Aesthetic Brand Marketing That Converts

Potential cosmetic patients — both men and women of any age — have a lot of options to consider when thinking about cosmetic procedures or treatments. Of course, the thing you need to worry about the most as a cosmetic practice is — will they ultimately choose your aesthetic practice? This is where aesthetic brand marketing and a well-integrated aesthetic marketing strategy comes into play for your cosmetic practice.

Creating an aesthetic brand marketing strategy will boost name familiarity in your local market, demonstrate your credibility and experience, and clearly distinguish you from competitors. As a cosmetic provider, you understand the significance of how knowledge and skill work together to create the best outcomes, so let’s get started with how to approach aesthetic brand marketing, strategically. 

Aesthetic Brand Marketing Starts with Your Brand Name and Reputation

 

With increased competition, globally, as a practicing cosmetic or plastic surgeon, you need a brand name that is instantly familiar in your local market and nationally. It is also a credible reputation that guarantees potential patients you are competent, trustworthy, and experienced. Each detail concerning your brand name must be consistent. 

 

Aesthetic Brand Messaging

Our self-image is just as much psychological as it is physical. Compelling messaging must attract your potential patients emotionally, and this is a delicate balance.

A great place to start when devising your brand messaging is never to make claims you can not keep. Wording that seems as if you are guaranteeing a specific result can get you into legal hot water. You need patients to have realistic expectations, and so that they are happy with their outcomes. Use phrasing like, “enhancing your natural beauty” or “more youthful appearance” when describing your work and potential patient’s results. 

One avenue to promoting your brand name and reputation is collecting and using, in-their-own-words, patient reviews, and before and after photos. And, honestly, any real-patient remarks you’ll be able to elicit will resonate much more with potential patients compared to almost anything you state yourself.

It’s also important to remember that you’re speaking to the general public and not medical coworkers, so clinical conditions and descriptions seem cold, perplexing, even frightening. That may be off-putting for a lot of men and women. Most patients who need to have that type of detail will request it. So use conversational language, and it is recommended to speak in the second person — you and we. 

Presenting information from the third person (he-she) is the standard for academic writing, but it’s less relatable. It’s more challenging to develop a feeling of relaxation and trust with this type of language. Potential patients who aren’t able to relate to you are highly likely not to select you or your cosmetic practice.

Here’s how to focus your brand messaging in a way your potential patients will understand:

1. Highlighting the reasons why a cosmetic procedure or treatment is warranted
2. Highlighting why they should choose you as their aesthetic provider

Nowadays, all generations are image-conscious and wish to look their very best. With the popularity of nonsurgical options, they are far more aware of their cosmetic enhancement options. When it comes to brand messaging, it’s particularly important not to forget who your target audience is for any one cosmetic procedure or treatment.

Aesthetic Brand Marketing with Visuals 

Cosmetic practices tend to lean towards using the hyper re-touched model stock photography to represent their brand visually. The consumer acceptance of this trend is on its way out because people know that it is not realistic for them and want to see what your actual real patients look like after having cosmetic surgery. You would like to provide prospects sensible confidence and encourage them to seek out a “better” (but do not use that phrase!) look or self-image.

That’s not to say you can’t appeal to the high-end and luxury market customer. It’s more important to recognize that with the increased popularity of non- or – minimally-invasive options, cosmetic augmentation has become more accessible to a wider range of demographics. 

How does that affect your visual branding? Trying to appear exclusive can come across snooty rather than classy. Today that can make you look irrelevant and inaccessible. Plus it’ll suggest not-too-subtly your fees are most likely excessive. Use the “less is more” strategy — a fresh, contemporary aesthetic that appeals to a wider age and earnings range.

There are different forms of visuals that make branding impressions on potential patients, like your office’s interior layout and how your advertising content and aesthetics marketing ideas are presented. Perfect presentation is essential in the image industry when building an aesthetic brand marketing strategy because the potential patient will see this as an extension of your cosmetic work. 

Your Website Is Your Single Most Important Asset in Aesthetic Brand Marketing

For cosmetic practices today, your website serves as something of a storefront like in retail. Potential patients don’t come by the office to peruse surgery procedures or cosmetic treatments, the way they look for clothing or furniture. Instead, today’s patients’ search for aesthetic services starts online. So it’s important that your practice website can be found in your local market, first and foremost. Then, when a potential patient clicks through, do they stay on the site and eventually decide to contact you for an appointment? This all depends on the first impression your site makes. It must guarantee visitors you’re professional — highly experienced and skilled. Trust and relaxation are equally critical in choosing a plastic surgeon, and your website needs to reflect this.

Today, you only have about 10 seconds to catch a website visitor’s interest and lure them into finding out more about you. As a cosmetic services provider, you serve a wide variety of people, and some may know precisely what they need, but most people might be unsure of what they need and are contemplating their cosmetic options. Your website needs to be easy to navigate for both kinds of potential patients. It must include an easy way to contact your office for those who know exactly what they want, and it also needs to serve as a research site for those who are looking to be educated regarding their cosmetic choices. 

Your site must supply advice on why you’re the best cosmetic provider and choose the best cosmetic provider. By introducing useful, easy-to-understand articles, you’re also establishing yourself and your aesthetic practice as an authority in the industry and as a valuable, reliable resource. 

Search Engine Optimization for Aesthetic Brands 

Can potential patients in your local market readily discover your cosmetic practice online? Your site’s content and design are directly accountable for this, through search engine optimization and following Google’s best practices for ranking for high-value keywords. Ranking on the first page for your plastic surgery SEO services keywords and being easily discovered in the map section of Google is exactly what drives visitors to your site. 

Another aspect of online search you must consider today to reach your target audience of potential patients is mobile-friendly websites. The majority of prospects use mobile devices to hunt online. Responsive design is also a ranking factor for Google for the past five years to have an optimized website for mobile users. Needless to say, there are a number of ranking factors to consider when attempting to rank your website for high intent cosmetic keywords in your local market. Learn more about digital marketing for plastic surgeons to rank your practice’s website and be found by potential patients. 

Content Marketing for Aesthetic Brand Marketing

It’s ever important to educate your potential patients on the cosmetic options and specialized techniques your aesthetic practice provides, for two reasons:

1. Brand awareness. Your potential patients want to know you have several cosmetic services available to enhance their natural beauty. 

2. Upselling your aesthetic services. Many potential patients don’t know what they need, but they know what they want to fix. Once they have built trust with you for one service, they are highly likely to come back to your practice for their next cosmetic treatment or procedure. 

Here’s how you do this for your aesthetic brand using content marketing. Most website visitors don’t scroll past the top 25 percent of your webpage, so it’s essential you get to the point of your webpage content right away and use an enticing content design to encourage the user to pay attention. Your content needs to be utterly user friendly to keep people interested and engaged. Ensure each cosmetic service you provide has its own web page so that people can go directly to it. It is fine to set together closely related cosmetic treatments — say, several kinds of injectables — since they all address comparable individual issues.

Should your cosmetic practice specialize in a kind of cosmetic procedure or treatment — like breast augmentation or rhinoplasty — make this clear right upfront. Also, it’s just as important to show other products and services that you provide beyond nonsurgical and surgical procedures. For example, any related medical spa services, skincare product lines, or a patient loyalty program?

What kind of content marketing does a top-performing cosmetic site have?

• Plastic Surgeon Bios — using a friendly-looking headshot that shows you’re an approachable and personable person. Share details about your expertise and lifestyle to assist with humanizing your aesthetic practice. Another great way to “break the ice” with a potential patient is to create an introduction video for your website bio. 

• Landing Pages — customize your user’s experience with your aesthetic practice’s services by creating landing pages that highlight special offers or service-specific content like FAQs, before and after photos, etc. This is a great way to convert your ideal potential patient. 

• Aesthetic Brand Credentials — highlight awards, specific certificates or other physician or practice recognition throughout your website and marketing assets. Don’t forget about your real patient testimonials; these strengthen your credibility.

• Financing Options — many men and women are hesitant to talk about money problems, therefore proactively fixing this on your website alleviates their finances concerns if they are too embarrassed to ask.

• A Regularly-Updated Website — is a part of Google’s ranking factors; it is also a great way to keep your patients and potential patients engaged and coming back. This is an effective tool in keeping your brand top-of-mind for patients and marketing your practice’s aesthetic services in your local market. 

Showcasing Real Patient Before and After Results 

Most cosmetic service providers know to take before and after photos of their patient’s results because they know this is a great sales tool to convert patients during a consultation. Many cosmetic professionals also know to put these before and after results on their website. However, it’s important to ask if your practice is showing enough examples of your work? Potential patients assume you’re showing the very best examples of your cosmetic services. When there’s just a couple of photos per treatment or procedure, does this mean you are not really experienced in that region? Or that you have not had much success?

Highlighting a wide range of before after results photos reinforces your expertise and ability. Additionally, it provides patients a better opportunity to see a happy patient that looks like them or who’s had a similar dilemma addressed/corrected. The more relatable your before and after images are, the more convincing your content marketing is going to be. 

Which brings us to the next point of showcasing your before and after results. The target is to give visual aid to your prospects’ decision-making process. An effective presentation of your cosmetic service results is to offer several angles in your before and after photos. Consider a nicer background and lighting choices. Insert a brief explanation of the individual’s condition, their aesthetic aim, and the outcome.

Attract Patients with Blogs As Part of Your Aesthetic Brand Marketing Plan

Long, in-depth, and optimized blogs are a large part of your site’s ranking factors, but they also can be a great inbound marketing tool to consider when putting together an aesthetic brand marketing plan. Blogging provides comprehensive advertising and marketing advantages for almost any plastic surgery or cosmetic service provider. 

Here are a few values blogging brings to your website and ultimately, your patients:

• Branding yourself and your cosmetic practice as an expert and industry authority 
• Teach patients and prospects about your cosmetic services and their options today
• Drive referral traffic from email campaigns or social media with blog content 
• Boost search engine optimization by generating more indexable content, helping draw more traffic to your site. More indexable content provides you more opportunities to appear in search results.

What is a fantastic blog?

Thinking up blog topics and subject matter might appear daunting. In regards to cosmetic services and plastic surgery, there are various items your potential and existing patients would like to learn about and are already researching, so why not drive them to your website. 

Use your blog to make your practice’s website the go-to place to learn about cosmetics. For example, a post about the advantages of a rhinoplasty procedure is very likely to attract readers that are thinking about this operation. 

When blogging for your aesthetic practice, consider the following approaches to effectively use your blog as a content marketing tool to attract and convert new patients. 

• Teach readers about lesser-known procedures, such as nonsurgical, liquid rhinoplasty, that use injectables to augment a patient’s nose, in writing about the more recent or trending the treatment or procedure, the higher your chance to attract a new audience. 

• Announce or discuss new advancements or other innovations within the business of plastic surgery and cosmetics. One topic example is the growing number of millennials picking a cosmetic treatment or procedure over another.

• Announce awards or accolades given to you, your practice or your own staff. If you are voted the most popular plastic surgeon in your local market, flaunt it! Patients will be pleased to learn about you personally, and prospects will be amazed. Honors are invaluable third-party testimonials, exactly like excellent reviews.
  
• Highlighting patient testimonials, case studies or patient stories about their experience at your practice or outcome of a cosmetic service you provide. Reading someone else’s story can be extremely persuasive for men or women contemplating cosmetic surgery. It’s possible to inform a patient’s story without showing personal information or other identifying particulars that could violate HIPAA legislation.

• Create engaging content by including visuals and other forms of content within the blog, like videos, photos, infographics, and the like. It can be tricky to describe cosmetic treatments and procedures using words independently, so adding dynamic content to your blog will aid in further selling and marketing your plastic surgery practice. 

• Be conversational. More people may read your posts if they’re written in a conversational fashion. Bear in mind, your audience is the general public, meaning they are not technical, medical professionals, and you need to write accordingly. It is like they are having a personal chat with you. 

• Publish consistently. If you place a new blog post every day, weekly, bi-weekly, or yearly, stick with your own schedule. This way, you will continue to keep your name in front of individuals, folks will understand what to anticipate, and subscribers will look forward to another post.

• Boost your blogs on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. Your posts may appear well in search positions all independently. But relying on this is similar to relying on drive-by traffic for folks to discover you. Consider native advertisements by boosting your blog posts to your target audience on social media.

• Do not over-promote your clinic. Maintaining articles informative strengthens your professionalism. It is OK to talk about everything you can do, but do not make the focus of every blog post. Today’s consumers are extremely good at recognizing a thinly-veiled sales pitch, and they will ignore you. 

Social Media Marketing for Aesthetic Brands

Any good aesthetic brand marketing plan should include social media. This is an effective way to expand your brand’s reach and raise brand awareness for your cosmetic practice. It makes it possible to engage with present and prospective patients. With so many people using social media websites of all ages and demographics, this is a unique opportunity for you to showcase your practice’s expertise, personality, and stand out against your local market competitors. 

Here are a few ways to use social media profiles to attract new patients, engage with existing patients, and consistently convert your target audience in your local market. 

• Advertise special offers 
• Promote new cosmetic treatments or services available at your practice
• Links to your articles and website content
• Videos of behind-the-scenes live treatments
• Promoting your providers and showcasing their talent and expertise
• Before and after results photos
• Giveaways and contests to promote your aesthetic practice
• Conduct polls and customer surveys
• Highlight practice reviews and patient testimonials

Cosmetics is all about image, so social media being an image-based platform, is a natural fit as an aesthetic brand marketing tool. So it is important to produce high-quality imagery and videography to showcase your beautiful results and practice interior. This will help attract patients to you and your practice. 

Here is a brief overview of each social media platform and how to effectively attract new patients. Learn more about plastic surgery marketing strategies that attract new patients. 

• Instagram. As an image-based platform, this is a must-have for marketing your aesthetic practice’s services. Target and reach your audience by viewing your profile insights to learn exactly what your audience wants to see and engage with. It is also recommended that individual providers at your practice have their own page to promote your practice and services.

• Twitter. The quick-and-short character of tweets create Twitter a fantastic selection for individual notifications, a fast hint or a news flash for example “Dr. Jones recently named top plastic surgeon in [your city]” (having a hyperlink to your site post or media release).

• Facebook. Facebook has a number of built-in features that make it easy to promote your practice. For example, you can create an event to invite visitors to particular occasions. You can also create promotions and target specific users to direct them to your practice. This is a great platform to boost your content, run targeted ads, and attract new patients with specials offers and events.
  
• Snapchat. This video platform is hugely popular and can be a great tool to target new patients. Highlighting short clips of before and afters, behind-the-scenes treatments, and showing off your practice’s personality. 

• YouTube. YouTube is the best platform for posting brief videos in which you describe a cosmetic procedure or speak about ways to select a specific procedure or treatment. Additionally, embed your YouTube videos in your own site pages instead of sending visitors to YouTube. 

Be Strategic on Your Social Media Platforms

You can’t utilize social marketing efficiently unless you’ve got a very clear idea of what you want to achieve and who it is you’re talking to. Whether it is generating leads, creating your own personal brand as a plastic surgeon, promoting your cosmetic practice’s brand, or nurturing your present patients, you need to take into account your approach to what kind of content you create, your brand messaging and voice, your brand aesthetic and design and what your target audience resonates with. 

How do you figure out what your target audience wants on social media? First, determine what social media channels the majority of your target audience uses – is it Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.? What type of info are your personas searching for? Which nonsurgical or surgical procedures? What is their decision making process like, and where are they in their buying cycle?

Your target market uses social networking and other tools to find out about plastic surgery alternatives, make up their minds about going ahead, and obtain a surgeon. By having a well-planned social media marketing plan, it is possible to present yourself to them, become the source of information that they want most, and create a relationship that makes you their clear choice when they are prepared to create their choice.

Email Marketing for An Aesthetic Brand

You’re probably thinking, “Isn’t email dead?” On the contrary, email marketing is still a highly effective aesthetic brand marketing tool to convert patients. Utilizing this marketing tool alongside your site, blog, and social media profile interactions may produce powerful results for your cosmetic or plastic surgery practice.

Email is the perfect way to remain in contact with site visitors or existing patients who’ve given you permission. Here’s a quick overview of elements of successful email campaigns that you can apply to your current contact email list:

• A strong subject line which entices visitors to read and open your message
• Succinct body copy with valuable advice, information or offers
• Links to your site, blog, and social media profiles
• Compelling calls-to-action – the most effective emails contain a singular ask for the user to take action
• Addressed from an actual person like the physician or staff member, not a company name
• Ensure the ‘To’ is coded to use the email recipients first name to personalize it

It’s possible to use mass email sends for a one-time or limited time offer, like the practices monthly specials. However, a customized and personalized email marketing campaign will always be the most effective. For example, if a patient who came to you interested in breast augmentation probably isn’t interested in receiving email campaigns about liposuction or tummy tuck procedures. 

One way to automate your list segmentation and customized email marketing campaigns is through marketing automation applications like HubSpot or MyMedLeads. You can set up personalized email funnels to target users who complete an action, such as scheduling a consultation, to receive follow-up emails to ensure they don’t miss or forget about their appointment. 

It’s important to note that the email marketing process also applies to nurturing existing patients in addition to prospects. Customer retention is essential for each sort of company, and it is less costly to keep patients vs. acquiring a new patient, since they know and trust. It is possible to sell them products and/or services without needing to start from scratch. Notably, targeted email campaigns allow you to do this. Staying connected helps build loyalty, leading individuals to move from being happy clients to being proactive cheerleaders of your practice!

Hiring An Aesthetic Brand Marketing Strategist and Consultant for Your Practice

The best part about all of these aesthetic brand marketing tools that help your practice attract and convert new patients is that you don’t have to do it all yourself! There are many aesthetic digital marketing agencies and aesthetic consultants who are specialized in your industry. I am one of them and would be delighted to discuss the next steps in helping your practice take advantage of aesthetic brand marketing to achieve its business goals. Contact me today!