Due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus), many aesthetic professionals may find themselves with some down time, making this a great opportunity to work on business plans, website updates and marketing campaigns. In this interview at Aesthetic Insider™ Radio, Michael Antosy, Director of Sales and Business Development at Advice Media, shares with us many useful tips and tactics to update your website and digital platform, as well as other patient outreach and retention ideas. To learn more about Advice Media, visit www.advicemedia.com.
What are the best ways for doctors and industry professionals to continue to market their aesthetic practices during this time?
If you are an aesthetic practice or work in dentistry and now suddenly find yourself with some time on your hands, this is a great opportunity to create or update the photo gallery aspects of your website with those great results you have been documenting (before-and-after patient photos). Clients always tell me that they wish they had the time to get through their backlog of pictures and edit them for their websites. We find that the B&A galleries are highly trafficked and tremendously helpful to create website conversions. Aside from the homepage, on average, the B&A gallery is the second most visited page on every website, and it’s where we find that a lot of lead generation happens. If you do not have a B&A gallery on your website, now is a great time to get one started.
How effective is content and what content should be developed during this time?
Content is incredibly important to drive more traffic to your website. We find that well written content and Q&As on your services and procedures with the appropriate key words relating to that topic increase Google rankings. You should have a dedicated page of content for every procedure or service you offer at your practice. Now is a good time to take this opportunity and write at least ten Q&As each day on services you offer. Continue to do this every day, and you will give yourself the gift of extremely valuable content. Think about the kinds of questions patients ask because the way they ask you the question is the same way they searched that question, whether in a typed Google search, or voice searches input through Siri or Alexa. Your answers should be exactly what you would say to a patient in the office. That way it is your voice, your philosophy, and your vibe. This unique, original content is exactly what Google wants.
What about key words?
Keyword ranking is certainly important, but being specialized in aesthetic digital marketing, at Advice Media, we’ve found a ton of success in the long-tail keyword format (Q&A’s). Patients, as you know, typically sit on decisions to undergo cosmetic surgery for quite some time. By the time a patient goes in for surgery, it could have been months, if not years, of decision making. Typically, those patients that search in this long-tail keyword format are ready to take action because they are asking deeper level discovery questions that indicate they are closer to making a decision. Structuring your content in this way will help your website get in front of a higher quality patient that is ready to take action, which is helpful for your bottom line.
Should I be using video in my marketing and how?
YouTube content is a fantastic content asset to add to your website’s procedure pages. YouTube is the world’s #2 search engine behind Google, and being that both search engines are owned by Google, great video content on your services and procedures not only helps with your website’s SEO, but it also greatly helps with increasing your conversions on specific procedures. Our brains are wired to be visual and having video content helps to sell your services and convert more patients. According to Neil Patel, consumers are 64-85% more likely to make a purchasing decision after watching a video, bringing you an additional revenue source. Creating great video content doesn’t have to be a Hollywood level production either. Shooting horizontally on your iPhone or Android while having good lighting on your face will do the job, will look natural and can be engaging.
What about Reviews? How important are they right now?
Reviews are always very important for any healthcare practice, as 65% of consumers will look at a practice’s Google Review page before going to their website, so in many ways, your Google reviews are the first impression that a patient has of you. I often talk about how important Google Reviews are for a practice because, well, they are! While (Google) reviews benefit a web presence not just by helping to increase a website’s traffic and also converting more leads, as of March 20th, Google is limiting some functionality of its platform to account for the work constraints that COVID-19 is having on Google’s staff. Google reviews are unfortunately part of the expected limitations that Google is enacting. For more information on this, please click here. My personal belief is that Google is also doing this to protect small businesses from potential negative reviews that might be created as a result of the Corona Virus (i.e. Giving a 1-star review because a practice’s office hours have been affected and that made someone unhappy). With that said, remember this is a temporary suspension, and practices always need to be in the mindset of working to build more positive reviews. I recommend that this would be a great opportunity for doctors to look at patients whom have recently come in, and plan to reach out at the appropriate time to ask that patient for feedback in the form of a review. Satisfied patients will be happy to know they’re doing your practice a benefit by helping you hit the pavement again by discussing how great their experience was at your office.
Is there anything else that doctors should be concentrating on during this time?
A Digital “Do-Over”. Now is an excellent opportunity to up your marketing game. Some practices are going to bury their heads in the sand and hope things get better. Others are going to take the bull by the horns and take this opportunity to create a genuinely fantastic web presence. Those that do will gain market share and skyrocket when things return to a more normal state. Those that don’t will continue to be seated at the back of the auditorium, so to speak. No one has a crystal ball to know whether that will be in one, four, or six months, but what we do know is that we will come out of this and those that pay attention to their practice marketing now will come out winners.
Questions to ask yourself:
1. Is your website generating leads at high levels?
2. Are you ranking well for at least 500 keywords?
3. Is your social media engagement reaching a high percentage of your followers?
4. When was the last time you had a productive conversation with your digital marketing company?
5. Does your marketing company proactively offer you guidance, or do you need to tell them what to always be doing?
If you do not know, or answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, then it’s a sign you are not generating the value or revenue from your web presence, and need a “Digital Do-Over.”
What can Advice Media do for aesthetic providers right now?
We are offering several fantastic incentives to help aesthetic providers come out ahead of the competition. We are helping customers prepare a 360-degree overview of their entire web presence including and analysis of: how the site is performing, where leads are coming from, practice reviews, social media, future digital marketing efforts and ideas. Take this time to sit down (virtually) with one of our consultants to develop a vector for your practice
To listen to the interview with Michael Antosy at Aesthetic Insider™ Radio, CLICK HERE!
To learn more about Michael Antosy and Advice Media, visit their website at www.advicemedia.com.