatment of Botox. Thing is, for both examples, the price is just docked 3 times off its original cost. Patients tend to go for the $150 off as a larger perceived value.

For values lower than $100, go for an actual percentage.

You can have a side by side comparison of the old price to the current price by putting a slash on the old price, provided the old price is higher than the current one.

You can implement any of these at a time, but remember not to go overboard with it. Learn which strategy could definitely work for your medical spa, and which would be more cost-effective as well. For your medical spa to get more patients and leads, you may need to switch up your pricing or implement different ones at the same time and which ones receive the most profits.

Further Reading On Pricing

Ciotti, G. (2015, September 09). 10 Pricing Strategies That Can Drastically Improve Sales. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250289

Maguire, A. (2017, March 16). 6 Different Pricing Strategies: Which Is Right for Your Business? Retrieved from https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/pricing-strategy/6-different-pricing-strategies-which-is-right-for-your-business/

Moreno, N. (2018, May 10). 9 Pricing Strategies to Explode Your Revenue (Backed by Psychology). Retrieved from https://sumo.com/stories/marketing-pricing-strategies

Reeves, C. (2016, August 03). 8 Pricing Strategies To Use On Your Product, Service Or Workshop (FS124). Retrieved from https://fizzle.co/sparkline/7-pricing-strategies

Von Wilpert, C. (2018, July 04). Ecommerce Store Credit Strategy (Hint: 87% Email List Growth). Retrieved from https://sumo.com/stories/ecommerce-store-credit

How to Get More Positive Reviews

Receiving one negative review can affect your medical spa marketing and sales?

Some clinicians believe that a couple of negative reviews are common and to counter that, you just need to receive more positive reviews. That’s easier said than done...

Some stats:

According to Vendasta, you get an 18% bump in sales when there are reviews that customers see. 

Based on Robert Cialdini’s research 77.3%, people are inclined to follow through with a favor when you ask them for help. Influencing your patients to leave a review will make a difference, so you should be making it a point to ask for reviews from your patients.

In an infographic by Website Builder, 84% patients submit online reviews to rate physicians. Review Trackers, on the other hand, find that most patients would leave a review after a negative review, and only 24.8% of patients will leave a positive review.

Here are the do’s and don’ts in getting more positive reviews.

Do Not: Disregard Any Review You Receive

You will need to find where most of your patients post about you, and start from there. 

Regardless if it’s positive or negative, you need to know where you receive them. As for responding, a simple thank you would suffice. Don’t get too carried away, choose your replies. Reply only to around 25-60% of reviews that are 3 stars and up.

However, if a negative review surfaces, it’s better to contact them directly offline than engage with the patient any further.

Do: Claim Your Listings

As such, wherever you have a listing, claim it. 

Facebook, Yelp, and Google are the best platforms to have reviews for business in general, and in Website Builders, ZocDoc, RateMD, and Healthgrades are the top 3 review sites for physicians. So you can have at least SIX different websites to have a listing on. Up to you then, which would be strategic on your part.

Do Not: Depend on One Review Page

If you want patients to come to your medical spa, then you will need visibility. Google is definitely your best bet to be noticed, although it would take a while, with some traction from other sites, you are on your way to acquiring new patients. 

You may need to consider Google Reviews as your primary channel for reviews. Through Google My Business, you can control the reviews that you receive from your patients. You would easily be found via Google provided you have complete information (i.e. website, schedule, contact details, and reviews).

Do: Add a Testimonials Page on your Website

Another channel where you can post reviews is on your website. These could be in a form of testimonials or reviews from other sites. Many physicians apply this strategy, and it is effective because it could also help arouse more interest in you and your medical spa. Adding a testimonials page would also add value to your website.

Do Not: Resort to Posting Fake Reviews

Posting fake reviews are definitely a no-no. You can detect fake reviews if there is no pro and con, if it uses uncommon terms, and if multiple reviews come in a short amount of time. Don’t be afraid to ask from reviews from your patients, even if they are family or friends.

Do: Automate Your Reputation Management

There are many reputation management software in the market, and if your medical spa does not have one yet, you may be missing out. Many businesses have seen an influx of reviews ever since installing a software. Not only that, you could control the reviews you receive and prompt the patient to write a review 

Medical Spa MD’s partner in Reputation Management -- Podium -- is in and has helped businesses receive more reviews. Your medical spa can benefit greatly by saving $1257 when you are a member of Medical Spa MD.

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Supporting research and reading:

Bassig, M. (2017, August 04). Patients More Likely to Review Their Doctors After a Negative Experience. Retrieved from https://www.reviewtrackers.com/patient-reviews-doctors/

Bassig, M. (2018, April 04). Did You Know? 67 Percent of All Yelp Reviews are 4 or 5-Star Reviews. Retrieved from https://www.reviewtrackers.com/know-67-percent-yelp-reviews-4-5-star-reviews/

Bloem, C. (2017, July 31). 84 Percent of People Trust Online Reviews As Much As Friends. Here's How to Manage What They See. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/craig-bloem/84-percent-of-people-trust-online-reviews-as-much-.html

Bonelli, S. (2017, February 08). 70% of consumers will leave a review for a business when asked. Retrieved from https://searchengineland.com/70-consumers-will-leave-review-business-asked-262802

BrightLocal. (n.d.). Local Consumer Review Survey | The Impact Of Online Reviews. Retrieved from https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/

Christopher, E. (2017, June 14). 5 Proven Ways to Get More Customer Reviews On Google and Facebook. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/295655

DashBurst (2017, November 02). Why Positive Reviews are So Valuable to Small Businesses. Retrieved from https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/04/importance-of-online-reviews.html

Shrestha, K. (2018, February 06). 50 Important Online Reviews Stats You Need to Know [infographic]. Retrieved from https://www.vendasta.com/blog/50-stats-you-need-to-know-about-online-reviews

Walker-Ford, M. (2018, May 06). How to Make a Website that Influences People: 9 Web Design Psychology Tips [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/how-to-make-a-website-that-influences-people-9-web-design-psychology-tips/522884/

Websitebuilder (n.d.). [User Reviews is The King: Why Online Reviews Can Either Make Or Break Your Business] [Infographic]. Retrieved from: https://smallbiztrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/58ba1a5ea43c71e16d55cd7f.full_.jpg

Online Presence Matters - Learn How to Make It So for Your Medical Spa

It is necessary to be known by your patients. Some of them research providers before choosing one (Kyruus, 2017).

Going digital is not just about having your own website and updating your social media accounts as often as you would like. You will need to build up your online presence, as because apparently, that is an important factor for many patients when searching for a physician. According to Doctor.com, 63% of patients choose a physician because of their online presence. 

Your medical spa may need to step up on building a digital presence if you may need to acquire more patients.

Website

Your website should be your main source of information about yourself, your medical spa, and all your other procedures. Social media on the other hand acts a supplementary resource, linking you back to your website, and vice versa, your social media accounts should also be in your website.

Keywords could help you be found by potential patients. Your city and a popular procedure are some examples of using keywords for your websites. You could use Botox in New York City. That’s a bit generic, and many plastic surgery and dermatology practices could be using the keyword phrase. You can add in units, before and after, and a certain treatment.

Review Sites

Many experts emphasize the importance of claiming your listing in review sites. Those experts make a good point in doing so, as this helps Google identify you better, and in turn it will appear on Google’s search pages (it could take a while, so you will need to be patient for it). Still, if you are planning to focus on a stronger online presence, review sites are one of your good options.

Social Media

Social media is one of your best tools to build up your online presence. Many of your patients could find you on social media, and could follow your medical spa or your own Twitter. So long as you abide by privacy information regulations, you’re all set. To be noticed more by patients, you will have to update more on all your social media accounts. For example, you can post about what’s new in your medical spa or an event you’re hosting. Follow the Pareto Principle, 80% marketing, 20% about yourself or your medical spa.

Doctor.com. (n.d.). Customer experience trends in healthcare 2018 (Rep.). Retrieved https://www.doctor.com/cxtrends2018

Kyruus. (n.d.). 2017 Patient Access Journey Report (Rep.). Retrieved https://www.kyruus.com/hubfs/Whitepapers/Kyruus_2017_Patient_Access_Journey_Report.pdf?t=1527110475505

How To Use Your Patients To Grow Your Medical Practice

The best marketing for your clinic is when your patients do it for you.

Word of mouth takes many forms, but it's increasingly being handled online through social networks and search engines. Patients are now researching you online before they call. They look at your reviews. They run searches with your name and "complaints", "malpractice", "lawsuits", "reviews". If you're going to compete, you have to be in the game.

To do that, you're going to need the right tools, which I'm going to show you, but you have to be convinced that they're important to buy and use or you'll just stay with what you know, so I'm going to dive in to why you need them first.

You've got a marketing problem that you didn't have before.

It wasn't long ago when you just needed to be found, and ranking high in searches drove traffic and filled your treatment rooms.

No longer.

Consumers of all types have subtly changed their decision behaviors online and are weighing buying cues much differently than just two years ago. Reviews are seen by prospects as increasingly important in their buying decisions.

That changes the playing field. (Don't believe me? Just keep reading.)

When asked, 90% of people read reviews before visiting a local business. 85% of those people relate that they trust those online reviews as much as they would a family member or trusted friend.

But it goes beyond simply making the first call to your front desk. Consumers spend 31% more money with businesses that have higher reviews than their competitors. It has nothing to do with price, the quality of service, or other metrics. It's the perception in the consumers mind that higher rated businesses are more trustworthy than those with few or negative reviews. There's a simple reason for that I'm sure you're aware of; a review is how the consumer 'felt' about the business after everything else was taken in to consideration; price, value, responsiveness... The star matrix is really a metric of satisfaction at the end result.

Just today I was looking to arrange three business lunches in the coming week. In every case it was the number of reviews and the star totals that made the decision for me.

Here was my thinking:

• Few reviews? It's too risky; there are safer choices.
• Lower star rating? Patrons weren't satisfied. Who want's to eat there?
• Negative reviews by themselves? Tricky... some people are jerks so an occasional bad review is unavoidable, but it's too risky. I'll go somewhere else.
• Negative reviews with responses? A few negatives is okay. I can trust the positive reviews more and - especially if the business has responded to the reviews - I think they take their reputation seriously. It makes me more confident that they don't want negative reviews and they work harder than others to avoid them.
• Lot's of reviews (even a few negatives) and a 4+ star rating? That's the place.

And the above is especially true for your clinic.

Think about what you would do if you were deciding between two clinics – both with 4 stars – where one clinic has 5 reviews and the other has 25.

You'll choose the one with 25 every time, and that's costing you patients if you're the clinic with only 5.
 

Do reviews really drive new patients?

Here are the results of a survey we sent out to members showing the importance and value of enlisting patients in your growth strategy. The recipients were selected from a cross-section of members to try and hit all types of clinics; dermatologists, plastic surgeons, medical spas and cosmetic clinics.

Question: What is your most effective marketing?

Yep. Number 1 and 2 - word of mouth referrals and internet searches - both fit squarely around your online patient reviews. Everything else is a very distant third.

Reviews are a primary traffic driver and trust builder:

• Reviews are free. Advertising that is completely free of cost is a rare commodity. Reviews let your patients build links to your site and drive new traffic.
• They're authentic: New prospects want to know what your existing patients think of you. Reviews let them communicate that in an authentic voice that prospects relate to.
• They build trust: 92% of Americans trust word-of-mouth more than any other form of marketing – even if they don't personally know the person... and online reviews are more trustworthy than testimonials on your site that you have complete control over.
• Improves your search rankings: Google ranks websites according to their perceived authority and their ability to provide valuable content. Customer reviews can help tell search engines that your brand is established, and when more people online are discussing your firm, Google will rank your site higher in search engine results. It also helps to add links to customer reviews on your site, because Google rewards sites that contain links to other authoritative websites.
• Lowers your bounce rate: Customer reviews help your business stand out and make visitors to your website more interested in your product or service because of the value others have had. The impact on your site’s bounce rate can be meaningful and can help to trigger higher rankings as bounce rate is arguably one of the ranking factors involved in search results.
• Previews your star ranking: Many sites that feature star rating systems will show a preview when someone does a search for your brand. This means that a person will not need to click on their page to see that your company was rated favorably, as the star level and the first few sentences will show up on the search results page. Google will sort search engine results based on the number of reviews received, giving you an advantage and an SEO boost. Your good reputation will then precede you, increasing the likelihood that a person will click through and choose you above your competitors.

Reviews are interesting in another way as well; they tell you what's important to your patients and they identify weak spots in your systems that you can address.
 

Do reviews really increase your revenue?

From the same survey, we also asked clinics how much revenue  each new patient added in just the first month. The lifetime value of each patient is dependent upon the clinic type (nonsurgical / surgical) but can be expected to be a multiple of this number.

Question: How much is a new patient worth to your clinic in the first month?

It's interesting that there's a gap here in the middle, but once I thought about it it made a lot of sense; the clinics we surveyed were fairly well divided between "medical" and "spas"... So if you're a cosmetic medical practice you're far more likely to be on the right of this graph with each new patient spending North of $2000 the first month.

Question: How many new patients does your typical client refer each year?

Okay, this is were we start to see some hope of shifting the results here to the right if you're getting on board with patient reviews and those reviews are working for you. If you're able to shift that 3 patients a year to just 4, that would equate with roughly a 20% greater delta in your yearly growth and a corresponding increase in revenue and profits. Just a small increase in the coefficient can have a dramatic effect in the end result over time.

That's what we're looking to try and do.
 

What should I do?

The short answer to "what should I do?" is - Do something. Anything. But don't do nothing.

How much less is your clinic worth to someone who wants to buy it if your reviews are negative? How much harder is it to recruit staff? How many patients are you losing that you don't know about.? Simply put, your online reviews are your brand, and an indication of patient trust and satisfaction. Reviews are what people are saying about you to others (which is what your brand is), and you can't just ignore your brand and reputation if you want to have a successful clinic or valuable asset. 

You have 3 options; you can ignore it, you can do it manually, or you can do it automatically.
 

Option 1 - Ignore my online reviews

You can't ignore it... Well, actually I guess you can. After all this is what most clinics do. They bitch and moan about someone leaving a negative review since they know it hurts their reputation, but they take no proactive actions to increase or control those reviews.)They simply float along with the status quo and hope nothing happens.

Here's what ignoring it means:

• Your competition may not ignore it, which means that they're either taking your existing market share, or they're putting you further behind while you're not even showing up to compete.
• You're reputation is uninsured: Something really damaging can happen which you won't be able to respond to.
• You're missing out on every new patient that might have been brought in. You're missing sales, word of mouth, and compounding growth. This is really where you're killing yourself long term.

Pros & Cons: The only pro to this is that it's free, but the cons are legion. If you're ignoring your reputation and new business you're damaging your clinic. Go stub your toe in penance.
 

Option 2 - Do it manaully

Yes, you can do this manually but don't be fooled that it's not a lot of work. It is, but up until now this was the best way that you could address this need and what most clinics have tried to do in some form.

Here's a simple framework of what you should be doing right now at your front desk.

• Implement operational systems at your front desk check out procedure that is followed for every single patient. (See the Ultimate Clinic Operations Blueprint)
• Every happy patient should be asked to please leave a testimonial or review on their Facebook page or on your Google Business Listing. You should ask if they would be willing to use their phone to do it right now. (You may want to add a small discount or free product gift if they're willing to do this.)
• You should contact Tea & Muffins Design to have some postcards made where patients can fill out a testimonial right there that you can use.
• You should send an email or postcard reminder soon after each appointment. (You'll want to keep track of who has already left reviews or you'll irritate your happy patients with redundant emails.)
• You should set up a number of Google Alerts to try and monitor when reviews go up so that you can respond to them.

Pros & Cons: We'll, at least you're doing something but this is time intensive and a real pain in the ass to try and manage after the first week. The opportunity cost is huge in the time invested and the "just-one-more-thing-to-try-and-manage" costs.

And there's another problem with this. Even if you're proactive and constantly ask your patients to leave reviews, they don't. 

Have you ever left a review? You have to be really motivated and it's much easier just to do nothing once you're out of the clinic.

But where there's a problem there's also an opportunity.
 

Option 2 - Do it automatically

To be an automated solution you need to have software that is both drop-dead simple to use, and gives you complete control on both Facebook and Google.

It also needs to be easy to incorporate it in to your operations, and use easy workflows; texting review requests, reputation management, notifications, tracking, permissions, and even additional patient interactions.

Here's what this software should do:

• Needs to be really simple to use: No more than entering a name and phone number. Needs to be used during check-out when patients are most willing to leave you a positive review AND any time thereafter.
• Needs to be simple for the patient. Needs to work via simple text message, not an app or download.
• Needs automatic monitoring of my reviews: I want to be notified of every review and be able to respond  in one place, not login to every review site.
• Needs accounts for each team member: I want track everyone inside the system, and their reviews.
• Send external texts: I want to be able to send text messages to my patients as followup, reminders, or just to inform them about an offer we have coming up.
• Let's patients and prospects text me: I want prospects to be able to text me directly from my Google review page or Facebook.
• Simple... Did I say that already?

Since we're aware that this is a growing need for our Members we took a look at the front-runners in this space. Here are 3 of the top business review software providers to take a look at with their user satisfaction ratings supplied by G2 Crowd.
 

Highest Rated Reputation & Review Management Software

Highest Rated Ease Of Use Reputation & Review Management Software

Ratings from G2 Crowd

As shown above, Podium is the clear winner among business review management software providers both in total user satisfaction and usability - which is critical.

so we contacted Podium and asked them to help us provide their software at a discount for our Members (you).

They agreed.

So, Podium partnered with Medical Spa MD to provide a special offer exclusively to our members which includes both a full Podium account, discounted fees, and special training for your staff in our Training Academy.

Here's a quick video I made to show you how simple it is to send a review request to your patient while they're checking out!

This is exactly how your front desk staff would use Podium when a patient is checking out, or your staff would use it from their cell phone right in the treatment room.

"Hey, would you mind me texting you a review request to give us some feedback?"

Damn that is nice!
 

Here's Podium explaining more about their software.

And about their messaging feature which allows patients who see you online to text you questions, a much easier action to take than calling and talking to someone.

Because reviews are increasingly critical for every business there are startups that are building solutions to fill the need - including using patient reviews to fill your appointment calendar, increase patient satisfaction and compound your patient referrals and word of mouth marketing.  

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Get this special offer from Podium 

Medical Spa MD Members receive a special, full service Podium account that includes: no setup fee (save $300), a 10% discount forever (save $330/year) and on-demand patient review marketing training for your entire staff ($597 value). 

This offer is not available anywhere else

Waiting Room Marketing That Sells Automatically

Your waiting room lets you market directly to your patients when they're most receptive, and video triggers the greatest emotional response and patient inquiries into your services and products.

Marketing to your patients in your waiting room should be like shooting fish in a barrel. After all, they're already inside your clinic and they're sitting there waiting for you. If you're smart, you should be using that time to educate your patients about your services and explaining all of the treatments and programs you're providing.

Don't put out damn magazines and don't install free WiFi!! Why the hell are you wasting this golden opportunity?

Here's a list of the most effective marketing strategies and how you might implement them.

Waiting Room Marketing Videos

The very best waiting room marketing is a customized looped video that goes through your service offering; lasers, fillers, Botox, payment plans, financing, packages and whatever else you're offering. They're emotional, they're aspirational,  If you do this correctly it's incredibly powerful and you can count on a slew of new questions, up-sells and cross-sells.

Take a second and view some examples of Frontdesk Custom Marketing Videos >

Note: While the videos all come with music, you'll want to have them looping on mute with just the images or you'll drive yourself crazy listening to the same songs over and over.

Customized Educations Materials

Don't put out general magazines. Instead, build booklets or binders with customized educations materials about your services. You can use the vendors advertising materials to begin but as soon as you can you should look to produce your own materials that explain - from your point of view - the services and treatments from an educational point of view. Patients want this information and it sets the stage for the consultation or treatment room conversations by priming the patient with questions that they can ask. How much do you pay for Restylane? How painful are fillers? What skin type am I? What treatments are synergistic?

Product Displays

Show off the products you are selling in your medical spa.Your products should not be stored in a shelf somewhere. You could probably have patients try out Testers for several products. Make sure the products are visible and accessible by your patients. Not only showing off your products a marketing strategy, it would definitely help your revenue. Make sure they're not expired.

Waiting rooms can be a bore or anxiety inducing, so try out these strategies to put life in your waiting room and see how it works out.

Storytelling Patient Testimonials That Sell

The key to success in any business is to have some understanding of psychology that allows you to match your products and services to a buyers emotional need.

Human behavior, at it's roots, is driven by pain avoidance and the desire to increase pleasure. It's the basic trigger upon which all other actions are based. And what is the #1 way to most clearly communicate the pain/pleasure journey and outcome?

Stories.

Humans "buy" stories, because, as you probably already know, people make their buying decisions with EMOTION. Stories put people inside of the experience in a relatable way. They work much better than simple data or list of features. Feature lists are how you sell commoditized products and if you're doing that, you're only competing on price which is eroding your margins and profits. 

Gerard Zaltman, the author of How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market found that 95% of cognition happens outside of our conscious brain and inside our subconscious, emotional brain.

Telling stories activates parts of the brain associated with sight, sound, taste, and movement. They make us feel an experience without directly experiencing it. They literally transport us into the world of the story and light up our emotional brains, which is where we make our decision whether to buy or not. 

Then question then is: whose story do you tell?

There are any number of options here.

First off, you can tell your story, and by your story I mean you as a clinician... there are big benefits with this in that almost any story engenders the knowing, liking, and trusting that leads to patients feeling comfortable buying from you.

Second, you can tell the patient's story.  Here, you could talk directly to the patient going through a common experience, with just the right combination of specific details and vagueness so they can fill in the details for themselves. 

Third, you can tell the future patient's story.  By this, I mean the story they’ll be telling after they’ve benefited from your service.  This is called “future pacing” and the trick with it is to make it feel as real as anything that’s already happened or is currently happening to them.

But all of these stories come with a price. You've got to produce them all, or have others produce them for you. THAT is the beauty of patient testimonials and reviews, you're enlisting your happy patients to help sell these short stories to others in the form of "reviews".

Benefits of Patient Testimonials for a Medical Practice

As John D. Rockefeller said, "I'd rather earn 1% off 100 men's effort than 100% of my own efforts". Organizing and promoting your patients reviews can add significant growth and traction for your clinic. Your existing patient's 'reach and network' dwarfs your own. That's why it's critical to get your patients working for you. It's the "word of mouth" Holy Grail, but it doesn't build itself, you're doing to have to facilitate it.

It's all about social proof.

Professor of psychology and bestselling author of Influence: The Psychology of persuasion, Robert Cialdini says “If you can get people who are similar to the person you’re trying to persuade to speak on your behalf, it’s a lot easier for you than if you have to try to hammer your message one more time into a reticent mind.”

Human beings are social creatures. We look to others to determine what actions we should take.

If you're ready to follow Rockefeller and organize your patients to help grow your clinic, you're going to want to help them tell stories and add recommendations and reviews. You can either push that boulder up the hill yourself, or you can use tools that make it easy.

Our suggestion is that you take a look at the special offer from Podium, and then you get to work helping your patients tell stories that grow your clinic's new patient bookings.

How To Write (Or Fix) A Killer About Page For Your Medical Spa

What's the most important and useful page on your medical spas website? It's your about page. Your "about page" is where new patients learn why they should choose you, stick with you, and what's in it for them.

After your homepage - which is where you're trying to drive all of your traffic too and so the number are skewed - your "About" page is going to be the most visited page on your site.

People want to know who you are, what you look like, why they should trust you over your competitors, and if they should trust you with their face and body. 

Crafting Your About Page

Crafting a grade A About Page requires more than just a location, your office hours and a paragraph on how you're great. While it's not easy writing about yourself, I'm going to walk you through, step-by-step, how to squeeze the most benefit from this critical page.

1. What Value Do You Give Your Patients

This one is a biggie, which is why we're starting with it. Your About Page should be ALL about the value you provide to your patients - NOT all about how great you are. Don't squander the chance to answer the questions that your perspective patients are looking for. Yes, patients want to learn about you and your team and we'll get in to that, but the most important thing they're looking for is how YOU are going to help THEM. That's what they're going to make their buying decisions on and that's why you have a website in the first place.

2. Who Is Your Clinic For? Who Is Your Target Patient?

Who is your most profitable patient? What is your most profitable treatment? Which treatment attracts the most new patients? These are the questions you'll want to start with. Don't fall in to the trap of trying to be everything to everyone. (The cliche holds true in cosmetic medicine as it does elsewhere.) Find a a patient who is right in your sweet spot and write directly to her. Why should this patient choose you?

On the Medical Spa MD page you'll see that right up front we're speaking to clinicians who are looking for info on the business of nonsurgical cosmetic medicine. Those 3 items; nonsurgical, cosmetic, and medical providers are how we filter and segment who we're talking to. It doesn't matter where you are in the world or if you're a MD, DO, PA, NP, RN, if you're a clinician we can help you. We don't cover lotions and potions, we don't talk to patients, and we don't tuck in to invasive surgical techniques.

It's all intentional. Why? Because when the right people visit your About Page you want them to immediately recognize themselves. You want them  to know that the site was created for THEM. Anything that detracts from that central point should be included only with great hesitancy. You're looking to connect to the right people, not all of the people.

3. How You're Going To Benefit Them

Ok, you've written a few sentences geared towards your ideal audience. Now what? Most sites you'll see will begin by talking all about themselves; what medical school they graduated from, how committed to patient care they are... There is a place for a little of that but it's not the main course (it's more like the mint at the end of the meal.)

Key takeaway coming here: Patients want to know about you because of how it may relate to them!

Some ways to think about your About Page.

1. Tell a story: When you have a great story about how your clinic or medspa was built to change lives (even if they're your own), share it. Good stories humanize you and provide context and meaning to your services. Even better, good stories are 'sticky', meaning that your patients are more likely to remember them and pass them on as part of their story about your brand.
2. Be human: Most medical spas, plastic surgeons and dermatologists have pages that scream stuffy and formal. Physicians were taught to control the situation after all and formality and hierarchy provide easy to see guard rails that keep everyone in their place. I'm the expert. you're the patient. You're lucky to be seen and treated by someone as magnificent as I. Patients hate that. My advice is to step off your pedestal and use your About Page to tell the human story of you, whatever that is. Don't be afraid to pull out a misstep or mistake (as long as it's not a negative treatment outcome) like switching majors in college or making a difficult life choice. People want to be treated by other humans, not gods.
3. Skip the medical babble: Please don't use medical jargon. You may think it makes you sound super-smart to use "neuromodulators", but it really just makes your patients think you're talking down to them. People want and appreciate straight talk and clarity. Just be authentic.
4. Be unique and visually interesting: Instead of following the classic script of writing a few paragraphs about your 'mission', try something that makes it more interesting and compelling. Everyone has some photos of their blank waiting and treatment rooms. Make something interesting that demands attention and that people will remark on. Boring = death. Don't do what everyone else is doing.

Here are some example About Pages that I've included for you to take a look at. I've purposefully excluded any medical spas or clinics since much more can be learned by looking at the best About Pages rather than just those from existing practices.

Great Example About Page Examples

If you have any other suggestions from sites that I have missed please leave a comment and let me know. Even more importantly, if you don’t like one of these pages I would love to hear why not. Oh, and these are in no particular order. I just couldn’t do it.

TUMBLR - A great about page that has credibility oozing out all over the place in an interesting package. It's clever and communicates very clearly with human copy

Bentley Motors - Bentley's About Us page does an excellent job of creating that magical and illustrious vibe. They use rich professional photographs and enticing copy. The whole point of this About Us page is to get you to feel part of the experience. To draw you in to their way of thinking and acting which is, in fact, their marketing plan and branding.

Eight Hour Day - Here'a creative studio with an awesomely human about page that tells the story of the people behind the brand. They use some straightforward copy and photos that make you feel like these are people who know what they're doing and that you'd really like to work with. Hey... that's the point.

Harry's - Yep, the razor guys. They don't even call this the about page. It's "Our Story". It's clean, there's plenty of white space, it has purpose and it's well designed.

Hello Alfred - A services platform for residential buildings, Hello Alfred's about page puts the founding story front and center and tells the "why" of their business, not just the 'what'.

The Saddleback Story - Leather travel bags hand made in Mexico. Another "here's how it happened" story about page that really checks all of the boxes. It's human, compelling and relates some really interesting stories that elevate their products from expensive leather bags to a complete lifestyle.

Ok, so there are some great About Pages out there to learn from.

Take a look at your existing About Page - if you have one - and just start making it better. Change out the photo. Write some better copy. Add some white space. Your About Page is going to be the most visited page on your site. Make it great.

If you'd like us to take a look at your site's about page and provide some feedback, just contact us.

Can't separate your clinic from every other medspa? Try This Simple Innovation Technique.

If you're not doing anything other than what every other plastic surgeon, dermatologist, and medical spa is doing you're stuck competing on only one thing; price.

And that's a straight shot to the bottom.

There can only be one lowest price in a market and the second-lowest price will always lose. Just ask Kay-Mart and Sears who lost long ago to Walmart. Worse, a patient who comes to you based on price will leave you just as fast for someone who's offering IPL, Botox or cosmetic injectables for less.

To get unstuck and find some area where you can distinguish yourself you'll first need to identify the orthodoxies and assumptions that you're already using. The most common assumptions revolve around what others are doing and especially the "we've always done it that way" lazy way of thinking.

Here's a way to tackle this. Start by actually writing down the assumptions that you have that - if they are true - would prevent you from achieving your goals. Your clinic is filled with assumptions: patients won't pay for ___, my staff can't sell, they're not motivated, I'm not good at business, everyone is doing it better than I am, I have to work 60 hours a week... you're looking to root out orthodoxies by identifying existing assumptions and overturning them to illuminate blind spots or limiting beliefs to look at your problem in a new way. By articulating these assumptions you can then attempt to test them - which is key - in order to make better decisions that actually improve  your business and lifestyle. Y

Example: Alan Robinson (co-author of Corporate Creativity) writes in his book how KC Fine Furniture trained their delivery drivers in basic interior decoration so that when they deliver furniture to the customer, they help arrange the room, and accessorize. As a result, their rejection rate dropped from 10% (the industry standard) to 1%. That simple change decreased their returns by an order of magnitude. Nice.

Assumption Reversal

Here's an example based on a process from the book Orchestrating Collaboration At Work.

Procedure

1. List all the assumptions you have about a particular topic, even the most obvious ones. Remember, not all assumptions are wrong. You just want to be explicit about them because they may hold the key to achieving a breakthrough idea. (Aim for 10-20 assumptions
2. Write down the opposite or a modification of each assumption.
3. Use each assumption as a trigger for new ideas, write each idea on a Post-it® Note, and place them on flip-chart paper for evaluation.

An example: Assume you are a dermatologist with a new medical spa and want to attract new patients. You might list the following assumptions:

• My existing patients are going to competitors who are charging less for filler injections.
• I should lower my filler injection prices to compete.
• I will make up the loss on other treatments.

Next, reverse these assumptions as shown in the following examples:

• My existing patients are not going to competitors who are charging less for filler injections.
• I should not lower my filler injection prices to compete.
• I will not make up the loss on other treatments.

Finally, use these reversals to suggest ideas:

• Emphasize that that you're not the "Walmart" of filler injections.
• Stress the high cost of my treatments and "you get what you pay for".
• Give patients who recruit their friends an "insider friends and family" deal.

Source 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving. (VanGundy 2005)

What assumptions do you need to question?

You're always going to see competitors as the person just down the road, but the truth is that you're competing with much more than that. The path to success is paved with broken assumptions and you need to question - and test - all of yours. If you're relying on the wrong assumptions about your market, your patient population and your business, you're driving with the breaks on at best.

Here's Why Podium Should Be Your Reputation Management Software

Getting positive patient reviews that give an accurate representation of your medical spa's reputation used to be hard. Now it's easy.

Receiving negative patient reviews is a bummer, especially when one of your unhappy patients - perhaps with unrealistic expectations - looks to wreck your reputation online. And it's the angry, unhappy patients who can really damage your reputation because their voice or 'comment' is abnormally enlarged since your happy, satisfied patents are not the ones who most often leave you reviews.

It seems that patient reviews fall in to two camps; friends and family who you beg to give you reviews, and unhappy patients who seem bent on destroying your reputation.

No more.

Podium gives you a super simple way to to gather patient reviews from almost all of your patients and build your reputation on Google, Facebook and other review and reputation sites. (Watch the video above to see how easy it is to request a review.)

There are a myriad of benefits for a continual stream of reviews including:

1. Increasing your SEO rankings and visibility of your clinic for more patient traffic.
2. Increasing the number of inbound contacts you're front desk is fielding.
3. Outbound contacts to your existing patients via text message (a 99% open rate)
4. Control of your online reputation by gaining a massive influx of patient reviews that more accurately show your actual reputation and lessen the effect of a few unhappy patients.

Check out the Podium special offer for Medical Spa MD Members.

Facebook, Google, word-of-mouth all expand your reach - note that Podium handles this use case as well - but reviews can make or break your reputation and either lead to long term success, or abbreviate your opportunities.

You'll notice on this chart that online reputation is critical for  "Medical / Healthcare" businesses. The reviews that you now have are setting the tone for your new patients since a whopping 87% of consumers - including consumers of cosmetic medicine - now search for even local businesses before they contact them. 

It's often the case that successful clinics are competing in ways that the rank and file don't appreciate, or don't have access to (Asymmetrical Competition), using tools and spending smart money in areas that actually benefit them in the long term rather than just saying yest to the salespeople who walk through the door.

Take a look at the special offer and free setup that Podium is offering to Members.