Increasing demand means harsher patient acquisition competition. Therefore, your practice group must have an effective and scalable cosmetic and plastic surgery marketing strategy focusing on expanding online visibility and enhancing the patient experience.
The Importance of Digital Marketing to Plastic & Cosmetic Surgeons
Cosmetic surgeons and plastic surgeons may seem similar, but they each have their own specialties. Plastic surgery focuses on the reconstruction of facial or body defects due to birth disorders, trauma such as burns from fire accidents, and illnesses like melanoma skin or breast cancers.
In contrast, cosmetic surgeons specialize in enhancing a patient’s appearance with procedures ranging from facelifts, breast implantation, and rhinoplasty.
However, both need to use the internet to reach potential patients.
There are a number of reasons why someone might not be aware of the surgeries that can help them. It could be that they don’t know such surgeries exist if they’re new. Or they may not have access to reliable information about these procedures. As a result, they may never learn about the potentially life-changing benefits that these surgeries could offer. This is where digital channels can play an important role, and help you educate consumers and build demand for your services.
When it comes to complex and challenging surgical procedures, patients want to be sure that they are working with the absolute best surgeon. Thanks to the Internet, they can now conduct extensive research to find the surgeon who meets their needs. As a result, it is more important than ever for surgeons to ensure they are visible online and provide accurate and reliable information about their services. Doing so can ensure that patients have the information they need to make informed decisions about their care.
Website: Your Digital Front Door
Websites are vital for plastic and cosmetic surgery providers because that’s the first place consumers look to learn more about you.
According to a recent survey, website experience influences 97% of decisions made by consumers. A well-designed website that provides a better user experience often leaves the site visitor with a positive first impression. Similarly, a poorly-designed website often makes visitors think the business is careless and unprofessional.
Make Your Images Shine
Think of how people look for new lipsticks or eyeshadows. Likewise, plastic surgery marketing strategies should heavily focus on visuals for the same reasons. Therefore, high-quality images are essential for cosmetic surgery websites.
If you offer cosmetic plastic surgery, show your audience the before and after, highlighting the new and improved features of your patients. Meanwhile, if you offer reconstructive services, nothing speaks more than a comparison with and without traumatic wounds.
Also, optimize your images for mobile viewing and SEO purposes. For example, fill out descriptive alt text to improve accessibility and double-check image size and resolution on mobile devices. Your photographs should load fast and look good on all devices.
Plastic Surgery Website Best Practices
Of course, you can implement other best practices to optimize your website further. Some top tactics include
- Use a simple and easy-to-navigate site architecture that makes it easy for users to find information.
- Optimize for the mobile with responsive designs and fast-loading content.
- Create multiple ways to convert, including contact forms, direct calendar booking, click-to-call, etc.
- Use sticky CTAs, so it’s easy for users to contact you on any device.
- Provide comprehensive, robust information on treatment programs, surgeon credentials, organization information, and more.
- Showcase success stories and testimonials with photographs.
Get Discovered With SEO
Now that you have an optimized website, it’s time to expand your digital presence so consumers can discover your services while researching. Indeed, the best way to get discovered is by investing in SEO.
On-Page and Technical SEO
On-page and technical optimization builds a solid foundation for your keyword strategy to show its power. It also allows your existing website to perform at its maximum without creating any new content.
Full-Funnel Content Strategy
Plastic surgeons should create a full-funnel content strategy with a heavier focus on MOF and BOF content. Start with keyword research and separate them based on funnel position.
Some top-of-the-funnel (TOF) keywords that can generate demand for cosmetic surgery:
- Is it safe to get your boobs done?
- Are scar removal surgeries legit?
- How old do you need to be to get plastic surgery?
Middle-of-the-funnel (MOF) keywords:
- Do I need open or closed rhinoplasty?
- Are one-stitch facelifts effective?
- What is the recovery time for liposuction?
- How much does lip augmentation cost?
Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOF) keywords:
- Plastic surgeon near me
- Burn scar removal near me
- Certified cosmetic surgeons boston
You can develop blog content to create TOF content, while MOF and BOF content is communicated through your service and location pages.
As long as you stick to the full-funnel content strategy supported by a comprehensive keyword list, your web pages will soon become visible in front of people looking for an answer. Moreover, you can also use high-intent keywords and local keywords in Google PPC campaigns (more on that below).
Local SEO
While building up your long-term SEO results, don’t forget the low-hanging fruits — Yes, we’re talking about local SEO.
A recent study found that about 63% of patients prefer a provider closer to their home. Therefore, local SEO can effectively fill up your pipeline by capturing high-intent BOF leads in your target areas.
A few great methods to build your local visibility are
- Creating citations and listings on trustworthy platforms like Zocdoc and TripAdvisor
- Optimizing your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)
- Creating a geographical keyword strategy
- Optimize your website’s location pages
Whether it’s your listings, GMB profiles, or location pages, always use information unique to each location instead of general copy. For example, provide detailed descriptions regarding your treatment programs, practicing surgeons, insurance, and payment policies for each specific practice location.
Own Your Cosmetic Surgery Center’s Digital Reputation
Like all other healthcare services, your reputation could make or break you. Consumers are highly critical of plastic surgery because it is, after all, an intrusive procedure that can impact how they’re viewed in the world. Whenever there are risks involved, consumers tend to be more cautious.
A study found that 90% of patients use online reviews to help them decide. The same study also found that 43% of patients would even go with an out-of-network provider if they have excellent reviews. An outstanding online reputation also helps you get more high-quality referral leads.
Online Reputation Management Best Practices
Start by collecting more positive reviews via review farms, asking in-person at the checkout desk, or leveraging a review solicitation software.
Once you have some quality reviews, showcase them on your website’s About Us or testimonial section. Alternatively, highlight them on your GMB and directory listings. You should also add press or professional recognitions your surgeons received to your media or blog section.
Meanwhile, pay attention to complaints and take the initiative to resolve the problem. Your response could still highlight your professionalism even if the patient refuses to change the negative review.
Get the Most Out of Cosmetic Surgery PPC Campaigns
SEO takes time to show results; it’s not something you can build in a month and get immediate results. That’s where Google PPC campaigns come in.
Google Ads are great ways to capture high-intent leads at their decision-making moment. It places your plastic or cosmetic surgery at top of the SERP and could have a significant return if combined with an effective website.
Choosing Your Account Structure
Define your target audience based on your advertising goals, budget, and available services. Then, it’s time to build your account structure.
Today’s Google Ads account structure is a spectrum going from consolidated to segmented. A consolidated account features larger ad groups to maximize impressions. The primary advantage is how rapidly consolidated accounts collect data for Google’s AI-powered bidding tool to optimize your spending. Meanwhile, a segmented account gives you more control and works great with multi-location plastic surgery groups that designate separate budgets for each location.
Nonetheless, plastic surgery providers most frequently use a hybrid account to take advantage of the consolidated structure’s efficiency and the segmented structure’s overall control.
Optimizing For a Better Performance
A/B testing is always a great way to optimize your Google PPC campaigns. Try different ad messaging, extensions, ad formats, and landing page optimizations to find the winning combinations.
Meanwhile, optimize your ads for a better mobile experience because most consumers nowadays are researching on their phones. Similarly, call-only ads can capture mobile leads when their buying intention peaks.
Finally, create unique landing pages for each campaign following all website best practices. Ensure your patients receive information that aligns with their search intent and makes conversions easy.
Social Media Advertising For Cosmetic Surgery Centers
Cosmetic surgeons should develop a visual-centric social media marketing strategy. Therefore, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and even Pinterest are all great platforms to explore.
Tailor your organic social content for TOF and MOF consumers. Use appealing images like before-and-after comparisons to generate interest and demand. Meanwhile, showcasing positive reviews and patient success stories establish your credibility.
At the same time, develop a full-funnel paid social strategy to cover every step in your patient journey. However, only tap into paid social media ads after you’ve maximized your BOF lead capturing with Google PPC campaigns!
Measuring Cosmetic Surgery Marketing ROI
You need visibility and clarity to create a sustainable plastic and cosmetic surgery marketing strategy that grows with your business. But, on the other hand, you also need data to find the underperforming campaigns so you can focus your spending and effort on ones with higher returns. Therefore, you can almost say data-driven marketing is the bread and butter of long-term performance and increased ROIs.
So, how should you measure your campaign performance?
Better marketing measurement requires you to focus on your organization’s people, activities, data, metrics, and technologies. Therefore, you need to centralize all data into one place and integrate your systems. Build a visualization dashboard with sharable and collaborative reports. Invest in analytics software that allows more effective communication within your marketing team and across departments.
Implementing Closed-Loop Reporting (CLR)
Plastic surgery centers should implement CLR like other healthcare providers to form informed, actionable insights. Before you launch a new campaign, you should understand what affects your audience’s decision-making process. And that’s exactly what CLR provides.
When implementing CLR, choosing the right attribution model based on your goal is the key to success:
- The first touch model tells you where patients come in. This provides insight into what campaign format is the most effective in getting the audience to respond.
- The last touch model tells you your patients’ preferred way to convert. Do they call you? Do they use your booking link? Therefore, this model can help you determine what format CTA you should use.
- The linear model works like a map since it attributes acquisition credits equally to each interaction your patient had until the final conversion.
- The multi-touch model is the most comprehensive and helps you to evaluate campaign efficiency throughout a patient’s journey by assigning proportioned credits to each step.
Conclusion
With plastic surgery marketing, patient experience always sits at the core. Build a robust website with appealing visuals and images to showcase the results your surgeries achieve, then leverage SEO, Google PPC, and social media to reach your consumers.
Once they’ve seen the results, capture them with a seamless patient experience and an undefeatable reputation. Why would anyone look at your competitors ever again?
