Your patients and prospects, like all Americans, spend a crazy amount of time on their phones. What’s the best way to reach them while they’re busy scrolling, typing and swiping? Let’s take a look at some of the top aesthetic marketing trends, and find out which ones are most relevant to the medical space, and elective healthcare in particular.
Apps
Mobile app usage is enormous and only getting enormouser (is that a word?). Social media apps still reign supreme in terms of downloads and time-in-app, but a wider range of apps are sucking up a bigger and bigger portion of mobile screen time. Think about apps such as those that help you manage money, find a date, listen to the latest music, or take some of the chore out of almost any other aspect of life.
So does this mean your aesthetic practice needs an app? Our answer remains the same as it was a decade ago – probably not. The cost/benefit ratio of this marketing tactic just doesn’t pan out. Apps take time to develop and customize, and they need to be maintained. If you list them for sale in the Google and Apple app stores, you’ll take a 15% haircut on any sales right off the bat. But more likely, your app will need to be free. What is the value proposition for the end user? What can they get that they couldn’t already see on your website? And what will keep them coming back to the app over time? These are hard questions and we think the answers still point to apps for aesthetic practices not making a whole lot of sense.
Mobile Commerce
It’s easier than ever to make a purchase on your phone. Does that mean all your medical procedures and treatments should be added to a mobile store for instant online orders? Probably not. But what about skincare products you sell? Again, it’s important to take a step back and evaluate the cost/benefit. Setting up a mobile store can cost $1,000 or more. And to get orders, you’ll have to match or beat the lowest price for each product on the web. The margins are razor thin.
We think it makes the most sense to sell and promote products in person at your aesthetic practice, rather than trying to move that business online. But keep in mind the ease of mobile payments when offering payment options for consultations or even your primary services. Many people want or even expect the ability to pay for anything you offer using their phone.
Mobile Gaming
People spend a large amount of time playing games on their phones. Does this mean your office needs to launch a game? Almost certainly not. But it is important to understand the underlying idea that many people just want to spend some time having some fairly mindless fun on their devices. Consider adding marketing features like a treatment planner to your aesthetic website to give more interactivity and a fun way to explore your services.
User-Generated Content
This is a big one in the social media space. Our most successful aesthetic marketing clients on social media encourage regular user content submissions, such as contests, video challenges, and stories. We know firsthand how hard it is to come up with fresh content on social media constantly. One way to ease the burden is to give your followers creative challenges and let their inspiring ideas shine through.
Influencer Marketing
Who exactly are these elusive “influencers” on social media? Chances are good that at least one of them is a current patient. The trick to leveraging influencers in aesthetic marketing is to uncover which of your patients is a “big deal” on social media. In many cases, influencers are outgoing folks who have no issues promoting far and wide that they’ve built a big list of followers. So you may already have a patient or two in mind. If not, have your social media team do some sleuthing to find the folks with large followings in your local market. From there, it’s about having a conversation about how the influencer sees your message tying into the brand they’ve built on social.
Chatbots
Chatbots have been “just on the horizon” for many years now. Honestly, we’re a bit disappointed with the sophistication of current chatbot technology, and it feels like it’s stalled out in the past couple of years. That said, a simple chatbot system such as Apex Chat can lighten the load on your front office staff a bit by answering simple questions about your hours, payment policies, and other basic information. Offering a bit of customer service after hours and on weekends is in most cases better than no support at all, and creates a lifeline for you to connect with those prospects personally when your staff is available.
Text and Email
As we’ve said many times, both of these platforms remain excellent aesthetic marketing channels to stay in touch with their patient base. Text message open rates are reported to be as high as 98%. Email opens are substantially lower, but don’t discount the value of your brand showing up in a patient’s Inbox every few months. Just seeing a message from you, even if they never open it, helps to keep you top of mind when it’s time for their next procedure or treatment.