Top Marketing Strategies for Dermatology Practices

When marketing dermatology services, you simply can’t rush the process. Like the flawless skincare treatments you sell your patients, time is a key player here. That’s not to say that you have to wait an eternity before you witness any considerable sales numbers though. Not at all. 

You see the thing is, aging is a natural phenomenon. The population is always aging, so, in effect, you’re always to be in business. The trick lies though in ensuring that a great fraction of the aging population wants to check out what cosmetic interventions you provide. By assuring this population that their youthfulness can be rejuvenated with a touch here and there, you’ll be in business. 

It’s not so straightforward though. For one, there’s a ton of dermatology practices vying for the same demographics as you are. That’s not a heartbreak moment though, it’s more of a head-up moment. With such knowledge, you can effectively plan on how to put your practice on the map. 

To successfully carry out marketing dermatology, you need careful planning, good management, and ready to embrace these strategies in your practice today:

1. Think Local

While it’s true that all the world is a stage, to access it all, you need to take it one step at a time. First, you need to evaluate what services you’re ready to offer your patients. Once that’s locked, you need to have your local market at the top of your mind. This is crucially important as your local market is going to play a key role in providing you with a steady stream of income before you blow up and make it big.

Notably, general dermatology is guaranteed to provide you with a solid patient base. That said, if you want to play in the major leagues, you need to think about procedures that will earn you the most revenue. Importantly, you need to remember that procedures typically come with the best reimbursement rates. As such, it’s vital to have a good referral base so that you’re able to rake in more opportunities to attend to your patients. 

2. Put Yourself Out There

In this digital age we live in, reputation is everything. It doesn’t matter whether you’re just opening shop or you’re an expert in your field, media time is of the essence in contemporary times. This is because conversations with the media will help add some credibility to your practice. Given that perceptions tend to form easily in the public’s eye, doing this on a regular will have a good number of patients believing you’re the go-to guy in the dermatology field.

3. Think Positive

Marketing dermatology services is no child’s-play. You’re obviously going to encounter difficulties on the way. What will help you when this happens is a strong resolve to just keep pushing despite everything. It’s also worth documenting that word of mouth marketing is one of the best forms of marketing. This is affirmed by the fact that some 84 percent of consumers have confided that they trust recommendations from their near and dear ones. 

If you’re ready to tap into the power of word-of-mouth marketing, you must put more emphasis on providing a positive patient experience at your practice. Providing world-class services is your guaranteed ticket that your patients will be more than ready to recommend your dermatology practice to their friends, family members, and acquaintances. 

Not sure how to pull this off? Well, it’s important to first start with the basics. Things like respecting your patients’ time tend to go a long way in building a good rapport with patients. Ideally, you want to have an efficient booking and appointment system in place so that your patients don’t have to spend ages waiting for you to get to them. 

It also helps if your staff members are well trained and friendly. This way, they’ll be swift to communicate with your patients and provide the very best of services to them. Just as important also is to ensure that you regularly get patient feedback. Whether it takes the form of surveys or simple yes/no questions, you simply can’t ignore the power of feedback as it can help you better fine-tune things at your practice. 

4. It’s a Big, Big World on Social Media

Now that we’ve covered word-of-mouth marketing, it’s time for that next step. Social media can be explosive if you’re up for the challenge. While everyone else was still trying to figure out life, social media platforms have successfully managed to become behemoths in the business scene. As far as marketing dermatology services go, social media represents one of the finest hours in the field. This is because platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat can help create awareness about your brand, interact with patients, and land you new prospective patient leads. 

As we’ve just shared, there’s quite a number of platforms that exist in the market today. Rather than trying to establish a presence on all of them, we recommend focusing on just one or two of them. This way, you’ll be able to effectively customize your message to audiences. When marketing dermatology services, most people tend to forget that the goal of social media is to connect, and interact with patients. 

Having pointed this out, it’s also important to ensure you tread carefully. For this we recommend:

• Don’t share specific medical advice on your social media accounts
• Don’t blur your professional and personal profile
• Being mindful of HIPPA rules so you don’t violate them while you’re on social media platforms

5. Outsource Medical Billing and Coding to Boost Your Bottom Line

A business-minded approach will get you far in your practice. By outsourcing services like medical billing and coding, you’ll have more time to focus on your trade. Not only will you save more money in the long term, but you’re also guaranteed that revenue inflow issues will become a thing of the past. 

As a professional, you can’t always do everything yourself, irrespective of how well-intentioned you may be. At times, it becomes way too much noise and you find yourself with issues that are out of your depth. On the other hand, when you let professionals handle issues like billing and coding, you can have that peace of mind that allows you to focus on providing the best dermatological services. 

Summary

While we’re confident that the shared strategies will help you out, ultimately, it all boils down to what you make of them. Since there’s no one-size-fits-all formula, it’s up to you to tailor the shared pointers to suit individual patients’ needs. 

Should you happen to experience some difficulty in implementing the pointers, there’s no shame in asking for help. Start a conversation today with an aesthetic marketing consultant and get to learn how you can implement some of these dermatological strategies today.