You may wonder how to build your patient base. Constant email blasts? Billboards? Social media saturation?
You’ve spent years developing a brand and making sure your online reputation is spotless. But that will only go so far.
Patient before-and-after images will likely be the most effective marketing tool you can employ. Remember that adage of one picture painting a thousand words? Few things could be truer here.
Before you start posting before-and-after images, you need patient releases. Check with your attorney as to a general release that patients can sign granting you rights to display their images without any strings attached.
Under no circumstances should you try and take a shortcut by posting images without this signed consent form, even if you’ve cropped out any identifying features. It could come back to haunt you.
Cosmetic surgery is an emotion-based, elective surgery, so there’s a lot of room for anxiety, fear, and indecision. Patients will tend to back out of a scheduled procedure if they doubt their decisions, the outcomes, or you.
Reading about your successes on an online review site can only do so much to quell patients’ concerns. Viewing before-and-after shots will give them a realistic idea of what you can and cannot achieve for their particular procedure.
Make sure you have before-and-after images for every procedure on your service menu and better yet, multiples that present patients of different sexes, ages and ethnicities.
Why? Patients with delicate, fair skin heal differently than those with thicker or darker skin. Viewing different images will also give your patients a more realistic understanding of what the procedure’s outcome could be.
Post pictures from different angles, too, to give viewers an “all-around” view, not just a traditional, front-facing mug shot. Also, remember to post a handful of images for each procedure; otherwise, patients might assume you haven’t performed many procedures and that you lack experience or worse, that you haven’t been successful in those procedures!
The more a patient feels comfortable with you, the more likely she is to refer you to her family, friends, and co-workers. And the most immediate way to show your expertise is through photographs.
The results are instantaneous, and potential patients don’t have to rely on verbal reviews, which can skew toward or against your practice. She can send a link to your image gallery to potential patients, and that one click could turn into a line of new prospects waiting at your door.
