So often we hear that aesthetic practices (plastic surgeons, dermatologists, and med spas) are doing their own marketing to their patients to try to generate more business.   Do you wonder why they do this?  The reason is simple.  It is easy to access and use an email marketing tool to send out bulk emails to patients.  But, like any profession, marketing isn’t that simple.  Why?

I will answer that question with a collection of questions, such as:

1. Does the staff understand email marketing best practices related to subject line length, email content length, number of images, sending frequency, send date/time, etc. and are they following them?
2. Does the staff understand that email is only one of many digital channels that should be used to reach their patients?
3. Does the staff know how much business (or leads) they are generating from their email marketing?
4. Does the staff know what promotions or messages worked best when directed at certain patients?
5. Does the staff segment their patients and send out targeted, relevant emails to each segment?

In the end, most practices we speak to do not know the answers to the questions above.  Yet, they continue to do their own marketing to their most valuable asset-their patients.  And, they wonder why their email marketing is not very effective.

The answer is simple.   Marketing is not generally the core competency of aesthetic businesses; It’s taking care of patients.   You would never rely on a marketing professional to do a breast augmentation, would you?  Of course not.  So, why do you trust healthcare professionals to do something as critical as market to your patients?  Your best business comes from the patients you know, but you have to market to them correctly.

If you are serious about growing your business by increasing the lifetime value of your patients, you should hire marketing experts that understand and follow marketing best practices.  Moreover,  they should leverage technology that: 1) connects to your patients through four to five digital channels, 2) shows you quantifiable results, and 3) provides you with strategic insight as to how to improve your marketing efforts.