Push Your Medical Spa Overboard With Customer Service

Some of the best marketing for your medical spa is not 'marketing' at all... it's incredible customer service.

(A regular physicians office is probably the very worst customer experience there is... and of course many medical spas are run by physicians who have started a cosmetic practice as an add or or a transition from a regular practice.)

Customer service is probably the easiest way to distance yourself from the competition.

Read the forums and you'll find lots of threads discussing how commoditized the market for Botox or laser hair removal has become, how much to pay your staff, and how Groupon is destroying everyone's margins... but you'll be hard pressed to find discussions about how to deliver service that generates sales.

But delivering great customer service is something that you should think of as driving sales, not lost time and a money-sink.

Our clinic staff operations were designed to provide fantastic customer service to everyone, but to really go above and beyond with selected patients in an effort to wow them, even if it cost us money. In fact, wowing patients had budget set aside from marketing.

 The key is make your customer ecstatic about your business by catering to what they need so they’ll tell their friends about it. In fact the more egregious the demand or the more dramatic the effort needed, the more likely that word about your clinic will spread. As anyone in cosmetic medicine can attest, you don't have to wait long for some stressed out patient who's a candidate. In one case a bride called us in tears on a Saturday morning asking if there was any way that she could get her mother and mother-in-law treated with Botox before her wedding on Wednesday morning... and they weren't arriving until 10PM that night. One of our physicians actually met the wedding party at our clinic on Sunday morning in order to make sure that the effects of the Botox had time to take maximum effect before the wedding. 

Most clinics or physicians would not have done this, they would have scheduled the treatment for Monday if they could fit them in and lost the opportunity to create fanatically loyal clients.

In the above case the physician went above and beyond even what we would ask, but the results were really quite remarkable. Within the following 45 days we had 8 new patient consultations that were directly attributed to that one event. (New patient consultations were something that I tracked carefully since our analytics showed that every new patient consultation was worth approximately $1,300 in revenue within the following 30 days.)

That Sunday treatment drove an extra $10k in revenue at that clinic that month. 

How you deal with your customer service will define your business and your revenues.

Some recommendations for fantastic customer service:

• If you think that any customer is acting in good faith, don't even question what they're asking. Just do it. If they're unsatisfied, make them happy and take extra time to do it. (This is not a recommendation to deal with those who are clearly just trying to take advantage of you.)
• The more hoops you have to jump through, the more likely word will spread. Dig out the really extraordinary ways that you can make a splash.
• Other physicians and clinics aren't likely to offer this level of support. Focus on this and use it to your advantage.  All it takes is a few over the top customer stories, and people will talk, people will post to their Facebook page or Twitter account, and people will tell every friend they have about your clinic.

 Tell me I'm wrong.. or right. Tell your own customer service story in the comments.

Writing For Your Medical Spa Site or Facebook Page

There's a pretty common concept in advertising copywriting (and phychology), I forget what the technical name is, but the main point is that as you're writing copy, you're constantly opening and closing loops in your readers' minds to encourage them to read further.

Let me give you an example of what openeing a loop might look like:

"Frontdesk SEO also gives you access to several automated marketing tools that really drive traffic - but I'll share those with you in a few minutes. Right now, I want to tell you about the personalized attention you'll get from the Frontdesk support staff."

See how that works?

I said I'm going to tell you about something in a minute, so it's kinda like a little "tease". It opens a loop, a question, in the readers mind that they want answered. They'll continue reading to aleviate that psychological need and close the loop.

It's the kind of thing that you should keep in mind when you're writing for your medical spa on your facebook page or social media sites (if you're not oursourcing that to Frontdesk or Freelance MD already.)

Marketing Your Medical Spa With A Blog Part 1

Part 1: How to market your medical spa, laser clinic or plastic surgery practice with a blog.

In Part 1 of this video series on building patient traffic with social media, Alex Panagiotopoulos of Freelance MD explains how plastic surgeons, dermatologists and laser centers are using blogging and blog marketing to increase patient traffic and increase SEO for their websites and clinics.

Add a Medical Spa MD Badge to your website.

Member Badges

Identify your site as part of the most respected physician community on the web. Insert the following code into the HTML of your web site to place a Medspa MD Member Badge.

 <a href="http://www.medicalspamd.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.medicalspamd.com/storage/badge/md-badge-member-154.png" alt="This Site A Medical Spa MD Member"></a>

 <a href="http://www.medicalspamd.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.medicalspamd.com/storage/badge/md-badge-member-200.png" alt="This Site A Medical Spa MD Member"></a>

 <a href="http://www.medicalspamd.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.medicalspamd.com/storage/badge/md-badge-member-250.png" alt="This Site A Medical Spa MD Member"></a>

<a href="http://www.medicalspamd.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.medicalspamd.com/storage/badge/md-badge-flag-black.png" alt="This Site A Medical Spa MD Member"></a>

<a href="http://www.medicalspamd.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.medicalspamd.com/storage/badge/md-badge-flag-white.png" alt="This Site A Medical Spa MD Member"></a>

<a href="http://www.medicalspamd.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.medicalspamd.com/storage/badge/md-badge-flag-white-bw.png" alt="This Site A Medical Spa MD Member"></a>

<a href="http://www.medicalspamd.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.medicalspamd.com/storage/badge/md-badge-flag-white-o.png" alt="This Site A Medical Spa MD Member"></a>

Medical Spa MD Free Member Downlad Files are intended for the personal use of Medical Spa MD Members and protected by copyright. All other copyrights are owned by their original owners. By downloading this content you agree to be bound by Medical Spa MD's terms and conditions.

Marketing Your Medical Spa With Facebook Photo Albums

We've already covered how to launch a Facebook page, what to post, and how to advertise your social media pages. Today we're covering photo albums on Facebook.

Facebook photo albums are a great tool for showing off what you do best.  If you've ever used Facebook on the personal side, you've probably noticed how easy it is to flip through a large number of photos.  For example, if your friend posts 200 pictures from their trip to Italy, you can get through them in about ten minutes using the right and left arrows on the keyboard.

If you are engaging existing patients and customers and attracting their friends and curious local consumers through giveaways and any publicity your page garners, then posting a photo album of your best Botox before/afters is a non-obtrusive way of showing off what you do best.  Although it is easy to simply throw up the same pictures that you have on your website, Facebook gives you the ability to write little captions below the pictures, with photo-tags where you can highlight areas.  This is not an annoyance, but an opportunity.

As you can see below, this sample before/after has a detailed note that casual consumers can appreciate, as well as a link to your website and your phone number.  This puts you above your competitors, most of whom simply have an assistant slap up a bunch of pictures without explaining what the procedure is.

An unfounded concern of many medical spas is the photo authorization needed to put photos on Facebook.  If your patient signs a waiver that authorizes you to put their photo on your website, that also applies to Facebook, so no worries there.

You can mass-upload albums of before/after albums with your comments.  Another idea is fun is to organize things chronologically, and have albums like "March 2010 Botox."  This builds up trust with consumers, who know you aren't just cherrypicking your best results from ten years ago, but are routinely getting great results.

You should also have an album of staff in action, like a facial, massage, or the receptionist smiling warmly by the front door.  If you do events, have a photo album for each event showing how informative and fun it was.  If you're a guest on the local tv morning talk show, get a picture with the host and post it.

Your photo albums can be an organic extension of what's going on with you and your practice.  Most of the time, these pictures are already being taken, you just have to use them! 

Social Media For Cosmetic Surgeons & Medical Spas.

Social media is a major reason why traditional forms of media are collapsing across the country.

Major newspapers and tv stations are cutting staffs in half or closing up altogether, in the face of declining audiences and sagging ad revenues. Social media gives people the chance to create their own virtual newspaper, completely comprised of what they're interested in. If a topic is boring or irrelevant, it's gone. Social media groups and pages make this possible, because no matter what the topic, there's a social media group dedicated to it.

A 45 year old mom in Sacramento, for example, might not be interested in sports, but she likes California politics, wine, the TV show Lost, the actor Antonio Banderas, and beauty.  On Facebook, she can be a Fan of "California Senate Democrats", Red Red Wine - Sacramento, Lost, and Antonio Banderas. On Twitter, she can follow @CAPoliticsRSS,@thegrandwinebar, @Lost_initiative, @oficialantonio, etc. When it comes to beauty in Sacramento, she can follow her hair salon, favorite spa, plastic surgeon, etc.  Every day when she logs in, she'll see what's going on in the state senate, hear about last night's Lost episode, read about Antonio Banderas' upcoming movie, and see all of the specials, before/after pictures, and upcoming events at her favorite local beauty providers.

These are all examples of direct social media exposure. Someone knows who you are, they become your fan/follower, and whatever you post will be seen by them. We've already covered how to start and sustain this attention in previous blog posts. Once you're established with existing customers and patients, the next step is to get random local consumers who are interested in you to find you.

One extremely cost-effective method is to buy pay-per-click Facebook advertising for your fan page.  These 160-character ads with a small JPEG and link to your Fan Page will run down the right side of certain certain people's web browsers while they are on Facebook.

The beauty of PPC Facebook advertising is that it can be extremely targeted, and you only pay for the local people who click on the ad and check out your Facebook page. If you have a promotable event coming up, such as a giveaway day or a live procedure that you are performing on Facebook, they are highly recommended. 

For example, you can specify that you only want the ad to be seen by women between the ages of 18 and 64, within ten miles of Sacramento, who list an interest in any of the following: beauty, shopping, tanning, travel, jewelry and spa days, the TV shows Nip/Tuck, Real Housewives, Glee, and Jersey Shore.  You can add as many keywords as you like, and remember that due to the public nature of Facebook profiles, few people are going to brazenly volunteer to the world that PLASTIC SURGERY, BREAST AUGMENTATION, AND INJECTABLE FILLERS are their interests. But they will say they like beauty, or the tv show Nip/Tuck. 

According to Facebook, this ad will be seen by 14,200 people, and there will only be a charge of about 60 cents every time someone clicks on it to go to your page. The odds are pretty good that if someone lives within ten miles of your practice, likes the keywords above, and clicks on an ad that says a local med-spa is doing a live cosmetic surgery procedure on Facebook or is giving away beauty products, that they'll want in on the action.  You can set a minimum budget of $10 a day. If you are investing money in advertising, you have to promise yourself that you will keep the Facebook page updated with good content, or else it's a waste of money.

Be creative! Valentine's day is coming up. If you have some sort of spa day or gift set special that you'd like husbands to get for their wives, put up a detailed post with pictures and video on your fan page, and then create an ad that targets local men over 30 who mention having a wife in their profiles.

Just like with traditional media, there's paid PR (advertising), and earned PR. You have to convince third parties to cover you. Our next social media post will cover this! 

Medical Spa MD: New Partners & Services in 2010.

We've had some significant growth over the last while and that's enabled (and motiviated) us to look at how we can provide the most opportunity to our physician community.

We're currently buiding out relationships and adding additional offerings that include: strategic partnerships with other content providers, SEO +SEM, marketing & advertising outsourcing, training products, IPL & cosmetic laser classifieds, additional medspa MD guest post authors and more. The power behind this is the strength of our independant physician community aggregated in one place. Because we have so many physicians, we can harness the buying power of the entire group and businesses can provide pricing and services that they just can't afford when selling individually.

I'll be posting on these individually but here's an overview of some of the partnerships and additional services in the works.

Medical Spa MD Select Partners

We have a number of relationships with other cosmetic medical resources that we're working that include websites, magazines, and other vendors that meet our criteria for inclusion as a Medical Spa MD Partner. What's the criteria to be a Select Partner?

Medspa MDs Select Partners must offer significant value exclusivley to Medical Spa MD Members as a group and provide fantastic service and responsiveness to Members.

If you're a business you can apply to become a Medical Spa Select Partner here.

A New Site For Medical Marketing & Outsourcing

This new site will be all about outsourcing for cosmetic medical practices. Outsource your marketing, your advertising, your SEM (Search Engine Marketing), article writing, direct mail and postcards... all that stuff.

• Outsourcing
• SEO & SEM: Directoy submissions, local search, backlinking.
• Marketing & Advertising
• Article Writing & Submission
• Direct Mail: Postcards & Mailers

You'll be able to get whatever you need oursourced at a fraction of the time and expense that you'd be expending to source and and manage it. We'll probably start out fairly small and focus on a couple of services that we can already deliver exceptionally well and use ourselves.

Medical Spa Writers + Guest Posts

One of the easiest ways for you to get some exposure for your practice or company is simply to write a guest post here on Medspa MD. We're actively looking for physicians and providers who can offer real value to our community. You'll recieve a valuable link to your practice or business and some welcom traffic.

Submit a guest post onMedical Spa MD.

Medical Spa Products

The Advanced IPL & Laser Training Manual and Advanced Medical Spa Aesthetics Training Manual & Study Course are fantastic resources to train and educate your existing staff, and new hires. Paula's done an absolutely amazing job of getting everything your staff needs in one place. I only wish I had this way back when. If you'r training process consists of having new hires follow you around... your life just got a lot easier.

Used IPL & Laser Classified Ads

Looking to sell your cosmetic laser or IPL? Looking to get a killer deal on one? Medical Spa MDs classified listings are where you'll want to start. (It's anticdotal but I think we've passed the $1m mark.)

Teeth Whitening

We were approched by a company providing custom teeth whitening services for companies and organizations as fund-raisers and asked if we'd allow them to sell whosale teeth whitening kits, pens and services to our Members. We've tentatively said yes and are trying out their services ourselves to see what we think.

These are exacly the same services that dentists offer and include taking impressions, making custom whitening trays and delivering them back to the clinic. Clinics would buy these wholesale. The markup would be in the 100%-300% range I'm guessing.

This could be a fantasic add-on since the #1 cosmetic service that people want is actually teeth whitening.

Laser Repair, Parts, & Service

Another interesting deal that I'm not at liberty to discuss quite yet but we're looking to take on some reilable partners to provide IPL & laser repair services for Members. If you've every had an IPL hand peice rebuilt by the manufacturer you'll know what I mean here. (Of course we'd love to have good technology providers as a partner too.)

Anyway, that's just a few of the directions we're moving in. I'll update this post as we get some of these services up and running. If you want to make sure you're aware of your options and our Partners offerings, make sure you're a Medical Spa MD Member.

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Do it yourself Botox: Are these people for real?

Wow. For whatever reason there's a lot of traffic on the do it yourself Botox thread: Fake Botox or not, Discount Medspa is going to jail.

Evidently there are a lot of Botox self injectors flocking to this site to comment on the story of the woman who was selling some form of Botox replacement online, and then publishing videos about how to inject yourself.

Certainly illegal, the site, Discount Medspa has been shut down. My guess is that there are a host of legal troubles ahead for the owner.

You'd think that people would be a little smarter than to inject themselves with Botox or anlything else they just bought online, but I can't tell what's going on with comments like this:

Excuse me Mr.RealMD you are getting the same stuff we are in a bottle that is sealed in a pure form un constituted. Could you PLEASE tell me how do you really honestly know what you’re injecting into your patient besides reading the Botox label across the bottle? You didn't package the bottles you received! and I am more than sure you didn’t have anything to do with the making of the batches of Botox either. All you did was received your order, took it out the boxes and stored it in your freezer upon delivery of your shipment and used it when it was time to inject your patients.

The injection part of receiving Botox IS very important and for you to have the nerve to say I quote “You guys don't really understand the issues involved with the actual preparation of the toxin before it is placed in the bottle. You are focusing on injection technique and the fact that you want to save some money and you think doctors make money off of you. You don't really understand that if this preparation is not authentic Botox or authentic Dysport you are risking your lives. “

Matter of fact Mr. RealMD we are!!! Focusing on the injection technique do you think were crazy do you know if you don’t focus on the injection technique that we could really damage ourselves and probably end up looking like some paralyzed freaks walking around, and you ARE risking your life if you dont know how to properly inject the Botox also so please dont play down that aspect of the procedure.. And I don’t understands you when you say authentic how do YOU know your trusting source is authentic I get the same effect as when you give it to me, so how do you know if the effects are the same the wrinkles are gone and the face muscle are numb for a 3-4 month period.

So I ask you again if the effects and the outcome of the Botox injections are the same how can YOU know that your (BOTOX) is the real thing and I am taking a chance with my Botox. To be honest we all including yourself is taking a chance we really do not know what this is doing in the long run, but our quest for the fountain of youth is keeping us on this same road ,the road of trying to keep our youth as long as we can and as safe as we can accomplish it, and that is including myself.

Dee Medspa is number one

Laurie the psycho just emailed me saying she is opening back up fr business and just taking time off for the Holidays. LOL,like we don't know why. She must be nuts thinking we don't know what happened. She must want to go to prison that bad. I'm sticking with mybasicsonline.net. It's cheaper and better from what I can tell.

here is what her email says.....

In a message dated 12/2/2009 3:33:32 P.M. Central Standard Time, discountmedspa@charter.net writes:

We at Discount Medspa have been working to make sure we are here for you for years to come! Please be patient and we will contact you with our new details soon!

There has been lots of media attention to our site and we will be taking some time off to ejoy the Holidays and Relocate. I appreciate all of you and your support during this difficult time, and promise to be available in the near future!

Dana

I’ve been a “self-injector “ for almost 3 years. I inject small amounts of filler frequently and thus have gained practical experience regarding my own face. I studied injection techniques for almost a year before I self-injected – I did not just jump into this, and I hope nobody else does too. My study resources came mostly from physician to physician professional videos, books and even my own injection doctor (past tense) from whom I asked questions and requested a mirror.

I stopped going to my supposedly “expert” filler doc because; 1) the outrageous fees he charged , 2) he didn’t seem to care about his patients at all – it really was about the money – he always charged me extra supposedly for time spent addressing my concerns -- so please don’t tell us docs actually care about us, 3) even though his credentials were impeccable, he is a “doc to doc injection teacher”, he left me very bruised and swollen almost every visit – something I have never done to myself. Thus I started ordering injectables off the Net and Laurie’s site was one of them.

I enjoyed the convenience, great prices, fabulous customer service, and knowing she and others had tried and tested her products (it would have been all over the news/net had someone been seriously harmed /disfigured from her products). Yes, I was very cautious and did a good deal of research regarding her company, her client results/feedback, products and her background before entering my first order.

While I was pleased with the products purchased from Laurie, I was troubled by her aggressive marketing of such and considered her business practice to be very deceptive (and I believe one of her charges are related to just that). This is where my concern with her company lied.

It irked me to see her market generic Chinese HAs as Sculptra (not even close), Restylane, and Juvederm. It also disturbed me to no end to see her market the permanent Chinese filler Amazingel as Artefill -- to even offer a permanent filler to potential first- timers is beyond belief crazy and extremely disturbing.

Yes, I will continue to self-inject, as most others will, as long as doctors remain money hungry and uncaring. But I close this with: buyer beware, do your homework/research (intensely), study anatomy/injection technique, buy pro videos, don’t let anyone tell you “anybody can do it, even a child”, research your product and don’t assume it’s what the seller is telling you it is.

It’s not as hard as the docs make it out to be, but don’t assume anything.

salome

Is this actually possible?

Medical Spa MD + Others

It's been an interesting last few weeks for us at Medical Spa MD.

We've seen in increase in the number of inquires around partnering with Medical Spa MD. While I'd normally guess it had something to do with the successes that our current partners are having... but I don't think that information is public knowledge.

In the last three weeks we've been approached by or talked to a number of consumer facing websites, medical publications, potential authors, and even some technology providers and pharmacies.

We're also launching a number of internal iniatives. We've emailed a few of our Members to ask what would be of the greatest benefit. (If you've received an email please give us your thoughts.)

We'll see how this pans out for Medical Spa MD but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to work out some additional deals and benefits for Medspa MD Members.

Medical Spa Newsletters & Strategic Marketing

I'm guessing that about 40% of medical spas, laser clinics and skin clinics do some form of email marketing or newsletter. Perhaps I'm wrong but that number seems about right to me.

Of course I'd say that about 1% are really using newsletters or email effectively since there's something of a learning cure, it takes a while to create the content, and there's some dilligence involved to actualy take the time to send a consistant strategic marketing message and accelerate sales.

At Medical Spa MD we're about to start publishing something that looks and feels pretty much like a 'medical spa marketing newsletter', but behaves much differently. We'll be using the Sendside Platform to create and distribute what amounts to an interactive, multi-dimensional message.

If you're a Medical Spa MD Member you'll be receiving one of these in the next few days and you'll see immediately what I mean. If you haven't yet joined Medical Spa MD you can do that now. It's free, and there are some really nice downloads in the members only area of the site that you'll have access to. Not convinced? See what Medical Spa MD Members say about us.

As we increase our offerings to Members we'll also be posting about how we're doing, and how we're doing it. (Spoiler: Both our Canada Botox pharmacy partner and our Medical Spa Aesthetics Training Books are blowing the doors off.) We'll be writing about our successes in communication for our partners and advertisers, and when we're not doing so hot. The benefit for Medical Spa MD is that we'll be using our existing Members as well as new visitors as something of an ongoing focus group. (Usually I retch at the use of focus groups to define what you should do, but this one's actually going to work since it will be anonymous, live, and we'll have real numbers to show.)

If you're a Member you'll be able to both see what we're doing, and we'll be showing you how we're doing it. If you wish, you'll be able to replicate it. For our members who are vendors this is particularly interesting since there are a few things that are of particular interest. We'll be posting all of these in the Medical Spa Marketing & Advertising category so you'll be able to read all of the posts there.

We'll all be able to see where this goes.