A Tailored Approach to Acquiring New Patients

In the 20-plus years I have spent working with cosmetic health care practitioners, most have answered with a resounding “Yes!” when asked if they would like new patients in their practices. But to be truly successful in pursuing new patients, practices need to have a clearly defined identity (i.e., vision, mission statement, values, and goals). It’s these fundamental components that can guide practices in effectively targeting and acquiring new patients.

It Starts with Identity

These days your identity should be stronger than ever. COVID-19 has enabled health care practices to take a brief pause and assess who they are and what they hope to become. By clearly knowing your identity, you should be able to decipher how to strategically brand and broadcast the practice in the greater aesthetic arena—an integral component in your patient acquisition journey.

Attracting New Patients

To start actively pursuing new patients, you must also define the following: Who to target, how much to spend, and how to go about it. How you answer these questions will be unique to you because they will be based on your identity. Below we explore and analyze each of those questions, so you can build a personalized plan to effectively pursue new patients.

Who Are You Targeting? In your new patient acquisition pursuit, first ask and answer the following question: “Who are you attracting?” Consider your identity, brand, and how you are portrayed in the marketplace. Shed light on your image by asking the following questions: How are we defined by our top 10 patients (e.g., those who spend the most money with us, those who consistently refer other patients to us, etc.)? What adjectives do they use to describe the practice? Once you fully understand your unique position and your current audience, you are ready to successfully tackle the following steps.

1. Determine your target audience.

A target audience is the group on which you will focus your marketing efforts. Hint: This group will share the same traits of your best customers. For general aesthetic patients, a sample target audience may look something like this:

• Gender: Female
• Age: 28-58
• Marriage status: Married
• Annual household income: $75,000+
• Interests: Shopping, health, beauty, travel, and family
• Geography: Dependent (this will be local to your business, but perhaps upper-scale cities/neighborhoods)
• Most common online channels: Instagram, Facebook, and email

2. Build out customer personas.

A customer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. You can have multiple customer personas per product and will most certainly have completely different customer personas for various products. An example customer persona for aesthetic injections might be this:

Jessica Smith is a 41-year-old married mother of two who works in real estate. Since she has a daily balancing act of family and career, she values convenience and health above other priorities. In her minimal spare time, Jessica rides her Peloton daily and has a monthly at-home “girls’ night” with some of her closest friends. She has top brand loyalty to Nordstrom and Starbucks, and she and her husband’s annual household income is $220,000.

While target audiences and customer personas are not the same, both can be used to inform one another and enhance understanding of your ideal customer. It’s this understanding that will allow you to market more effectively and acquire your ideal practice clients.

What Does it Cost to Acquire a New Patient?

In my experience, a rough consensus for the cost of a new patient ranges greatly, but typically runs from $350-500. However, there are a few factors to consider when calculating the specific cost to your practice.

1. Marketing spend.

The crude cost for patient acquisition may be found by dividing the prior year’s total marketing spend by the number of new patients. For example, if your practice spent $150,000 in marketing last year and acquired 300 new patients during that time, the cost to acquire a single new patient was $500. With COVID-19, your practice along with many others are likely being forced to be even more strategic and efficient with marketing dollars in the quest for new patients. This may impact how much and where you invest your marketing funds this year and in 2021.

2. Marketing channel.

Patient acquisition cost also depends on which marketing channels you use. Digital marketing campaigns are particularly appropriate these days, and some may yield more cost-effective options. For instance, paid search is one of the biggest drivers of propelling consultations for new patients, and its cost to acquire a new patient is generally less than the $350-500 range, as illustrated in Figure 1 below. Please note Figure 1 does not include other marketing efforts (e.g., TV ads, billboards, or radio), which can bring the cost-per-acquisition to the $350-500 range.

3. Search engine optimization (SEO).

Search engines are the principal drivers of website traffic, and their top results are usually paid search ads. Google is doing an incredible job of toning down the ad-like feel on its results page by making paid ads feel more organic. Therefore, when potential patients are conducting searches, they are more likely to take action by clicking on your ad and visiting your landing page. What impression does your landing page give, and does it compel site visitors to schedule a consultation? Only those who attend their consultation whether it is virtual or in-person are considered new patients.

Ultimately, the cost to your practice to acquire a new patient will depend on the channels and modalities you choose to reach potentially new patients. The modalities you choose will be influenced by several branding factors, e.g., the type of patient you are “speaking” to and eventually attract, all of which reflects your identity.

How to Acquire a New Patient

Various acquisition campaigns can yield drastically different results (e.g., generating more online patient reviews or inciting action by prospective new patients); however, what works for one practice may fall completely short for another. I have heard practices declare: “We must have an event!” (e.g., a virtual open house or a virtual VIP party). When I press them further about why they must have the event, they respond: “Because the practice across town had a successful one!” That should be one of the last reasons to carry out a certain campaign. Rather than focus on what the competition is doing, consider the following when crafting your campaign:

1. Begin with the end in mind.

Focus on your desired end result and use that as a launching off point. For example, if you decide to run a campaign, first decide on the ultimate goal. Is it to:

• Bring in 100 new patients,
• Generate $50,000 in one day, or
• Showcase new technology/equipment to 30 existing patients?

2. Work backwards to reach your goal.

Once you determine your goal, work backwards to achieve it. For example, if you want to generate $50,000 in a single day, then hosting a virtual event may be the most logical. Assuming the average ticket is around $450, you would need to have 110 patients attending and purchasing at the event. To achieve that, you need to:

• Target 1,000 interested patients/considerers;
• Spark genuine interest in 500 of them, while having 250 of them be available during the event;
• Earn 135 RSVPs; and
• Conclude with 110 actual paying attendees.

These two steps will guide you in crafting a campaign that is tailored to your practice’s overarching vision and goals, and in turn, help you get closer to what you want to become.

Putting It All Together

You, like most of your peers, are clamoring for new patients to keep your patient schedule robust. Before you set off on any campaign — if you have not already done so during the pandemic’s shutdown—take the necessary time to truly define yourself, who you’re targeting, your budget, and your end goal. Once those are known, there are multiple channels and modalities to effectively market and ultimately attract new patients. With a properly configured digital marketing strategy, your practice can enjoy seeing new patient faces and drive more return on investment.

Jordan Mason, an Allergan Digital Marketing Consultant, contributed this article.

Jordan Mason is a Digital Marketing Consultant with the Allergan Digital Consulting Group of Allergan Aesthetics, an Abbvie Company. Mr. Mason consults with medical aesthetic practices and medical spas on a wide variety of digital marketing competencies, including paid advertising, website optimization and experimentation, SEO, email marketing, analytics, and content marketing. He has more than 15 years of experience in digital marketing, business and communications strategy, and content development.