Powerful Marketing For Your Medical Spa: Social Proofing

Increase conversion rates of cold sales emails through social proofing!

Social proofing is a psychological phenomenon which influences someone to think that you are great after knowing that other people think you are great. It is informational social influence where people assume or conform to other's actions in an attempt to reflect the correct behavior for a given situation.

This is useful especially when you are communicating to your potential customers for the first time, as when you are cold emailing them.

Social proof is also notable on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The more followers you have, the more trustworthy and reputable you appear to be.

Product reviews and ratings are relevant for American consumers. Statistics says that more than 70% of them look at product's site and its reviews and ratings before deciding to purchase a product.

Several techniques of social proofing can be utilized, including mentioning in your email the patrons of your product, perhaps a famous company which is also your client, a famous investor, or the person you know in common in the mail.

It shows your potential customer that others have also taken the action that your company wanted them to take, whether purchasing or subscribing. Research shows that when a famous customer is mentioned at the bottom of the email, replies in the cold email doubled.

In a study of 10,000 accounts at a German bank, it was shown that customers who came from customer referrals had 16% higher lifetime value than those who came from other acquisition sources. Social media has sparked dozens of different ways to provide this kind of social proof.

Facebook widgets that show other Facebook friends that “like” a brand, Twitter’s display of people you follow that also follow another person, and the various ways that company offer rewards for referring others to the brand are all examples of this. Perhaps you might also want to mention present customers with established positive reputations.

These influencers are seen more positively with association. A shared LinkeIn Connection may also be mentioned. It was found that when you point out a shared connection with someone in common, 25.5% of the people who received the email opted in to have a further conversation about the product compared to the 4 % who received the basic mail.

Testimonials, accompanied with corresponding faces, are one of the most persuasive forms of social proof out there. Compared to statistics, stories and real-life experiences by other people are more trustworthy and persuasive because these examples touch our hearts and mind.

Optimizing Your Clinics Email Marketing

Email marketing is a good way for businesses to engage both potential and existing customers. In 2015, email users are nearly around 2.6 billion and this is expected to exponentially increase to over 2.9 billion in the year 2019.

Emails are very useful in the business world and as well as consumers - mainly due to its use for notification consisting of online sales.

Further, survey says that 91% of consumers check their email at least daily and 55% of companies surveyed say they generate more than 10% of sales from email.

Data from the Direct Marketing Association reveal that 66% of online consumers made transactions out of an email marketing message.

Email marketing allows you to be efficient. You can save a lot of your precious time after optimizing your autoresponder sequence or your sales funnel. Automation takes over and does most of the work for you.

But first, you have to plan about the results you want to achieve when hatching plans to grow your list. Map out how email marketing can be incorporated in your overall marketing scheme.

So, how do you improve your patient interaction through email marketing?

Start with what you write as a keyword in your subject line. A study shows that those with keywords confirm, features, upgrade, magic and raffle are likely to be reported as spam so it is best to avoid them unless you were able to built up a list that really trusts you and your brand.

Make a great first impression on your new subscriber through the welcome email or the autoresponder sequence.

When do you send them?

Try sending them on days other than Tuesday and Thursday and email your customers between the hours of 2 PM and 5 PM.

MailChimp’s Email Genome Project reveals that more mails are sent on Tuesday and Thursday than any other day of the week so you might want to test sending emails on other days so you will have less competition. This will pave the way for increased inbox space and click through rates.

People are more likely to open their email between 2 PM to 5 PM, regardless of time zone, according to the Email Genome Project.

Where do you link your email?

Try sending your email traffic to a dedicated landing page because this is usually the one that has a higher conversion rate. Also, you might want to include social share buttons in your emails as this can also generate higher click through rates.

Got other email marketing advices? Share them by posting your comments below. =)

2016 Trends: Classic and Elegant Beauty

The year 2016 is predicted to be a time for putting forward a classy, elegant, and modern yet effortless look.

Beauty experts reveal that  the trend is leaning more on the "natural" look as complexions are expected to be taking a softer turn with a subtle quality.

Glowing and luminous skin will be a trend. According to Vogue, the recent call to natural beauty was given a windswept polish this season, with healthy washes of sun-kissed blush at Gucci and Michael Kors Collection meeting the breeze-tousled waves of Versace, Alexander McQueen.

Its all about bright and pouty lips this 2016, with classic reds and browns as "in" lip colors as they balance against a backdrop of a bare skin.

Hairstyles are expected to be going back to basics as natural and effortless look will be in style and buns and ponytails will be given a fresh twist. As they say, less is more.

With these trends, minimally invasive aesthetic procedures are expected to be popular among medspa patients to achieve a more enhanced yet effortless and youthful look.

Non-surgical facelifts, use of autologous fat grafting, botox injections, and fillers are among the procedures that are expected to be a trend in 2016.

Non-invasive procedures which offer less pain and quick recovery are also seen to be popular among patients. 

For more beauty trends in 2016, you may browse: http://www.vogue.com/13359453/top-beauty-trends-spring-2016-fashion-week/.

Botox Business For The Holidays

It's the time of the year where your patients are confronted with family parties and get-togethers... and it's a reminder that they're another year older. You could be the Santa they're looking for.

Look, you're probably already doing the basics with things like gift certificates and perhaps an email offer, but you might want to take stalk about what you could do to really boost your sales here.

For day spas it's common to do 50% of their yearly sales in December as gift certificates, leading to some very lean months in spring when they have to redeem them all. This can cause serious cash flow problems as clients fill your treatment rooms with no sales. There are a couple of tricks I've seen to deal with this that can mitigate the effects. 

• Selling your gift certificates with some restrictions at a discount. You can stagger your gift certificates so that you push treatments or sessions into the summer or fall. On way is to sell your gift certificates by 'quarter' (spring, summer, fall, winter) with specific dates, then discount the ones farther out. By keeping track of purchases you can see what the discount should be to give you some control over when redemptions come in. Spring would certainly be full price but you might try scaling from 10% to 30% discounts for summer, fall and next winter. The fact that you're giving a 30% discount for a gift certificate that you sell for next winter is more than mad up for by getting payment up front, and the occational "breakage" that goes will all gift certificates.
• Bundling treatments and services. Purse strings generally loosen over the holidays and, if you're not greedy, you can take advantage of this by bundling services that effectively boost your revenues. Tying your normall laser hair removal bundles along with an introductory Botox or filler treatment at a discount can give your patients a sense that they're lessening the cost and risk by getting a deal. (Don't do this all the time lest you fall into the trap of becomong a discounter where that's always expected.)
• Memberships. One of the big moves that can give you regular recurring revenue (what eveyone wants) is to begin offering memberships. I'll go into that in a different post but you should be aware that memberships, while tricky to implement and get right, can dramatically change your clinic into a real business. Memberships allow you to tier your services, create some scarcity, engender a feeling of exclusivity with your high-revenue patients, and give you some vision into your future income. Yep. I'm definately going to have to deal more with memberships.

Create a relationship with your clients this holiday season and use that relationship to keep them coming back. Looking for new customers is more tedious and costly than maintaining regular customers. Gifts have always cemented relationships.  Use this time honored tradition to create some of your own!

Make Sure Your Medspa Staff Meet Their Sales Goals

Technological advancement is all around us. It would be advantageous to make use of all the available online applications and technological trends to reach your clincs sales goals, rather than unduly stress yourself out by not utilizing the available tools at your fingertips.

ELECTRONIC NOTEBOOKS

Using electronic notebooks such as the Evernote suite may come in handy when you do some scheduling, note-taking, and even have effective meetings by presenting your work as it evolves. This app has also a voice recognition feature and even allows you to sketch a whiteboard type image to facilitate communication with your prospective client.

According to Evernote developers, this application allows you to bring your life's work together in one workspace. It also allows you to collaborate with your colleagues and create more opportunities for your team. Also, it has a function which allows you to keep track of tasks, and write notes without the need of the conventional pen and paper.

A comparable application to Evernote is Microsoft's OneNote which allows you to sync and open your notes while using a your computers, tablets and phones. There is also Springpad, an app which is designed to automatically guess what you have clipped from the web or uploaded to your notebooks and then organize it without your help.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TOOLS

When you would need to generate more leads and reach out to your potential customers, here are some tools that will help you reach your sales quotas: There are tools that allow you to monitor when your brand is mentioned on social networks, blogs, or forums.

The app Mention allows you to monitor your brand presence and even monitor keywords that you want to keep track of. If you have your own Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google account, Buffer is a social media tool that sends your updates to the your social networking sites. It also tells you when is the best time to make updates based on your updates.

Collaboration with your team can also be done so your accounts are up to date. Other tools include Feedly for content discovery, Twitter Counter for tracking the progress of your tweets, and Bottlenose which displays information based on its order of importance.

A provider of marketing intelligence service such as InsideView and Data.com may help you in making decisions about your sale territory because these provide your with valuable marketing data useful in accelerating your sales.

Using these available and easy-to-use technologies may greatly improve your business' performance. With these apps, ease of communication and coordination among you and your members is facilitated, making it easier for your to achieve your sales targets.

Increase Patient Visits through Blogging

Marketing has moved digitally, being out of the loop could hurt your clinic or practice. While you may have staff or a service working on marketing, there is one method you could do to help raise your website views (with the right strategy). Blogging is one sure way to do that.

Why you should blog?

Simple. It helps you get known. So, you ask. The main point of having your own blog means people will recognize you, your opinions, your practice, and your services. It gives you an opportunity to reach your current and potential patients. It allows you to speak your mind also. With your blog, you can include links in your entries (do this with care), and increase traffic in your website.

Blogging is another method to raise your SEO game. With the right content and keywords, you can reach the first few pages of Google-- with the right strategy. Decide with your team on what your clinic would like to be known as (e.g. Laser Resurfacing in [insert state here] or Best Botox [insert state here]). Stuffing or loading keywords in your blog post is a no-no. Google themselves warn users not to practice this as it could ruin your chances in ranking.

Once you have started blogging, you should commit, so when people find your blog it won't be empty or outdated. In an event you do not have time to write a post, ask a staff member in the practice as knowledgeable to write. Schedule or regularly update the blog so people could keep coming back for more high quality content. Worried about running out of topics to write? Curate or repurpose, just make sure you do not copy and paste from a previous blog post. Make it relevant with the year, the month, or season. Up to you. 

If you are not up to starting your own blog, (which could make or break you) another option is submitting a guest post. Guest posting is an incredible way to share your thoughts to another website, which allows you to expose yourself in another forum. There are many physician blogs out there that allow guest posting. Follow all the guidelines as stipulated before submitting one entry, and your post is good to go. If you're still not up for this one, you could submit a guest post with us here (So long as it is business or cosmetic medicine-related, you are good).

Why you should not be discouraged to blog.

Many physicians have and run their own blogs because these doctors know they can reach their target patients and audience. In terms of patients, when you blog about the services you offer people can find you. Although, you may need to optimize your keywords so you are one of the top searches. Keywords is key, and you will have to invest on that.

Things to Remember

• Blogging STILL matters
• Never load a blog post with keywords
• When in doubt, guest post (…with us).

High Dissatisfaction among Patients with Atopic Dermatitis: Opportunity for New Market Entrants

Atopic dermatitis, also known as eczema, appears most commonly in one-year old children, and about half of these children will have them when they become adults. Sadly, research reveals a very high dissatisfaction among adult patients of the treatments available for atopic dermatitis (AD). On the other hand, this is a good news for new entrants in the market.

The research done by GfK Disease Atlas on atopic dermatitis covered eight countries, over 4,000 pediatric and adult atopic dermatitis patients, and over 800 physicians. Results reveal that 6 out of 10 patients experiencing moderate to severe atopic dermatitis who were treated with topical steroids are not satisfied with the results.

This is amidst the the fact that about 92% of them said that their doctors explained what is expected from the treatment. Four out of 10 of doctors also expressed their dissatisfaction. Topical steroids are used mainly to reduce the swelling and inflammation in affected areas and control eczema.

There is a lack of options available for patients, making them repeat the same treatment options.This is the reason why GfK Immunology and Dermatology Therapy Director Alison Rose said that there is a huge potential for new players to enter the market and provide with other therapy options.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, atopic dermatitis cannot be cured but it can be controlled. This is done by preventing AD from getting worse, calming the skin and relieving pain and itch, preventing infections, and stopping the skin from thickening.

Further, according to the AAD website, there is no way to determine if AD will ever go away or it will be a lifelong disease, however, it gets milder with age. Treatments, therefore, are very much important in preventing AD from getting worse and relieving a patient's discomfort.

Read more on: http://www.gfk.com/news-and-events/press-room/press-releases/pages/dissatisfaction-in-atopic-dermatitis-treatment.aspx https://www.aad.org/dermatology-a-to-z/diseases-and-treatments/a---d/atopic-dermatitis

Understanding Women as Customers

Failure to understand the role of women as consumers and decision makers is seen as an impediment which prevents Americans from getting good health care.

This is the result of the research conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) among more than 9000 women respondents in US, UK, Germany, Japan and Brazil. Their study reveals that 70% of global consumer decisions are controlled by women, with 94% of them making their own health care decisions.

However, 77% of them do not do what they have to do to stay healthy because of lack of time. There is much information available online but only 31% of them trust the information they see in the internet. But the good news, according to CTI, is that they have also found out ways to make a difference in improving the trust and satisfaction among women.

Doctors and medical professionals can foster dialogue and provide clear communication. Providing them with enough information allows them to make informed decisions leading to a trusted partnership. Allowing women to also make their opinions matter may achieve connections to the female market. CTI research reveal that women make up around 88% of the health care workforce. It was found that women who share their stories and personal experiences as a heath decision maker allowed them to make connections with fellow women.

Researchers at CTI say that:

Developing a keen understanding of these women's wants and needs in health care, and using that understanding at every stage of product development and commercial relations, will help companies uncover and leverage huge market opportunities as well as surprise and delight their customers.

More on: http://www.talentinnovation.org/_private/assets/PopHealthcare_Infographic-CTI.pdf

Mommy Makeovers for Mom's Day

Mother's day is just right around the corner. Husbands and children are thinking about ways to make this day special for moms. A makeover and pampering may just be the right gift for her.

Mommy makeover is a marketing strategy and a marketing term which has gained popularity over the years. In a study conducted by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 62% of mothers who want to regain their youthful look before giving birth.

Mothers who want to restore or improve their post-pregnancy bodies undergo multiple plastic surgery procedures which include tummy tucks, liposuction, breast implantations and breast lifts.

Medspas may capitalize on this by providing discounts for bundle procedures, especially with the celebration of Mother's Day.

20% Of All Medical Spa Yelp Reviews (Including Yours) Are Fake?

What's this? Fake reviews that you've posted about your own clinic? Say it ain't so...

Now, more than ever, social media plays an integral part of businesses marketing strategies. Savvy consumers turn to Yelp and a host of similar sites to read reviws, and in turn make buying desicions based on what they’ve read. 

The problem is, some businesses (insert medical spas, dermatologists, and plastic surgeons here) are paying freelance writers to create “fake” positive reviews... or they're just writing them themselves.

Writers from Eastern Europe or Asia are paid a few dollars to write glowing reviews... because they work. Businesses are highly motivated to obtain positive reviews, as according to a 2011 study by Michael Luca, assistant professor at Harvard Business School, a one star rating hike on Yelp can mean a 5% to 9% rise in restauraunt revenue.

The number of fraudulent reviews on Yelp rose from 5% in 2006 to 20% in 2013, according to “Fake It Till You Make It: Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud,” a report by Luca that was co-written by Georgios Zervas, an assistant professor of marketing at Boston University. Analyzing an additional 316,415 Yelp reviews of Boston restaurants, 16% were filtered and identified as fake, Luca says.

This is a problem that is only beginning to be addressed. Five or six years ago anyone could post phony reviews from their own computer, without ever calling attention to themselves. Things have become a bit more comlicated since then. Now, fake reviewers must submit fake email addresses, and write reviews from multiple locations. Fake reviewers and the companies that hire them are now beginning to face fines. The office of New York’s Attorney General announced this week that it fined businesses (including on physician if I remember correctly) more than $350,000 for publishing fake reviews.

Additionally, false praise online is expected to become more and more widespread. Fake reviews are expected to grow between 10 and 15% by 2014, predicts Gartner, an online research firm.

What’s Yelp’s response? Yelp’s automated software looks at every review published, and ultimately deemphasizes about 20% of the more than 39 million reviews onto a secondary “Filtered reviews” page linked at the bottom of business listings. 

Meanwhile, Google is moving away from anonymous reviews, requiring reviewers to be logged in to Google Plus to write one. Yelp could require a Facebook login to help guarantee identities, but of course options like these may scare off or, just plain annoy potential reviewers.

We all know buying and selling reviews is wrong. And, now, it’s against the law. Yelp’s final word? “But don’t worry, we’ll keep watching out for consumers behind the scenes, too. Just in case.”

Of course we've seen this here, and we've outed a number of equipment vendors and physicians who got caught posting fake reviews here. That's one of the reasons that we don't allow vendors or salespeople into the Medical Spa MD LinkedIn Group.

Has anyone out there got a sneaking suspicion (and an example or two) that the medical spa or clinic down the street is doing this?

The Power Of Single Message Marketing

The first rule of advertising for anyone (including your medical spa): Present one, clear, single minded message.

Your ad will be stronger. Your message will carry more weight. You’ll create breakthrough in a world filled with cluttered, muddled messages, that simply go unseen.

Research suggests that you only have 3 seconds to communicate the message to your audience. Take longer and you could lose potential prospects. 

Think about the bed of nails analogy.

It appears to the spectator that anyone lying on this “bed” would be injured by the nails, but this is not what happens. Assuming the nails are numerous enough, the weight is distributed between them such that the pressure exerted by each nail is not enough to break the person’s skin. 

What if we replace the thousands of nails with just one nail? You know what happens. A person can’t successfully lie on just one nail. The pressure exerted by just one nail is much too strong.

How do you determine your single message? It could be the unique selling point of the product or service or even the biggest benefit gained by using the product or service.

But are times changing? 

We haven’t done studies directly comparing the effects of multiple messages in an ad or commercial vs. single messages, but we’ve studied how people deal with what used to be considered a bombardment of stimuli. They handle it just fine.

The Internet of course has led the way. Watch how even the less skilled with this medium use it – not just skipping from site to site, page to page, item to item at blazing speed. They absorb multiple images and information elements simultaneously. Watch the more adept moving their fingers across their keyboards like the fingers of a virtuoso violinist moving across the strings of their instruments. And the minds of those Internet users are moving even more quickly.

If we move multiple messages into fast forward, will advertisers risk losing their audience? Or will the viewers be less bored and watch or read the advertising. 

Trying to fit 'everything you do' into your advertising is common, but it's also amaturish, and less effective. I understand that you don't want to miss that one patient who's looking for something you offer, but you're tripping over your real purpose which is to drive a single idea home.

Do yourself (and your clinic) a favor and be harsh. If it's not supporting a single point, let it go.

Renaissance Ideal vs. Niche Market

How broad is your menu of services?

There are arguable benefits to both generalization and specialization. 

Generalists believe that every new trend should be added to their spa offerings for fear of losing a client to a competitor. These polymaths say that customers want one stop shopping. Some like to put everything out there to see what will stick. They offer everything from bioidentical hormone replacement to laser toenail fungus treatments. DaVincians are presented with a marketing challenge as their buyers span the entire spectrum of demographics. 

Specialists insist that expertise cannot be achieved by a jack-of-all-trades. They apply the old proverb, "If you chase two rabbits, they both will get away." They focus their efforts on one or several procedures and hone their skills to levels of proficiency.  They get to know their niche consumer and target them specifically.  Sometimes, they will open a very distinct enitity like a vein clinic or a tattoo removal center. However, those with narrower menus may lose the "largely cast net" benefit of the generalist. 

While there is a happy medium between the two extremes, I have made a choice to offer fewer services over recent years.  I did a profit analysis of each service carefully capturing all associated costs.  Those procedures with lackluster returns and a low promise of improvement were dropped.  All associated equipment was liquidated. In the end, my clients respected fewer offerings rather than trying to be everything to everyone.  I am busier now than I was when I offered more.

The economic downturn combined with increased saturation of the cosmetic market has resulted in a more discerning consumer.  Today's buyer cannot afford to jump from clinic to clinic and wants to get it right the first time. This prudent purchaser may perceive a greater chance for a home run outcome in a niche setting over an "everything under the sun" venue.  The attributes sought in a provider are becoming a  matter of mastery over mediocrity.

Where do you fit in this spectrum?