Proven Strategies for Marketing A Plastic Surgery Practice

Today’s online landscape has created a highly competitive and ever-changing climate in which to market your business. For a plastic surgery practice, creating a competitive aesthetic marketing plan that is high-performing is relatively tricky. It’s essential to stand out, break through the noise, and be creative when marketing a plastic surgery practice. 

As an aesthetics practice marketing consultant, I’ve helped a number of plastic surgery practices craft marketing plans using aesthetics marketing ideas that are successful and deliver the results they need to compete in their market and achieve their business goals. Here are the proven marketing strategies that have withstood the test of time and delivered results for many plastic surgery practices.

Marketing A Plastic Surgery Practice

Your Brand’s Online Presence

To start an aesthetic brand marketing plan, create a distinctive, professional plastic surgery website, and build an online presence around that website. Produce a regularly updated website with fresh, precise, and appropriate information regarding plastic surgery procedures and methods. It’s imperative that you show off your expertise, talent, and results throughout your website, so don’t be shy! Creating a plan that consists of digital marketing for plastic surgeons is among the first step to marketing a plastic surgery practice properly.

Next, set up robust social media profiles to expand your brand’s online presence and brand awareness to a broader audience. Optimize your social media profiles by marketing a plastic surgery practice by highlighting your credentials, achievements, real patient before and after photos, testimonials, and, most of all, engage with the social media websites. I typically will recommend to plastic surgeons to establish a business Facebook page and Instagram page at the very least. Twitter can be helpful to start current and participate in industry news and local market happenings. All of this is based upon what you need and the availability of time to invest in each platform.

Lastly, make sure you have established local listings online across all relevant platforms like Google and Yelp, to name a few. It’s crucial to make sure when marketing a plastic surgery practice, all information on those business listings is up to date, accurate, and the same across all. Another ranking factor to consider to maximize your brand’s online presence is ensuring you have up to date listing in all relevant medical directories and listing, like RealSelf and HealthGrades, to name a few. Don’t forget to ensure your practice is listed as a distributor for the brands and equipment you use and sell in your plastic surgery practice, like Botox and medical-grade skincare lines, to name a few.

Engage and Connect with Your Local Market

Make an effort to be an active contributor and participant in the local market events and programs where your plastic surgery practice resides. Whenever possible, take part in local health fairs, women’s events, meetings, and conferences to spread knowledge about the most recent plastic surgery services available today. This is a great time when marketing a plastic surgery practice to learn more about your target audience and, ultimately, your customers. Learn about their doubts and concerns and share your experience, both offline and online.

Partner with Local Businesses and Build A Referral System

Often time when marketing a plastic surgery practice, it can seem like you’re so close to your target audience but yet can’t quite reach them. Partnering with a local business in the beauty or related industry is a great way to tap into your target audience through word of mouth. This can easily be implemented through a referral system agreement you work out with local businesses, like tanning or hair salons, to name a few. 

For example, one plastic surgery practice I helped as an aesthetic marketing consultant established a referral system with a local dentist to refer patients who were interested in more cosmetic surgery that goes beyond cosmetic dentistry. 

Open House or Happy Hour Meet and Greets

As you are well aware of when marketing a plastic surgery practice and marketing aesthetic services, it can be not easy to sell surgery of any kind in a warm, inviting, and palatable fashion. Surgery is scary for most people period. One way to overcome this is by hosting an open house where patrons and interested members of your community can see behind-the-scenes what the office looks like, and the procedures entail in a more casual setting. 

Another example of creating a relaxed setting for your patrons to bridge the conversation about invasive surgery is hosting a happy hour or meet and greet with your plastic surgeons. This takes off the pressure that someone may feel about a one-on-one consultation with a physician and creates a space to introduce and get to know someone. 

Share Your Expertise and Show Your Brand’s Personality 

Make yourself accessible as an authoritative specialist in the plastic surgery industry and your local market. When marketing a plastic surgery practice, consider local PR initiatives to share your experience like appearance on local news stations, print and digital magazines, or newsletters to educate on plastic surgery options today and inform on any pressing health problems. If local PR is not in your current budget, then an alternative is hosting seminars in your specialization fields. This is basically free and only requires your time and can be marketed using free platforms like social media, your current network, and email. 

It’s important throughout any form you use to share your expertise with your local market that you show off your brand’s personality. People work with people they like, and you would be surprised by some of the reasons people choose their physician for a plastic surgery procedure. It’s not always what you think, so it’s important to not be so formal all the time and be a human!

Gather and Share Patient Reviews

Surely you know the value of patient reviews when marketing a plastic surgery practice. I don’t need to tell you why they are so valuable to your brand, but I will tell you that you need a system in place for asking and gathering your patient reviews. This is the only way you are going to get them is if you ask right away and make it so easy for a patient to give you the review of their experience. This is how you’re going to share those tremendously satisfied patient reviews across your business listings and highlight your website and social media profiles. 

Turning Happy Patients into Brand Ambassadors

It’s important to keep in touch with happy patients of your practice, and social media is one easy way to do that. Creating relationships with your patients will turn into your very best new ambassadors, spreading the fantastic word about you. This is the way you impress folks. Taking the time to listen from the start and personalize their experience with your practice is the first step to ensuring patient satisfaction. Continuing the relationship ever after the surgery and recovery period only ensures your name and your practice will come up the next time someone asks your patient why they look renewed and who is the best plastic surgeon in town!

Distribute Brand Swag

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it still works. From the clothes and scrubs your staff wears to the pens you use in the lobby, having your brand name and branding consistent across the board increases the subconscious introductions a patient has with your brand. A few ideas for distributing branded swag are ordering printed diaries and note pads, refrigerator magnet business cards, and event T-shirts or hats for purchase to help raise money for a local organization or a cause. 

Check out this blog for more plastic surgery advertising ideas.