For facial plastic surgeons who are already realizing increased patient consultation requests from their online marketing efforts, the primary concern often becomes implementing additional tactics and strategies that can keep their online marketing fresh, relevant, and effective. This article creates a framework for evaluating advanced online marketing opportunities by analyzing each opportunity according to the variables of possible return, average cost to implement, probability of success, and implementation time. Within this framework, 11 distinct tactics are discussed, with special emphasis on the most common marketing needs and challenges of facial plastic surgery practices.
Many facial plastic surgeons who have already invested in online marketing are seeing the returns in terms of increased patient consultation requests. To these surgeons, the primary concern becomes implementing additional tactics and strategies that can keep their online marketing fresh, relevant, and effective. With so many opportunities to promote the practice online and new channels for promotion emerging every month, choosing which tactics to use, and in which order, can be daunting. This article lays out a plan for advanced online promotion and explains the supporting methodology used to order the recommended tactics.
The online promotion matrix
Surgeons have the ability to create an objective measurement for every tactic that can be implemented to improve online marketing performance and/or extend communication with new audiences on the Web. In some cases, these measurements can be highly specific and quantifiable (for instance, measuring the number of leads coming in from the Web site), whereas in other cases, tactics can be evaluated only in terms of broadly scoped metrics (for instance, attempting to track the return on investment [ROI] of a social media marketing campaign).
Table 1 is an online promotion matrix that organizes tactics based on 4 variables: possible ROI, average cost to implement, probability of success, and implementation time. These tactics have been grouped into tiers based on possible return, with tier 1 tactics offering the greatest possible ROI. Tier 2 tactics have been proved to deliver a timely and respectable investment return when properly executed. For the remaining tactics, grouped in tier 3, little evidence is available to convince facial plastic surgeons to expect a rich or reliable investment return. Although these new or novel tactics present the largest risk, they can be successfully deployed to reinforce search engine optimization or to expand communication beyond the audience that is typically reached with tactics in the first two tiers.
The online promotion matrix can be approached as a “ladder” in which tier 1 tactics are implemented before tier 2 and tier 3 tactics are not started until a solid foundation in tier 1 and tier 2 has been achieved. Tier 1 tactics, at the base of the ladder, are used to build a strong site that is engineered to rank well, motivate consultation requests, and generate data about those requests as to inform marketing decisions.
Tier 2 tactics help a surgeon put the practice in front of qualified potential patients. Examples include direct-to-consumer advertisements, in the form of e-mail newsletter blasts, paid regional placement, and programs to encourage online referrals. These tactics are particularly effective for those surgeons who see the rate of return on their tier 1 investments beginning to level out.
For mature campaigners, tier 3 contains tactics that embrace emerging technology, such as video and social media, to extend branding messages, engage prospects, and cultivate long-term relationships. Layering tier 2 and tier 3 tactics on top of the solid footing achieved through tier 1 activities increases the likelihood of success and maximizes the possible return for all of a practice’s online endeavors. Picking and choosing from tactics without an understanding of the possible return and other critical variables can often lead to wasted effort, frustration, and competitive disadvantage.
The remainder of this article provides an analysis of each tactic presented in Table 1 , starting at the base of the ladder, tier 1 tactics.
Tier 1 tactics
Lead Tracking
Any contact initiated by a potential patient through a surgeon’s Web site,whether received from a contact form, quick contact form, consultation request form, or other means, is considered a lead. Lead tracking involves installing tools to store identifiable data about inquiring patients, including detailed referral source data. Lead tracking is different from, and much more valuable to online marketing success than, anonymous Web traffic metrics, such as number of visitors over a period or most-viewed pages.
Lead tracking tools are fairly fast to implement, and the resultant data are fairly easy to evaluate. Although lead tracking by itself does not increase the number or quality of leads coming from the Web site, this tactic offers a high ROI because lead tracking tools can be used to identify which of the other marketing tactics are delivering the highest returns and which should be cut from a surgeon’s budget.
Most surgeons seeking to implement advanced tactics on the Web already understand that one of the significant benefits of online marketing compared with traditional marketing media is the trackability of activities on the Web. In practice, nearly everything can be tracked online. For instance, through the use of simple software, surgeons can see not only how many visitors came to their site but also exactly where each of them came from. Despite the simplicity of the software, it helps to have a Web vendor who can recommend which online touchpoints should be tracked, activate and install the lead tracking tools, and provide the surgeon with the ability to monitor and analyze the data generated through lead tracking.
Off-page Optimization
There are 2 central themes of search engine optimization:
- 1.
Improving and continually updating content on the site itself
- 2.
Networking the site with others as a way to demonstrate the site’s importance and popularity.
This kind of networking online results in links between sites. Each link pointing at a surgeon’s site acts as a virtual vote of confidence, which raises its stature and importance with the search engines. The act of cultivating search rankings by pursuing links from sites outside of one’s control is called off-page optimization or sometimes just link building.
Link building most often involves obtaining quality links from other sites pointing to a surgeon’s site. The more the number of independent sites willing to link to a surgeon’s site, the more popular and useful the surgeon’s site appears. All of the search engines, particularly Google, see links pointing to a site as individual recommendations from others about a valuable resource contained on the surgeon’s site. In theory, if many other sites are willing to send visitors to a surgeon’s site, then it makes sense for the search engines to follow suit.
The indicative value of links becomes compromised, however, if a surgeon pays for the link or provides something else of value (for instance, a reciprocal link) instead of the link’s purpose being purely to provide a pathway to an informational resource. For this reason, a surgeon must keep in mind that any link-building efforts must appear natural. If a surgeon’s site has no external sites linking to it one day but 200 sites linking to it the next day, chances are high that the search engines will discount the value of these links, assuming that most, if not all, were purchased rather than earned. However, if a few new links from various sites appear each week, it is much more difficult for a search engine to determine the motivation behind these links.
Because Google remains the most popular search engine by a significant margin and places great importance on link building, surgeons must keep this tactic in mind if they want top rankings in this search engine. Although off-page optimization is a tactic that can be costly and time consuming, the potential for high rankings in Google makes this a highly valuable tactic for most surgeons.
Lead Capture and Conversion Optimization
Small adjustments and changes to a Web site can produce much higher lead capture rates and make it much more likely that a prospect will turn into an actual patient of the practice. But improving lead capture rates involves much more than simply redesigning a contact form or displaying the phone number more prominently on a site. A surgeon or Web vendor embarking on optimization of lead capture and conversion should be open to analyzing all aspects of a site’s messaging, functionality, and usability to determine if the site is doing the best job possible to convince visitors to start a conversation with the practice. This analysis should include a detailed look at visitor behavior from the moment they arrive at the site to the moment they leave and the creation of a site improvement plan based on the findings of this analysis.
Certain factors that influence lead capture are well understood and documented, such as asking the visitor to request a consultation while on the site, deploying a quick contact form that appears on every page of the site, or adding graphics that invite the consultation. Other factors, such as layout, aesthetics, writing tone, choice of imagery, and calls to action, can play a more subtle role in a prospect’s choice of surgeon. The best approach to optimizing these more subjective elements is through A/B split testing and repeated microrefinement. Surgeons need to be careful to frame their split testing in a way that demonstrates a clear cause-and-effect relationship. For instance, if surgeons make changes to their Web site right before a historically busy period, it will not be immediately obvious how the changes in the site, time of year, or both factors combined have influenced the number of consultation requests received.
Surgeons have realized significant gains in lead capture from existing sources of traffic through optimization and refinement. Because the probability of achieving improvements in lead capture is so certain and immediate for many of the well-known and understood lead capture optimization tactics, this ranks as an early priority for surgeons seeking to implement advanced tactics.
On-page Optimization
Once the cornerstone of search engine optimization, carefully crafting well-written, original, thoughtfully structured, informative, and engaging content remains a critical key to success on Yahoo and Bing. Unlike Google, which relies primarily on measures of popularity to determine rankings, most other search engines look for clear signals inside a surgeon’s Web pages to judge the value (and therefore ranking) of the site.
Although the possible financial returns from top organic search rankings are very high, on-page optimization does present some challenges. Because Web writing takes a fair amount of time and experience to craft pages that are clinically accurate, that capture and extend a surgeon’s core branding, and that feature keywords without making the text a turnoff to potential patients, this tactic in particular can get expensive.
Because there is no one formula for on-page optimization and because every search engine uses different criteria to evaluate the pages, some level of experience and knowledge of best practices is required to succeed. Even if a surgeon (or the surgeon’s Web vendor) is highly skilled at on-page optimization tactics, it can take from several weeks to several months before the search engines respond to changes made to the copy of the site.
Despite the complexity and delay between completing the tactic and improved search rankings, on-page optimization is one of the early activities that a surgeon must do right before shifting to more advanced online marketing tactics.
Tier 1 tactics
Lead Tracking
Any contact initiated by a potential patient through a surgeon’s Web site,whether received from a contact form, quick contact form, consultation request form, or other means, is considered a lead. Lead tracking involves installing tools to store identifiable data about inquiring patients, including detailed referral source data. Lead tracking is different from, and much more valuable to online marketing success than, anonymous Web traffic metrics, such as number of visitors over a period or most-viewed pages.
Lead tracking tools are fairly fast to implement, and the resultant data are fairly easy to evaluate. Although lead tracking by itself does not increase the number or quality of leads coming from the Web site, this tactic offers a high ROI because lead tracking tools can be used to identify which of the other marketing tactics are delivering the highest returns and which should be cut from a surgeon’s budget.
Most surgeons seeking to implement advanced tactics on the Web already understand that one of the significant benefits of online marketing compared with traditional marketing media is the trackability of activities on the Web. In practice, nearly everything can be tracked online. For instance, through the use of simple software, surgeons can see not only how many visitors came to their site but also exactly where each of them came from. Despite the simplicity of the software, it helps to have a Web vendor who can recommend which online touchpoints should be tracked, activate and install the lead tracking tools, and provide the surgeon with the ability to monitor and analyze the data generated through lead tracking.
Off-page Optimization
There are 2 central themes of search engine optimization:
- 1.
Improving and continually updating content on the site itself
- 2.
Networking the site with others as a way to demonstrate the site’s importance and popularity.
This kind of networking online results in links between sites. Each link pointing at a surgeon’s site acts as a virtual vote of confidence, which raises its stature and importance with the search engines. The act of cultivating search rankings by pursuing links from sites outside of one’s control is called off-page optimization or sometimes just link building.
Link building most often involves obtaining quality links from other sites pointing to a surgeon’s site. The more the number of independent sites willing to link to a surgeon’s site, the more popular and useful the surgeon’s site appears. All of the search engines, particularly Google, see links pointing to a site as individual recommendations from others about a valuable resource contained on the surgeon’s site. In theory, if many other sites are willing to send visitors to a surgeon’s site, then it makes sense for the search engines to follow suit.
The indicative value of links becomes compromised, however, if a surgeon pays for the link or provides something else of value (for instance, a reciprocal link) instead of the link’s purpose being purely to provide a pathway to an informational resource. For this reason, a surgeon must keep in mind that any link-building efforts must appear natural. If a surgeon’s site has no external sites linking to it one day but 200 sites linking to it the next day, chances are high that the search engines will discount the value of these links, assuming that most, if not all, were purchased rather than earned. However, if a few new links from various sites appear each week, it is much more difficult for a search engine to determine the motivation behind these links.
Because Google remains the most popular search engine by a significant margin and places great importance on link building, surgeons must keep this tactic in mind if they want top rankings in this search engine. Although off-page optimization is a tactic that can be costly and time consuming, the potential for high rankings in Google makes this a highly valuable tactic for most surgeons.
Lead Capture and Conversion Optimization
Small adjustments and changes to a Web site can produce much higher lead capture rates and make it much more likely that a prospect will turn into an actual patient of the practice. But improving lead capture rates involves much more than simply redesigning a contact form or displaying the phone number more prominently on a site. A surgeon or Web vendor embarking on optimization of lead capture and conversion should be open to analyzing all aspects of a site’s messaging, functionality, and usability to determine if the site is doing the best job possible to convince visitors to start a conversation with the practice. This analysis should include a detailed look at visitor behavior from the moment they arrive at the site to the moment they leave and the creation of a site improvement plan based on the findings of this analysis.
Certain factors that influence lead capture are well understood and documented, such as asking the visitor to request a consultation while on the site, deploying a quick contact form that appears on every page of the site, or adding graphics that invite the consultation. Other factors, such as layout, aesthetics, writing tone, choice of imagery, and calls to action, can play a more subtle role in a prospect’s choice of surgeon. The best approach to optimizing these more subjective elements is through A/B split testing and repeated microrefinement. Surgeons need to be careful to frame their split testing in a way that demonstrates a clear cause-and-effect relationship. For instance, if surgeons make changes to their Web site right before a historically busy period, it will not be immediately obvious how the changes in the site, time of year, or both factors combined have influenced the number of consultation requests received.
Surgeons have realized significant gains in lead capture from existing sources of traffic through optimization and refinement. Because the probability of achieving improvements in lead capture is so certain and immediate for many of the well-known and understood lead capture optimization tactics, this ranks as an early priority for surgeons seeking to implement advanced tactics.
On-page Optimization
Once the cornerstone of search engine optimization, carefully crafting well-written, original, thoughtfully structured, informative, and engaging content remains a critical key to success on Yahoo and Bing. Unlike Google, which relies primarily on measures of popularity to determine rankings, most other search engines look for clear signals inside a surgeon’s Web pages to judge the value (and therefore ranking) of the site.
Although the possible financial returns from top organic search rankings are very high, on-page optimization does present some challenges. Because Web writing takes a fair amount of time and experience to craft pages that are clinically accurate, that capture and extend a surgeon’s core branding, and that feature keywords without making the text a turnoff to potential patients, this tactic in particular can get expensive.
Because there is no one formula for on-page optimization and because every search engine uses different criteria to evaluate the pages, some level of experience and knowledge of best practices is required to succeed. Even if a surgeon (or the surgeon’s Web vendor) is highly skilled at on-page optimization tactics, it can take from several weeks to several months before the search engines respond to changes made to the copy of the site.
Despite the complexity and delay between completing the tactic and improved search rankings, on-page optimization is one of the early activities that a surgeon must do right before shifting to more advanced online marketing tactics.
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