Every business is a marketing and sales business.
Said differently, every business is in the business of marketing and selling.
This is simply a universal principle, whether you’re a taco truck, a Fortune 50 giant, or a plastic surgery practice.
And within marketing there are fundamental levers that move everything else.
The three most fundamental marketing levers, for any business (including your practice) are:
Lever One: Getting Traffic
Lever Two: Getting Conversions
Lever Three: Getting Profitable Economics
The taco truck needs traffic – people walking up to it. It needs conversions, which means some of those people actually buy a taco. And enough people need to buy tacos to cover all the expenses and make a profit.
Else, you won’t have a taco truck for long. Works the same for the Fortune 50 giant. Or for your surgical practice.
Make sense?
So … when it comes to hiring marketing help for your practice, it’s critical that the firm knows how to effectively pull these three levers.
Your marketing agency needs to know…
How to Get Traffic…
So that your website, ads, and promotional materials actually reach eyeballs. No traffic means no conversions. No conversions means no economics. No economics means no more taco truck/surgical practice.
How to Get Conversions…
Can they turn eyeballs into clicks, and clicks into consults? A monkey at a laptop can get traffic. But all traffic is not created equal. Can your firm get the right kind of traffic? And can they get it to engage with your practice? The marketing game isn’t just “throw up an ad on Google and send people to a landing page” anymore.
How to Get Profitable Economics…
Do they understand your economics and how to engineer marketing funnels that consistently bring in new patients profitably? The whole thing, A-Z, from buying traffic through converting clicks to leads, to turning leads into appointments – high-quality, engaged leads so that the appointments don’t all no-show and actually turn into consults. What good is a heap of leads that have never turned into consults?
But beyond just knowing how to pull these three fundamental levers, your marketing hire has to know how to pull these levers effectively for a plastic surgery practice– which is a little different from a taco truck or a furniture store.
While these fundamental levers apply to all businesses, how to fine-tune and adjust and make them work optimally is different from business to business.
Said in a different way:
The taco truck, Fortune 50 Company, and plastic surgery practice all need traffic, conversions, and economics. But how to make the fundamentals work for each is quite different.
Tragically, we often see a “right approach” applied to the wrong type of business.
In a minute, I’ll show you how such one approach causes plastic surgeons to grow databases full of leads that never turn into consults.
It’s “working”, but only through to traffic and conversions. Not all the way through to economics.
But first…
Here are the three big questions you need great answers to before hiring a marketing agency:
Do they know how to turn “clicks to consults”?
Can they actually work those three levers the right way for your business? Can they get you good traffic, convert it into high-quality leads, and turn those leads into consults and patients profitably?A marketing agency that can only get you traffic or that can only get you leads is useless. Been there before, perhaps?
Do they have a formula for making things predictably work?
No smoke and mirrors. No impressing you with fluffy “vanity metrics” like “lots of impressions” or “we’re branding you!” Not even getting you “lots of leads” if they don’t proceed through your sales funnel predictably. Remember this simple idea: You’re not hiring marketing help because you want to spend money on marketing as a “necessary evil.” You’re hiring marketing help because you want a return on investment. You want more patients. So cut through the “we’ll get you #1 rankings” or “we’ll get you all over social media” hogwash, and ask to be shown a formula or process that predictably works. A process that turns your advertising spend into profitable revenue.
What do they guarantee?
Be warned, you’ll stump most agencies with this – as very few marketing agencies will actually guarantee anything. Why? Most offer cookie-cutter services that can be fulfilled by entry-level $15/hr staff. I love entry-level staff as much as anyone. I was once that kid. You were once that kid. But entry-level staff has no business running marketing campaigns for an entire practice. Especially as competition continues to increase and your livelihood depends on it. But this is the economic model of most agencies. That is, to get as many clients as possible on a cookie-cutter service that can be fulfilled as cheaply as possible. And there is no way they can guarantee results of any sort with that business model. Want an example of a guarantee that shifts the risk from you and your practice to your marketing partner? (There’s risk in any transaction … if they’re not willing to assume that risk, is it fair that you do?)
Well, here’s an example – the guarantee we offer plastic surgery firms at Cosmetic Funnels. Our starter program guarantee is:
“We guarantee 20 new appointments (not leads) in the first 45 days or we’ll give you all your money back PLUS we’ll pay you back for all the advertising expenses for the failed marketing.”
Yes, a completely shameless self-promotion right there. And it’s also the industry-defining plastic surgery marketing guarantee.
(I challenge you to go find another marketing agency that beats our guarantee. If you do, please email us and let me know.)
In this day and age, it’s way too easy to throw up a website and claim you’re an agency and you know what you’re doing. But will that agency put their money where its mouth is?
If you can find a marketing agency that solidly checks all three of the above boxes, you’ve got a winner.
Now, let me show you a quick example of what I’d mentioned earlier … applying a “right marketing strategy” to the wrong business.
Specifically, I’m going to show you a strategy that produces lots of leads for plastic surgeons but very few – to no – consults or patients.
“Right Idea, Wrong Business” example:
Using proven e-commerce conversion strategies on plastic surgery procedure buyers.
The buying process for someone looking to having a cosmetic procedure done is way different than someone shopping online for a $97 widget. Yet the traffic and conversion strategies that most agencies use are e-commerce based.
Because that’s what most online marketing is rooted in. E-commerce-type businesses were marketing and selling online well before service-based, brick-and-mortar businesses like your practice.
So most of the strategies, ideas, and services offered by agencies are rooted in what traditionally works for getting someone online to buy a $97 widget.
But it’s a completely different game to get someone considering something as life-changing and emotionally-charged as a body-altering procedure.
That’s why a lot of marketing agencies generate traffic and are able to turn that traffic into leads. But that’s where it falls off a cliff when those leads don’t turn into consults and patients.
Why?
E-commerce strategies are based on people converting into a lead and buying right there on the spot. And a lot of agencies are good at this.
But your prospective patients aren’t buying “right there” online. Their buying process is much longer and much more nuanced.
It takes a different approach, one that combines e-commerce type traffic-getting strategies, with specific buying-process conversion strategies to make it all work.
So does that make sense how a “right marketing idea” can be applied to the wrong type of business?
If you want to understand what the buyer process is for prospective patients, download our report 3 Secrets To High Quality Patients.
In it, we break down the buying process for prospective patients into seven distinct steps. Plus you’ll get insights into how you can take advantage of each step.