How to Double Your Patient Database in One Year

If you’d like to double your database of aesthetic patients over the next year, you need a strategic and wide-ranging approach. Here are some ideas to help you achieve this goal:

1. Understand Your Market: Know your target audience: what do they enjoy, where and what kind of work do they tend to do, what gender are they, do they have children, what is their economic profile? What best describes their demographics? Analyze your current database of patients to dig out this information so you understand the trends and commonalities among them.
2. Create a Compelling Brand: Make sure it vibrates with that target audience. Items like your logo, website and other marketing materials and collateral must convey your practice aesthetic and values—and they must resonate with that target audience.
3. Beef Up Your Online Presence: Is your website optimized to rank in the relevant search engines (especially the powerful Google)? How do you know for sure? Do you get quarterly reports from your website team? Your content, in particular, must educate and engage your audience about all your offerings, not just surgical procedures.
4. Are You Leveraging Social Media? Are you posting on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and/or TikTok? Are you posting before/after photos, patient testimonials, and educational content? Are you responding to followers’ comments? Are you using the best hashtags to be noticed?
5. Are You Blogging? A blog with photos and/or videos provides insights into your offerings. Don’t be afraid to include tips about skincare and wellness to attract a broader audience, so long as they are not too far outside your target audience. Two important blogging tips are to blog as often as possible—at least monthly—and to share the latest blog post link on social media sites to increase coverage. And remember, blog posts add fresh content to your website, something that’s super important to Google.
6. Email Marketing: You must send out informative and engaging emails to your existing patients on a regular basis. Whether that’s a full-blown e-newsletter or a simple reminder of your services with exclusive promotions is up to you, but you must contact them directly on a regular basis to remain “front of mind.”
7. Do You Have a Referral Program? Offer credits, rewards, or discounts to current patients who refer new ones to the practice. The most powerful tool in your industry is word-of-mouth marketing. Don’t be left behind on this one.
8. Partner and Collaborate with Local, Non-competing Businesses, such as salons, gyms, trainers, and high-end lingerie stores with events and cross-promotions. This allows both you and the other businesses to dig into each other’s client database for mutual benefit.
9. Host Events and Webinars: Covid put the kibosh on in-person events but you can start now to plan fall events this year to commemorate Breast Cancer month, celebrate Halloween in a fun way, etc. Patients love these events and will bring their friends.See our blog post about October events for details.

   Frequently, even monthly, schedule an opportunity for an online webinar so your audience can literally tune in via phone and screen to listen to a helpful topic.

10. Online Booking and Consultations can make it simple for prospects to book appointments and consultations via your website. If you aren’t already doing so, think about virtual consultations for initial prospective patient contact.
11. Paid Advertising uses online ad platforms such as Google Ads and social media ads in which you can pinpoint your target demographic. Be sure you (A) have a visually appealing ad that includes a compelling call to action and (B) the person you hire to run the ads knows the latest Google Ads challenges—things have changed and it’s confusing for even seasoned online advertisers. You want a monthly report from the person or firm providing paid ads.
12. Market to the Community: Sponsor a table at a fundraiser; donate a basket; participate in local events and health fairs to raise awareness of your practice and your services.
13. Beef Up Your Patient Experience: Make sure all employees are providing top-notch customer service in a friendly, supportive, and personalized way to every single patient. This increases a return for future care and a higher likelihood of referrals. Make sure you know what’s being said on the phone and how your staff performs on incoming calls to your business.
14. Patient Testimonials Make a Difference: Your target audience wants to hear from others like them. Ask satisfied patients to write a recommendation online. PUMC can assist you in soliciting these reviews: check it out. Once you have positive reviews, you can display them on your website and post about them on your social media channels.
15. Monitor and Adjust: You must continuously track the effectiveness of your marketing plans and make the right changes based on data and feedback.

The Bottom Line:
There are many ways to market your practice and each of them requires time and effort and, often, money. Bottom line, you must provide quality results and create genuine relationships with each patient to foster growth.