If you are looking for plastic surgery marketing tips & ideas with action items, you’ve landed on the right website. However, generally looking for this type of content means that your practice needs more patients. After all, if patients were flooding into your office you likely would have zero interest in reading about plastic surgery marketing tips. Being solely intertwined with plastic surgery practices for the last 5+ years we’re happy to share these tips, if you just want the results without worrying about doing the work and only paying if it works, check out our plastic surgeon marketing company benefits.
There are several ways to acquire patients and they will take one of two things. Time, money, or a combination of time and money. For this reason, we’ve tried to lay out proven plastic surgery marketing tips that are known to generate patient inquiries.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Ideas & Tips Table of Contents:
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- Pay Per Consultation™ Marketing
- Patient Reactivation Campaign
- Patient Review Generation
- Blogging Campaign
- Strategic Partnerships
- Following Up with Historical Leads
- Instagram Influencer Marketing
- Patient Referral Campaign
- Search Engine Optimization
- Google Ads – PPC Management
- Facebook Paid Ads
- TikTok Paid Ads
- Remnant Newspaper Space
- Unsold TV Space
- RealSelf Advertising
- Billboard Advertising
- Sponsoring a Procedure for Someone in Need
- Offering a Scholarship to Students
- Organic Social Media Management
- Live Chat Integration
- Conversion Rate Optimization
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #1 – Pay Per Consultation™ Marketing
Stop paying expensive retainers for plastic surgery marketing services. Only Pay Per Consultation™. Because you landed on this blog post shows that you have an interest in plastic surgery marketing tips means that you simply need more patients. Advertising for Surgeons have pioneered the advertising space for surgeons by creating the very first Pay Per Consultation™ marketing campaigns.
Meaning, there are zero monthly retainer costs associated with our service at AdvertisingForSurgeons.com. You only pay when patients show up. That means we run your advertising. Our team handles all of the SEO, PPC, Social Media Ads, Review Management & Generation, Conversion Rate Optimization; everything. All for $0.00 per month. We’re only paid when actual virtual consultations or in-person consultations show up.
Action Item: Review the How it Works Page, then click on apply now if you are ready to start getting patients. If you have questions, click on the schedule a call now button found on the How it Works Page.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #2 – Patient Reactivation Campaign
Looking for quick wins? Some risk free marketing tips that you can utilize to grow your practice are actually right in front of you. Many plastic surgery practices have been around for quite some time unless you are a startup. If you are a startup, this strategy will not be applicable.
You can utilize a patient reactivation campaign. If you’ve been around for 5+ years you have done 100s of procedures. Your customers are your biggest advocates. As you likely know, several patients continue wanting more procedures after their first procedure. Utilizing a patient reactivation campaign keeps you at the forefront of their thoughts. You should plan your campaign strategically.
Action Item: Take your patient who has had fantastic results and create a before and afters that you are able to use. Do this with your most popular procedures. (I.e – Rhinoplasty & Facelift) Create an email campaign for all emails you have. Create a subject line – Patient Spotlight – Our Latest Transformation. People love looking at before and afters and if they have a similar problem area, they’ll likely be very engaged. Offer a free gift along with a consultation to get them in the office. Offer a face cream or something else small to get them in the door. It is then your job to sell that patient another procedure. This is a risk-free marketing method that will cost you $0.00.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #3 – Patient Review Generation Campaigns
Your third plastic surgery marketing tip is all about those reviews. One free way to start generating more patients is having better reviews or matching the reviews of 5-star rated competition. It is nearly impossible to please every single person. We’ve seen 1-star reviews left because there was a 5 minute hold time.
To defend against having a low rating on Google My Business, you will want to have as many 5-star reviews as possible. Asking each patient after their visit to leave a 5-star review is critical. Some companies have incentivized this by offering a free gift like a moisturizer although it is important to note that this is against Google’s Guidelines. But if you see a competitor with 100 5-star reviews, you likely know why.
Action Item: Create a flyer at the front office desk so patients see they are encouraged to leave a review. Several people will generally want to help your practice if you offered a relatively good experience. It is human nature to want to help. Just be sure to deliver an optimal experience. Having good rankings is one factor which can help you rank well on Google!
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #4 – Blogging Campaign
There are mixed reviews when it comes to blogging and the impact it has on plastic surgery practices. However, it is very important from an SEO standpoint to blog. Where others state “blogging doesn’t work” it is simply because it wasn’t done correctly. Done correctly, blogging can allow you to gain visibility on the topics you write about. Consistency is key.
Just consider this. If there were just two plastic surgery websites and one updated their blog weekly with a 500 word post while the other updated their blog once every 6 months with a 500 word post, which do you think offers more value to the visitors? Of course, the one with more blogs. Google rewards websites which offer value to its readers!
Action Item: Take a look at the competitors in different popular markets and see what they are writing about. Make your own spin. A general rule of thumb is to also see what is doing well in your own market and make your content better by going more in-depth, looking at an alternate view point, etc. Create a plan to start blogging as much as you can.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #5 – Strategic Partnerships
Sometimes the best plastic surgery marketing tips are the ones no one is thinking about. Strategic partners are a relatively untapped source of patients that are hard to lose once you have a good relationship with them. You might be thinking, who would make a good strategic partner for my practice? Well, consider this. What about physicians who do gastric bypass surgeries? Surely their patients will lose significant weight and will have significant skin remaining after their weight loss. You can also refer patients who request liposuction but do not qualify. Another example would be partnering with a
Action Item: Identify bariatric surgeons and other ideal strategic partners that you can form two-way relationships with. The value you can provide them is patients and vice versa. The best partnerships work two-ways. Many physicians are open to the idea of creating a referral network.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #6 – Follow Up With Historical Leads
Similar to the patient reactivation campaign, there are also patients who have expressed interest but for one reason or another never proceeded to book a procedure. Hopefully, your note taking was great and you can easily follow up with those who didn’t proceed. This has a fantastic ROI because you have already invested the money into marketing and generating the lead. They just never ended up showing up.
You can go back to the very first leads. Often, people just don’t have a good action threshold and may have been “putting it off” and may view your follow up as “OK, I just need to get this done”. Like most marketing tips, it is a numbers game so don’t be discouraged if you don’t get patients right away. Even one procedure could make this exercise worth it.
Action Item: Have a staff member reach out to these historical leads as a member of your Quality Assurance team. Ask if they are still interested in a procedure. If so, great! You just scored a patient! If not, ask what your team could have done better or the reason for not moving forward. This way, you can use this data to improve your conversion rates in the future that lead to a booked procedure.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #7 – Instagram Influencer Marketing
Instagram is a fantastic place to advertise as people are mainly obsessed with selfies, images of themselves, etc. With time, it will work. You can play to this by marketing organically on Instagram. You can create a rather strong following by posting your before and afters with proper hashtags. Utilize tools to research which hashtags to use so you can maximize your visibility. Identify local influencers in your market.
This allows you to piggyback off an already established large following. The downside to this type of marketing is that it takes quite some time to start “snowballing” and seeing a return on the time investment. The influencer marketing strategy may or may not work and is dependent upon the type of followers, amount of followers, your messaging, if your messaging resonates, etc.
Action Item: Try to research which hashtags are most popular. You can also identify local influencers who have a large following and have them “shout you out”. Having a strong message tailored to their following base will go a long way as well as image selection.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #8 – Patient Referral Campaign
Word of mouth is a huge driver of business for many types of surgeons. Especially with plastic surgeons. You’ll want to create some sort of loyalty program to your brand advocates who are your walking billboards. Perhaps offer a discount of 10% for a future procedure when any patient has referred 3 patients to you. You can determine the economics of the patient referral campaign but this is a great way to stay engaged with your past patients and incentivize them to get the word out and have their friends / family reach out to your office.
Action Item: Consider what is a fair amount to offer as a discount when a patient refers to X amount of patients. Do an email blast to your past patients describing your new patient referral campaign along with the benefits.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #9 – Search Engine Optimization
SEO is proven to work and is a fantastic plastic surgery marketing tip. However, it will take quite some time. This especially holds true in competitive markets where surgeons are routinely paying thousands per month to try and take the #1 spot for their desired keywords. SEO is extremely technical and an in-depth subject. It requires your website being coded properly, secure, fast, having high quality content, having a sound website architecture, having high quality backlinks and more. It is quite the task to just “pick it up and learn”.
Action Item: Consider researching companies that specialize only in plastic surgery SEO. You don’t want a company that is a generalist as you’ll be teaching them about your industry, what you can and can not say, etc. Buyer beware – Many plastic surgery marketing agencies charge an arm and a leg with a monthly retainer and require a contract with no guarantees. Advertising for Surgeons does SEO for free (no retainer) and you only pay us when patients show up! We call this Pay Per Consultation. Click here to learn more.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #10 – Google Ads Pay Per Click Management
Having your ads show up when someone searches for the procedures your practice specializes in can have a fantastic impact on the amount of interested eyeballs that hit your website. You can learn more about plastic surgeon PPC management here as we have an entire page dedicated to giving you valuable information.
Action Item: Similar to SEO, you’ll want a company that solely focuses on Plastic Surgeon Google Ads management. Buyer Beware – many companies will charge thousands per month to manage your campaign without guarantees. Advertising for Surgeons offers Pay Per Consultation campaigns so you only pay when patients show up to a consultation. 100% of your money goes to Ad-Spend. Click here to learn more.Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #11 – Facebook Paid Ads
If you don’t know what a Facebook pixel is or don’t have one installed on your website, that is a shame. If you’ve been paying for marketing services you could have been building a nice list. The list is created by the Pixel of who your ideal client is. Facebook does a fantastic job at finding others who match the buyer persona of leads generated from your website. You can learn more about the Pixel here. Another way around this is that if you’ve kept a list of all your previous patients, you can upload them as a lookalike audience. It is the next best thing and surely better than nothing. Facebook will then do its job to display your ads to those who “look like” your typical patient.
Action Item: If you are investing into online marketing and generating leads, you should have a Facebook pixel installed to let it season (age). The longer it is on your website, the better. You’ll generally want it on for at least 3 months to acquire strong data.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #12 – TikTok Paid Ads
TikTok paid ads for plastic surgeons is the newest of all choices on this list. For that reason, there is no strong data showing the effectiveness however TikTok is offering businesses $300 plus dollars in credits to try it out. There are over 800 million users according to this article so if you’ve tapped the most traditional recommendations it might be worth trying a campaign based on a tight radius of your location.
Action Item: Head over to TikTok.com and claim that free $300 before they take it away. Be sure to closely track the results by using Google Analytics’ URL builder so you can ensure that if any leads are generated you are made aware and can track your ROI.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #13 – Remnant Newspaper Space
Remnant newspaper space is also known as “standby space” and it is a quick way for newspapers to sell left over space that other advertisers didn’t purchase. You can typically get these at a huge discount of 80% or more sometimes! Keep in mind, this is an “outbound” marketing initiative so unless you have a very strong offer the likelihood of your practice getting flooded with inbound inquiries is slim. However, if you’ve tapped out locally online with the above suggestions, this might be a great idea to test out on a small scale.
Action Item: Contact your local newspapers that are large and have a wide distribution. Ask them what are their policies for unused advertising space. You’ll want to ask them this prior to telling them you are working for a plastic surgery practice. This is because many companies will just see dollar signs and try to sell you into a more costly practice.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #14 – Unsold TV Space
Just like the above suggestion, the same can apply for TV space. If your practice is in a higher-income area, the likelihood of TV advertising working is greater. Be sure to highlight financing plans as several households do not have $7,000.00 liquid cash sitting in their bank and if they do it is likely for emergencies. The less out of pocket costs for the patient the better when doing outbound advertising. Try to have your entire messaging to be as closely targeted to the majority of your geographical demographic. For instance, you wouldn’t to advertise a facelift on TV if the majority of your geographical demographics are in the 24-45 age group.
Action Item: Contact your local networks and inquire about advertising with unused TV space. Sometimes this will be during odd hours. Similar to above, keep in mind that this is outbound advertising and your commercial must do a great job at convincing someone that a patient consultation is worth their time in a short amount of time.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #15 – RealSelf Advertising
RealSelf advertising reviews are hit or miss. The investment in RealSelf Advertising can be expensive but if you acquire patients from their advertising and are generating a positive return on investment it is likely a great marketing source. It is always our recommendation to start slowly with any new advertising source that requires upfront payment for marketing services that are on-going.
Action Item: Contact RealSelf to learn more about what they can offer. Ask them the minimum advertising spend that you can do on a trial basis. Ensure that there are no contracts. Be sure to ask about reviews as some have complained about poor reviews. Track the results closely by using Google URL builder which will feed data into Google Analytics.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #16 – Billboard Advertising
Billboard advertising is a great branding marketing strategy. For plastic surgery practices that are already thriving and want to cement themselves as the go-to plastic surgery firm in their area, billboards are large and powerful ways of advertising to solidify yourself as the market leader in your area. Some plastic surgery practices have taken the comedic route while others have taken the serious / upscale look. The design you use will directly correlate to how the public perceives your practice.
Action Item: Contact a local outdoor billboard company and ask them about their rates and contrast. Most billboards will require a commitment. The costs will be directly correlated with the amount of views the billboard gets. Usually, main highway billboards get the most views. You can also request information and pricing differences for dynamic billboards that are digital and static billboards.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #17 – Sponsoring a Procedure
There are many instances where someone locally in the community experiences a tragedy without the financial means to procure needed procedures. The amount of positive press you can potentially receive is significant. Of course, this is individualistic to the individual you are helping, the circumstances which caused their need, etc. This section is something that also supports your local community and any additional intended benefit such as positive press should be secondary to the act of helping someone in need.
Action Item: Keep your eyes and ears open for those who are in desperate need of your services due to an unknown situation. Reaching out and helping that person can potentially go very long ways.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #18 – Offering a Scholarship to Students
In addition to securing valuable backlinks which helps significantly with SEO (especially if you are in a competitive area), giving back to those in need who achieve fantastic grades is a great way to give back to the community. Certainly, if your local community sees you are being supportive of college students it may be the determining factor if a patient is indifferent as to which plastic surgery practice they will choose.
Action Item: Determine the amount of your scholarship. Typically we’ve seen companies offer anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000. The more money, the higher the chances you’ll get approved. Create a scholarship page on your website and compile a list of plastic surgery universities & colleges such as Harvard, Yale, etc. After you create the scholarship page, reach out the appropriate department which handles their scholarships.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #19 – Organic Social Media Management
With organic social media management on Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc; you are frequently updating your profile as well as utilizing hashtags to allow potential patients to discover your work. For instance, you can use #transformationtuesday and post a before and after of your patients. If someone sees that you did fantastic work with someone who appears somewhat similar to them or they want a similar outcome, you might find yourself generating some inbound inquiries. It will take consistency.
Action Item: You can utilize a service where you create several posts for social media and drip them out. This way, if an office staff member has some free time…you can have them create several posts in advance. Again, you’ll want to utilize relevant hashtags and also utilize geographical cities close to your practice so widen your reach.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #20 – Live Chat Integration
Marketing is all about attracting leads. With Live Chat, you will certainly increase the number of leads that reach out to your practice. Some patients just have a quick question and will not call or fill out a form on a website to get their simple question answered. By not having Live Chat, you are missing out on these valuable lead sources. Giving people as many options to contact you as possible is very important in such a competitive day and age. It is extremely cheap and likely has the best bang for the buck in terms of lead generation.
Action Item: Look into reputable LiveChat providers. One of the largest is Olark. Several of them allow you to forward messages to a cell phone so you can always have a staff member available to take those message requests.
Plastic Surgery Marketing Tip #21 – Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion rate optimization is another huge bang for the buck if your website is established and already has traffic going to it whether by organic, social media, or paid traffic. This is the art and science of utilizing proven design templates, call to actions, and having an easy user experience. For instance, if you are receiving 1 lead out of every 100 visitors, your conversion rate is 1%. Now imagine if you could get 10 leads out of every 100 visitors at a 10% conversion rate. With the same exact traffic, ad-spend, etc; you are receiving 10x the amount of leads.
Action Item: Ensure your phone number is click-to-call. Ensure you have a strong call to action. Ensure you have a form on your website. Ensure your content is well spaced and titled to make it easy for your visitors to quickly find the information they are looking for.
Wrapping it Up – Still With Us?
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- Our goal was to give you all the possible ways you can advertise. As you can see, surgeon marketing can be quite involved! We’ve gotten pretty good at it over the last 5+ years. View our surgeon video testimonials or case studies page or learn how it works! It is our goal that you found this information helpful and you can implement some of the above items to rev up your patient inquiry count. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. If you are a busy patient coordinator or surgeon, you can allow our team to handle your marketing for you without a monthly retainer. Only pay us when a patient shows up! We’re redefining the industry. With our model we’re in this together. Our goal is to make money with you. Not from you. Let us know if you’d like us to add any other plastic surgery marketing tips that we may have missed which work for you! It is our goal that you can utilize some of these cosmetic surgeon marketing ideas to take your practice to the next level. Did we fail to mention any good ones? Let us know in the comments if there are any other Plastic Surgery marketing tips & ideas you’d like to see added!