It doesn’t matter if you have been in practice 5 years or 20 years… The #1 stress as a cosmetic surgeon is finding a solid patient attraction channel you’ll calculate to usher in new patients.
Nothing else matters. Not your new office, your new laser, or your unbelievable coordinator.
If you do not have cosmetic patients saying yes to you and supplying you with money, you’re in trouble.
Think of cosmetic patients as your oxygen. once you have a gentle flow of cosmetic patients saying yes to you, you breathe easy.
When you don’t, your breathing is stop and you will not survive for long.
And it never quits. The anxiety. Even when you’re booked out, aren’t you expecting the opposite shoe to drop?
The well was running over and now it’s dry.
ON the opposite HAND…
When you have a solid patient attraction system in situ , you breathe easy.
If your system consists of paying thousands of dollars monthly on advertising, that’s a part of the plan but NOT the entire plan.
A simpler way is to allow your current patients to bring you, new patients, innovatively.
This not only significantly reduces spending on new patient adverting, but it also increases patient retention, which may be a excellent thing.
Why?
Because referred patients have a better conversion rate than “Internet stranger patients”. Referred patients also spend more per transaction and are more likely to return, so their lifetime value is far greater.
This makes patient referral programs the foremost cost-effective AND lucrative marketing strategy that your practice can possibly employ.
By the way, you’ll learn tons when watching how other industries use referral programs to grow their businesses. Here are a few:
- PayPal. They literally gave away free money, and it figured out great for them. And this was before social media!
- Airbnb. one user in China led to thousands of signups and many bookings during a single month.
- Uber. they have been during a unique position to run multiple referral programs directly – for both users and for drivers.
- $1,000 for both advocate and friend, with quite star-studded list of advocates!
- Amazon Prime. Likely one among the foremost heavily used referral programs in recent times.
- When the front page of the web decides to run a referral program, it’s worth looking into.
Obviously, you’re not getting to pay for patient referrals thanks to fee-splitting issues; however, that’s no reason to shut your mind to a referral program.
You may not be allowed to buy referrals directly as other businesses can, but you’re certainly allowed to grow your practice strategically and ethically so it behooves you to stay an open mind.
A referral program may be a deliberate, systematic way of encouraging patients to refer you to others.
But you cannot “hope” your current patients will spread the word about you.
Between their hectic work schedules and a never-ending list of social and family obligations, your marketing strategy is that the last item on their minds.
So, you would like to place it on their minds and make the referral process as easy as possible for them, turning your loyal patients into your biggest brand advocates.
WHAT MAKES FOR an honest REFERRAL PROGRAM?
In order for a referral program to form a true impact on the expansion of your cosmetic practice, the subsequent key elements got to be in place:
- Easy for patients to know
- Simple for workers to use
- Compelling but profitable
- Easy to trace results
- Fun & focused on patients instead of on you
If this is sensible to you, inspect the KiSS Rewards Club that’s designed specifically for cosmetic surgery practices looking to grow their practices in a neater , cheaper, and faster way.
Since Year 2000, Catherine Maley, MBA has been a restorative medical procedure development business and advertising advisor, creator, speaker, mentor, blogger, and podcaster.Her website is forbeshints.com
