Makin’ it rain!

As you’ll see in the video below, Dr. Miami relies heavily on social media to generate a buzz and interest in his practice. As he explains, social media “makes it rain” with interested consumers and potential patients. The buzz results in patients inquiring about his services.

He has hundreds and thousands of inquiries every day. What do they all want to know? How much is this gonna cost me?! With so many leads, their call center would be overwhelmed if answering questions about cost was done manually. That’s why they direct them to their BuildMyBod profile page here.

This way, consumers can check pricing automatically. But to check price, they first have to provide their contact information. So Dr. Miami is essentially combining price transparency with lead generation! Something we call #PriceTransCAREncy! While social media may make it rain, BuildMyBod health is the bucket to capture that rain (leads)!

Video testimonial with Dr. Miami

Are you a provider and want a BuildMyBod account for yourself? Sign up here!

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Makin’ it rain with Dr. Miami! [video] first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

I recently read a blog post on the Page1Solutions website regarding 5 tips to boost Google results. If you’re looking for good website SEO recommendations, Page1Solutions is really excellent. But in full disclosure, I think their page is full of great information mostly because they’re espousing viewpoints I agree with wholeheartedly! In fact, every recommendation they make in the aforementioned post (summarized below), aligns perfectly with all of the benefits of the BuildMyBod Price Transparency & Lead Generation platform.

1.) Increase Page Duration and Dwell Time

According to Page1Solutions, “by increasing the amount of time a visitor spends on a target page, you can increase the value of that page, its rankings, as well as the overall time spent on your website.”

I’m sure Page1Solutions has recommendations on how to keep folks on your website longer, but here’s the right and simple answer. Send them to your Pricing page. No matter who is searching, when it comes to healthcare, everyone wants to know the cost of a procedure. But don’t just list your pricing as a menu. As mentioned here, that’s dumb AF.

Place a Price Estimator on your Pricing page. With a price estimator, the consumer chooses the procedures or services of interest and adds them to a “wishlist.” But to see the cost, they must submit that wishlist along with their contact info. The consumer then receives an instant, automated email with a breakdown of costs, thus experiencing a feeling of instant gratification. In turn the doctor or practice or facility receives the consumer’s contact info, a lead for follow up.

Through two website reviews, a Price Estimator on a Pricing page will succeed in keeping more people on your website. On Dr. Kaplan’s website, here, a Price Estimator kept traffic on the site twice as long: 3.43 minutes with a Price Estimator vs 1.63 minutes without a Price Estimator. They also browsed 33% more pages upon arrival to the website.

Dr. Bradley Hubbard, a plastic surgeon in Dallas did a similar website review with his Pricing page. Dr. Hubbard found that his most trafficked page was his landing page. His Pricing page had the 3rd most traffic. But when he looked at how much time consumers were spending on various pages, the Pricing page was #1! So while the landing page was the most trafficked, consumers stayed on that page for less than 30 seconds. In contrast, consumers stayed on the Pricing page the longest – for 205 seconds. Nuff said.

2.) Reduce Bounce Rates

According to Page1Solutions, “A bounce is a visitor that comes to your website and without spending much time or clicking to other pages, leave your website…high bounce rates can affect your behavior signals.” A Price Estimator on a Pricing page has similar positive results on reducing bounce rates.

Based on Dr. Kaplan’s website review, consumers were twice as likely to stay on his website, specifically his Pricing page. The bounce rate dropped from 61% to 36% when consumers were mesmerized by a Price Estimator.

3.) Generate Return Visitors

“An important behavioral signal that sends Google the message that your website and pages have credible value is attracting return visitors. Google Analytics tracks new and returning visitors and a general guideline is the 80/20 rule: 80 percent new visitors and 20 percent return visitors.” – Page1Solutions

It’s fairly common knowledge that consumers need time to make a decision when it comes to healthcare. That means they may return to your website repeatedly over the course of that decision-making process.

But wouldn’t it be nice to know each time they returned to your website? If you knew they were visiting, it could give your office staff another opportunity to reach out and see if they had any follow up questions.

When consumers use a Price Estimator to submit a “wishlist” to check pricing, the doctor is alerted because a lead is generated. Dr. Kaplan found that when consumers submit three or more wishlists to check various procedure combinations or to see if prices have changed, the consumer submitted those wishlists on average, 41.4 days apart.

So yes, they returned to the website. We know that happens. But because they submitted a wishlist, we were aware of “their return,” giving us another touch point to reach out.

Another easy way to get consumers to come back to your website is communicating through email marketing. A Price Estimator will generate the most leads through your website. Sure, not all of those people will come in for a consult, but it’s a great way to passively grow your email marketing database. And when you send out an email newsletter at least once per month, you’ll generate return traffic in the process.

4.) Don’t Scare Visitors Off; Pull Them In!

By now, we’ve clearly established that we need enticing information to get consumers there in the first place, stay for a while and return again and again.

According to Page1Solutions, “Pull visitors in by addressing the obvious (pricing) – The most obvious question that visitors have, yet the vast majority of websites avoid pricing. By creating calls-to-action addressing the pricing question, you communicate that it is okay to request cost and you are confident in your pricing structure. We all know they are going to ask about it anyway, so why not “call the elephant in the room” and utilize the most obvious engagement topic?”

Pricing is the most tantalizing morsel of information that consumers can’t find. Sure they can find an average US price for a tummy tuck. But the only way they’re going to find out how much a specific physician charges for a specific procedure is if the physician tells them. So do it in an automated way that generates a lead in the process.

5.) Increase Conversions

As Page1Solutions explains, “Google can recognize when conversion actions (newsletter requests, downloads, form submissions, chat engagements, click-to-call links, etc.) are taken and rewards websites that consumers trust enough to take the next step.”

Your web developer can link your BuildMyBod Health Price Estimator to your Google Analytics account. This way, every time someone summits a wishlist, Google is made aware of that conversion. And it’s also a great way to see the referring website that brought the consumer to your site prior to submitting a wishlist.

Summary

As you can see, the BuildMyBod Health Price Estimator provides a way to boost your Google ranking in multiple ways. That means you need only one solution to address all 5 tips, not 5 different solutions from 5 different vendors!

So what are you waiting for?! Request an account at www.buildmybod.com/providers. And if you’re a consumer, check pricing from one of the BuildMyBod network physicians near you by clicking here!

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post 5 tips to boost Google results, 1 solution first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

While plastic surgeons may have made price transparency sexy, non-cosmetic doctors that have insurance-based practices can also utilize this concept. Price transparency can engage the consumer, generate leads and reduce sticker shock. In the process, price transparency can help separate a practice from the competition as Dr. Ibikunle describes in the video below.

But before you watch the video, check out how he uses a Price Estimator for his multi-specialty clinic in Georgia. The consumer can check pricing on bariatric services, cosmetic services and gynecological services.

Video testimonial from Georgia SurgiCare Dr. Ibikunle

To learn more about using a Price Estimator to generate leads and engage consumers, you can read more here.

And if you’re a doctor who wants to be on the leading edge of customer service and practice management, click here to find out how.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Using price transparency in bariatric surgery – Dr. Christopher Ibikunle [video] first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

The healthcare industry typically views price transparency with disdain and suspicion. But price transparency can be sexy! Price transparency is a bold, seminal way to approach customer service and lead generation.

Why fear price transparency?

Healthcare providers worry about the advent of price transparency for many reasons. It could be the concern that patients will focus on cost rather than the doctor patient relationship. Or worry their competitors will check their pricing and try and undercut them. With various insurance plans and deductibles, it’s considered too difficult to offer actionable pricing insights to the consumer.

All of these concerns are understandable. But they’re also surmountable, as detailed below.

Price transparency is the greatest lead generator

If patients want to price shop, they’ll price shop. We can’t stop that. But by offering price transparency in combination with lead generation, like here, providers can capture the consumer’s contact info in the process of providing automated pricing info. With their contact information, the doctor’s office can follow up with the patient and explain why their practice is a perfect fit for that patient.

Based on this peer-reviewed study, when followed over a year, 17.8% of leads generated through this method (price transparency combined with lead generation) eventually come in for a consultation. And when price-aware consumers come in for consultations, they’re 41% more likely to book a procedure than non price-aware patients. Ostensibly due to the avoidance of sticker shock.

Detractors may say this only works for cosmetic or cash-based procedures. But as the Ohio Surgery Center demonstrates, the consumer can choose their insurance plan, choose their procedure of interest, and then receive a breakdown of the insurance allowable for surgeon, anesthesia and facility fee specific to that procedure and insurance plan.

Price transparency is a customer service opportunity

Consumers have no baseline comparison of the costs of healthcare. They don’t know if an MRI will be $500 or $5000 out of pocket depending on the facility they go to. Not having any baseline for comparison is very crippling for a consumer. It becomes impossible to make a rational financial decision.

Which is why the consumer would be all the more delighted and appreciative to find a doctor that could shed light on the financial options. If a healthcare provider was willing to offer that information in an actionable format, that would be a huge customer satisfier. Which in turn would set the facility apart from the competition.

When you consider that 82% of all calls to a doctor’s office are related to cost of care, it’s clear this is a huge customer service opportunity. It’s an opportunity for the practice to offer the consumer online, easy-to-determine, actionable information on their out of pocket costs. But it’s also an opportunity to help the front desk staff reduce frustration when they’re manually responding and answering calls and inquiries related to cost. Consider the improved efficiencies if the consumer could check pricing online through the practice website, freeing up the office staff for other more pressing tasks.

Price transparency attracts millennials

Figuring out how to attract millennials is the subject of every marketing companies’ email newsletter. The first step to attracting millennials is making useful information available online. As shown in the image below, this particular millennial reached out via Instagram Direct Message to ask about the cost of a procedure.

In the past, doctors would answer this in one of two ways, both incorrect. They’d either say, “you have to come in and be seen before we can provide a cost estimate.” And the other is to give the inquirer a cost estimate without ever determining who they are. But as seen in the example above, this medical practice gave the prospective patient a link to go back to their website to check pricing automatically. This offered the consumer instant gratification and, in turn, a lead for the practice to follow up with.

And remember, one benefit of providing pricing info ahead of time is to reduce sticker shock and increase the conversion rate. Once the millennial (or any potential patient), learns the costs through a doctor’s website, they’re motivated to take the next step: booking an appointment.

The ability to book online is a huge “millennial satisfier.” This example epitomizes the secret to engaging and booking millennial patients: creating an experience that allows them to perform all tasks online until the point they can no longer perform a task online, ie undergoing a procedure, that by its very nature, requires an in-person experience!

In the case above, this patient

• received automated online pricing information,
• booked a consult via online booking,
• had their consultation via FaceTime
• and booked/paid on the spot.

Be on the right side of history

As physicians, we’re bound to provide the patient with all relevant information so that they can make an informed decision about their healthcare. Cost is relevant. How can we uphold our oath if we knowingly withhold information that could enable our patients to make better financial healthcare decisions?

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Price transparency can be sexy! first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

Why do we advertise with Facebook and Google AdWords? Because we want to be exposed to a large, but specific, demographic that has interest in the services we provide. The only problem is that using these services isn’t free and it certainly isn’t cheap. Wouldn’t it be nice to continue to promote our services to the correct demographic, but not break the bank? The solution? Email marketing to your growing email marketing database. With a large email marketing database, you can own your brand and market to your audience whenever you want…without having to pay “the man.”

Using your website and social media traffic to grow your email marketing database

To market to your email database at your whim, without paying large sums of money for digital advertising, requires growing a substantial email marketing database. But how do you get a large database? First, you can load your existing customers or patients to your email database. But then you must, on a daily basis, continue to passively grow that database.

When getting started, yes, you could grow that database with digital or other types of advertising. But from the start, your goal should be on reducing your dependence on digital advertising by capturing as many consumers as possible through 1) optimization of your website and through 2) organic (non paid) activity on social media.

Optimizing your website “simply” means adding fresh content to your site on a weekly basis. This can be done with blogging. Blog about treatments you perform or interesting questions patients have asked you. Blog about the state of healthcare in this country. The point is, by blogging, something that costs nothing, you can increase visitors to your site. Once they arrive on your site, you need to capture their contact info to passively grow your email database. But more on how to do that in a moment.

When it comes to social media, we are constantly feeding the social media beast with more and more content. What do we have to show for it? How often do you actually find out the contact info behind the social media handle? Do you know who @gayleprettylips is? Do you know who @sexycajundiva is? Probably not. So just as you want to capture the contact info of the consumers on your site reading your blog, you want to capture the contact info of your anonymous social media followers. There’s one great way to accomplish this.

How to passively build your email marketing database

Whether it’s readers of your blog or social media followers engaged with your content, when it comes to cosmetic or medically necessary services, there’s one common question everyone ultimately has…how much does it cost?

Certainly when this question is asked, you could just respond with a dollar figure or a range. But once you “give the milk away for free,” you’ve given up a great opportunity to capture the consumer’s contact info. If you direct the consumer to a Price Estimator on your site that allows them to check pricing automatically, but only after providing their contact info, you’ll start passively growing your email marketing database. And growing it fast! Dr. Jason Hall, a plastic surgeon in Knoxville, Tennessee has used his Price Estimator to capture almost 3,000 leads (2,964 as of this writing) through this one lead source.

Certainly there are other “calls to action” that will capture consumer contact info, as discussed in this Modern Aesthetics article, but none are as tantalizing as the offer to provide pricing information. For example, compare “Download our eBook” or “Sign up for our e-newsletter” to “Get A Quote Now.” The latter is much more useful to the consumer than the former.

As you can see in the video below, Dr. Rich Castellano uses Facebook Live for filler demonstrations. In the video, he’s asked how much the treatment costs three separate times. Instead of just offering a number, he directs the consumer to the Price Estimator on his website so he has a better chance of capturing their contact info, and building his database in the process.

My practice receives questions daily through Instagram Direct Messages regarding price. Similar to Dr. Castellano, we direct the consumer to our Price Estimator. But we do one better. As you see in the image below, we provide the consumer with a clickable direct link in our response. So when they click that link, they’re taken directly to the specific procedure in question, rather than just sending them to our pricing page and requiring them to find the procedure they’re looking for. By placing them one step closer to their answer, it’s placing us one step closer to capturing their contact info when they submit their “wishlist” to check pricing.

Aside from cost, why Facebook advertising just isn’t good enough

When advertising on Facebook, you don’t advertise to all 2 billion users. You select the geographic area you want to advertise to. You select the age range and other demographics. But what’s fascinating is that even with Facebook’s huge trove of consumer data, you can’t actually select for the demographic that’s interested in cosmetic or other specific healthcare services. As shown in the ad builder screenshot below, you can only approximately identify your target demographic’s interest.

For example, if trying to advertise to someone interested in something as broad as cosmetic surgery or as specific as a facelift, you can’t do either. The best you can do is advertise to someone interested in health and wellness or fashion and beauty. Sure, there may be some crossover but this clearly demonstrates why your own growing email marketing database is better than what Facebook has to offer.

The estimated reach of the potential ad above is 3,600 to 9,600 people that may or may not be your target. If you have an email marketing database of over 9,100 people (as I do) that are clearly interested in my services (because they submitted pricing inquires for services I offer), then my database is more useful that what I could target through Facebook.

Stop relying on platforms that only allow you to approximate your target audience. With an email marketing database filled with consumers inquiring about pricing on specific services you offer, you know you’re targeting the correct demographic. And not only is your targeting better than what Facebook has to offer, it’s substantially less expensive. So what are you waiting for? Start passively building that email marketing database!

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Oh the places you will go with your own email marketing database! first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

According to the FFAS website, “The mission of the Foundation of Facial Aesthetic Surgery (a Non-Profit, Multi-Specialty Foundation) is to foster a sense of cooperation and knowledge exchange between the medical specialties that are primarily involved in the science, practice and teaching of facial aesthetic surgery and non-surgical medical aesthetics.”

Agenda at FFAS

Dr. Kaplan will speak Friday afternoon on, “How to generate leads through social media.” We’re constantly feeding so much content into the social media beast. But what do you have to show for it?

In the process of producing more and more content, we forget to consider what we’re getting in return. Dr. Kaplan will talk about how you can use social media to not just passively generate leads but proactively generating leads.

He’ll show examples not only from his practice, but how other doctors generate leads through social media. Specifically, he’ll show how a Price Estimator is a great way to get a consumer from your social media page to your website and leave their contact info behind.

If you’re in town and want to attend, register for the FFAS conference here.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Dr. Kaplan speaking at 26th Annual FFAS Conference first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

Leads are the lifeblood of any business and healthcare, it’s a business folks, is no different. In the old days, when competition wasn’t as fierce, practices and healthcare facilities could passively rely on referrals from other doctors to build their business. Now practices must cut through the competitive noise and proactively generate leads from multiple channels: social media, networking events, seminars, print, TV, radio, etc. But no matter the source, you still want high quality leads.

The first three hurdles in high quality lead generation

The first hurdle is, what’s the best way to capture the highest number of high quality leads? It’s a numbers game so more leads will turn into more patients. The second hurdle is ensuring that the practice is capturing accurate information, and thirdly, from the right consumer, ie the consumer that’s interested in the services your practice or facility provides. If you can get the correct contact info from the intended target audience, that’s a high quality lead.

High quality vs low quality

However, healthcare providers often misunderstand the difference between high vs low quality leads. While it’s understandable that as providers of elective (not emergent) services, we want every lead to come in and undergo treatment. Unfortunately, that’s not realistic. Just because someone doesn’t come in for treatment immediately after submitting their contact info doesn’t make them a low quality lead. Remember, it’s a sales funnel, not a sales sieve.

The reason it’s a sales funnel is because capturing and nurturing a lead is a process, ie moving the consumer through the funnel. It’s not an immediate, one-step transition analogous to a sieve. Once you have them in your sales funnel, it’s incumbent upon your front office staff to reach out and educate that high quality lead through your funnel until they come in for consultation and treatment.

A low quality lead on the other hand is someone with fake information. Or someone not genuinely interested in the services your office provides. A person who enters your sales funnel with real contact information and interest in your services but ultimately doesn’t receive those services from your practice is not a low quality lead. Maybe they liked something better about that other practice? If that’s the case, then it would be worthwhile determining what that ‘something’ is. Could you have better customer service? Should you buy a machine that does this, that and the other? Did they prefer the other provider’s personality? Was the other practice cheaper? Some of these issues can be overcome (improving customer service), others should not be (ie don’t compete on price).

The fourth hurdle in high quality lead generation

Even if we are successful at generating 1) many leads (name, email address, phone number), 2) with accurate information, 3) from the intended audience (shows interest in your practice’s services), this should be accomplished with the fewest marketing dollars. That’s the ultimate goal. The fourth hurdle in high quality lead generation is doing so without breaking the bank.

How to overcome the four hurdles of high quality lead generation

The trick to capturing high quality leads and overcoming all four hurdles is dangling a “carrot” of information in front of the consumer that they can’t do without. As mentioned in this article, offering someone an ebook in exchange for their contact info isn’t tantalizing enough to generate a huge number of leads.

The one thing all patients want to know ultimately, and what will generate the most leads, is how much the procedure or service is going to cost (addressing the first hurdle). A Price Estimator, similar to this one on Dr. Bradley Hubbard’s website, allows the consumer to check pricing but only after providing their contact info. And because the estimate is sent to their email address, the consumer has an incentive to enter a correct email address because otherwise they won’t see the estimate (overcoming the second hurdle). Because these consumers are on this doctor’s website checking pricing for the services they’re interested in, the third hurdle of capturing the intended audience is overcome.

And does a Price Estimator address the fourth hurdle? Most “experts” in the marketing field will tell you it costs $100 to $300 to capture a lead. According to Dr. Hubbard’s own research and data, his leads through the Price Estimator on his website cost $12.50 per lead!

Conclusion

Capturing a real person that has a genuine interest in the services your practice provides is a high quality lead, period! But understand that every lead won’t come in – that doesn’t make it a low quality lead. Find out why they didn’t come in and possibly address that issue. Ultimately, the more high quality leads you generate will result in more patients and more revenue. Just do it efficiently at the lowest cost possible.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post In with the high and out with the low (quality leads)! first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

One of the more frustrating aspects of running a medical practice is the constant calls and emails asking about the cost of procedures. This annoys doctors because it makes them feel that their training and expertise accounts for nothing. As though, all that really matters is “how much is this gonna cost me?!” But doctors also need to recognize that just because someone asks about price doesn’t necessarily make them a price shopper.

Two types of price shoppers

When people ask about price, there are those simply calling each office trying to find the cheapest doctor with no regard to quality or certification. Those are the patients doctors supposedly don’t want.

The other type is the person who has a genuine curiosity about price. Just like they wouldn’t go to an open house without knowing the cost of the home, or wouldn’t go to the dealership without knowing the cost of a car, they don’t want to waste their time on a consult if they can’t afford it. This of course, is very reasonable.

But sometimes doctors send mixed messages.

But do doctors really dislike price shoppers?

On the one hand, doctors say they don’t want price shoppers for the reasons stated above. This is also why they don’t list pricing on their website because then it looks like they’re trying to compete on price or indulge the patient by saying, “here’s the cost, that’s all that matters!” (As an aside, I also think simply listing your prices on a menu is a terrible idea because you don’t get any lead generation the way you do from a Price Estimator).

But these same doctors that say they don’t like price shoppers also routinely run specials and other discounted promotions (ie $10 per unit BOO-tox for Halloween, Labor Day specials etc). Well, who do you think is showing up for those discounted treatments? In other words, if you don’t like price shoppers, why are you encouraging their behavior?! If your goal is to weed out price shoppers from your practice, then why weed in price shoppers with specials?

The reason is, doctors need patients. And during traditionally slow parts of the year, doctors have to find a way to bring patients in, so they run specials. Yes, this will result in bringing in some price shoppers. So while a doctor can’t eliminate price shoppers from their practice, they can do a better job differentiating between the price shopper they like vs the price shopper they don’t like.

Automation is key

With so many calls and inquiries about pricing, doctors and their front office staff need to be more efficient in separating out the two different types of price shoppers. The question is how. Automation is synonymous with efficiency.

When a consumer checks pricing through a Price Estimator on the doctor’s website, they can automatically check that doctor’s pricing in exchange for providing their contact information. That contact information syncs into the doctor’s email database for future email marketing. If the patient is serious, then they’ll reach out to the doctor during these remarketing efforts. Certainly the doctor’s office can proactively follow up with the patient as well. This is an excellent way to get as many consumers/future patients into your sales funnel as possible.

The bottom line is that discussing pricing on your website shouldn’t be seen as a strategy that involves competing on price. The strategy is to use price as the “carrot” to capture the consumer’s contact info so you then have the opportunity to follow up and differentiate yourself based on quality, expertise and certification.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Doctors: Don’t like price shoppers? first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

Practice Profitability MD (PPMD) is having a live event this weekend in Tampa. PPMD was founded by Dr. Rich Castellano, a facial plastic surgeon in the Tampa Bay area. Dr. Castellano helps cosmetic practitioners make their staff more productive, grow their businesses and avoid burnout so they can have more fun at work, enjoy more free time and make their practices more profitable.

The PPMD Live Agenda

Aside from many sessions throughout the weekend addressing ways to improve a cosmetic physician’s practice, Dr. Kaplan will be reviewing 5 pain points that every doctor experiences. And just as important as identifying those 5 pain points, is identifying the solution(s)!

Dr. Kaplan will discuss:

1. the difficulty of working with price shoppers,
2. implementing effective lead generation,
3. improving your return on investment (ROI) on social media
4. reducing inefficiencies at the front desk and in the exam room
5. reining in digital advertising costs

If you’re in the Tampa Bay Area, you should attend the meeting by signing up here.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Dr. Kaplan speaking at PPMD in Tampa this weekend first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

BuildMyBod founder, Dr. Jonathan Kaplan, continues his US speaking tour in Dallas this Wednesday at the 12th International Symposium of Facial Plastic Surgery. This meeting is put on by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery – the AAFPRS. He’ll be giving three talks, one as a plastic surgeon and two as founder/CEO of BuildMyBod Health.

Talks at the AAFPRS: The SIMI Neck Lift

Dr. Kaplan will speak on the neck lift technique that he developed. The SIMI neck lift is the single incision minimally invasive neck lift that trades three incisions for one incision. More patients with misplaced midline neck skin can be treated with this technique rather than the more invasive full neck lift. See the video below.

How to weed out price shoppers

Price shoppers calling many offices looking for the cheapest price rather than the best quality care can take up a lot of the front office staff’s time. Dr. Kaplan will share his technique to streamline front office processes, provide consumers with pricing information they need, all while weeding out price shoppers and saving the staff time.

Generating leads through social media

Doctors work hard to produce a lot of content for their social media followers. From surgical to non-surgical treatments, consumers are hungry for more and more content. But what do you have to show for it? A lot of followers but no names or contact information.

Dr. Kaplan will show how he uses the call to action button, “Get A Quote Now” to capture the consumer’s attention when they visit a doctor’s website. This gets them into the doctor’s sales funnel so the doctor can find out who the consumer is, follow up with them and educate them through monthly email newsletters.

To learn more about these techniques, read more here and here.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Dr. Kaplan at AAFPRS first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

If you’re not familiar with Modern Aesthetics magazine, it’s an online and print magazine that provides a great source of marketing ideas for aesthetic practices. A recent article discussed ways to improve your inbound marketing. Basically, how to generate leads from visitors to your website. To be clear, we’re not talking about how to generate more traffic to your website, but how to get more actual leads from that traffic.

This is something I’ve discussed many times before, including here and here. My motto is, “you can’t follow a click!” In other words, just because someone is visiting your site (clicking on various links), doesn’t mean you will ever find out who they are. And if you don’t know who they are, you can’t follow up with them.

Call to action

The bottom line is that if a visitor to your website is going to provide you with their contact info, you need to give them a good reason to do so. In the article from Modern Aesthetics magazine above, the writer suggests providing something of value in exchange for the consumer’s contact info. Specifically, an ebook and subscription to an office newsletter.

I’m sorry, but similar to live chat and website submission forms, ebooks and signing up for a newsletter isn’t value enough. Maybe those were worthwhile a few years ago. But there is so much content online now that the consumer has read whatever is in your ebook about a thousand times already.

That’s why, as I suggest here, a properly tantalizing call to action must 1) allow the consumer to obtain difficult to find information, 2) incentivize the consumer to provide their contact info and 3) requires very little motivation on the part of the patient.

The only call to action I’m aware of that fits all of these is the ability to automatically provide a consumer with their most burning question: how much does it cost. It’s just that simple. No complex machinations or big data needed. They want to know the cost of their procedure. So you might as well combine price transparency with lead generation and find out who they are in the process.

It’s a fair exchange between doctor and patient and the wave of the future.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Call to action: ebooks and newsletters are so 1980’s first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

Valuation of an existing plastic surgery practice

The Late Career Boot Camp has speakers discussing the valuation of a practice from the seller and buyer’s perspective. In my case, I was the buyer. The doctor selling his practice to me settled on the purchase price in the following way. He chose the net revenue from injectables (Botox and fillers) over the course of a year. In other words, how much did he bring in over the course of a year from Botox and fillers, then subtract the cost of the botox and fillers. Oh, and then he multiplied that by two. Apparently that’s a thing – a valuation based on multiples.

To his credit, he based the value on injectables only, not surgery. In his opinion, the most likely patient to return to continue seeing me were non-surgical patients who typically receive injections every 3-6 months. Therefore, surgical patients who may never return, were not included in the valuation.

The question a buyer has to ask themselves is what are they buying. Buying a database of patients is tricky because it’s not clear how many will return to see the new doctor. In my case, only 151 patients (8.66% of his patients) ever came to see me. That might not sound like a lot but those 151 patients each spent an average of $5,214 over the subsequent 5 years.

Even with that revenue, the main value in the practice that I purchased was the existence of the already-accredited office-based operating room. That was the main reason I wanted this practice in the first place. This allows our office to provide a private, VIP experience to patients. This way, they don’t have to have their breast augmentation in a hospital where the risk of infection is greater.

How to increase your valuation

When I took over the practice, there were 1,744 patients in the database. The existing email database had only 200 email addresses! After scouring, the patient charts, I found more email addresses, bringing the total from 200 to 819.

What I’ve found over the last 5 years is that there’s more potential value in an email database of existing patients and potential patients (leads generated) than just a patient database. Consider that a doctor will always have more leads than actual patients. It stands to reason. A practice markets themselves to generate leads and there’s a natural attrition through the sales funnel from leads to actual patients. So, the database of leads is greater than the database of patients.

In preparation for the sale of a practice, it would behoove a doctor to aggressively generate as many leads as possible so that when they turn over the practice, they have more than just a database of patients that have already been in to see the doctor. They also have a database of potential patients that may not have received treatment from anyone.

After a review of the numbers, my current patient database after 5 years comes to a total of 4,376. But my total database of patients and leads (email addresses and phone numbers) is 8,500! That means that my email database of real and potential patients is double what my patient database is.

What sounds more valuable, a database of 4,376 or 8,500?!

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Taking over an existing plastic surgery practice first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.