Aesthetics Marketing: Building Credibility
Choosing an injector is a big deal for aesthetics patients, so building credibility and establishing trust is something practitioners should focus on.
But how do you show people you’ve never met that you’re the real deal? Why should they pick you? In this latest article from part nine of our 10 Tips for Marketing Your Aesthetics Practice series, we give you the best insider advice for building credibility and trust with your audience online.
USE YOUR AUTHENTIC VOICE FOR HONESTY AND CREDIBILITY THAT WILL RESONATE WITH PATIENTS
Here’s a quick exercise for you to do, to get you in the right mindset for exploring how to communicate with your audience of potential patients online.
Write down your three favourite business Instagram accounts. They can be from any field and don’t have to relate to aesthetic medicine. Try to avoid including any friends’ accounts.
Scroll through their profile page, Stories and Highlights. Remind yourself of what they’re about and what they’ve been posting recently.
List what draws you to their page. What do you like about the page? What’s appealing about how they present themselves online? Do their post captions or videos speak to you? If so, how and why?
When you know what you like to see in others’ accounts, you can start to use this to form an idea of what others may like to see, too. Just don’t forget to keep referring back to your Ideal Customer avatars!
Now let’s explore the different forms of patient communication and how you can really get your personality across...
Top Tips for Authentic Patient Communication for Building Credibility
Here are the aesthetics marketing communication skills that will help you to master building credibility as a practitioner online...
1. Use your own authentic voice
There’s one thing you have that no other injector out there, anywhere in the world, has. You are you. It’s obvious and a little cheesy but it’s also true!
Your array of experiences, abilities and personality quirks make up your own unique voice. And this voice is what patients are looking for in an injector.
They want to hear from you the person as well as you the aesthetics specialist. It’s all about making a human connection, just as you would in real life.
Just because you’re talking to an audience of potential patients doesn’t mean you need to be stiff and formal – or overly familiar either. Which brings us to our next point...
2. Write as you would speak to someone in person
Lots of people find writing captions for social media posts, or authoring articles, difficult. They often say they don’t know what to write or what people would be interested in.
Think back to the initial exercise you just completed. What do you enjoy reading about the most? Which area of your practice particularly excites you? Start there!
Enthusiasm is contagious and the best way to communicate this in writing is to write as you would speak. Imagine you’re in clinic and a patient has asked you a question. How would you respond to them verbally? Chances are there would be a lot of grammatical contractions – “they’re” and “it’s” rather than “they are” and “it is”. There may also be some levity with anecdotes or examples designed to relax the patient and to demonstrate that they’re in safe hands. You may also be a little more free and easy with the language you use – more colloquialisms, for example.
Pretend you’re in this scenario then write down what you would say if you were responding to that patient in person, in the exact way you would say it. Written text doesn’t have to be formal. In fact, it’s often more engaging and relatable when it isn’t – especially online!
This is an easy way to get your personality across and open yourself up to patients whilst still demonstrating your fantastic credentials in medical aesthetics.
3. Don’t be afraid to talk about your training, qualifications and medical background
On that note, never ever be afraid to talk about your training, qualifications and medical background when promoting yourself on social media or your website – or anywhere, for that matter!
Whilst fairly widespread, it’s a particularly British trait to consider talking about our achievements as boastful. This is something we advise you get over straight away as a new injector!
Yes, it will probably feel uncomfortable at first but the more you do it, the more you’ll realise this is what people need and want to hear from you. You don’t want to be hiding your light under a bushel when that light is your biggest selling point!
Knowing that you have a Level 7 Diploma in Botox and Dermal Fillers, for example, is hugely reassuring for patients. Understanding your medical background and the rigorous aesthetics training you have undertaken in order to hone your craft is music to their ears!
As an example, if you were employing a chef and were talking to a few different candidates online who all held similar appeal but one failed to tell you they had a Michelin star, you’d be pretty miffed, no?
4. Use video to interact with your audience in a more personal way
If writing captions isn’t for you, even after trying your best and following the above advice, video may be your friend.
Do always remember to add captions, however, as most people watch videos on social media with the sound off!
Video, especially Instagram Stories, is a quick and easy way to communicate with your audience. It allows you to really get your personality across as well as your message.
Just like tips 1 and 2 here, however, it’s important to be relaxed and natural in your communication style in videos. Approach the camera as if it is a potential patient sitting in front of you. How would you talk to them? For starters, you’d smile and make eye contact. You would be friendly and approachable but would also speak with the confidence of a highly-trained healthcare professional who is a specialist in their area. Because you are!
Even if your first efforts are a little clunky, the more videos you do, the better you will get at talking to your phone!
5. Respect others’ time and preferred communication methods
Always reply to any comments or messages you are sent and do so as soon as possible. In this age of people being “on” 24/7, it’s important that your social media customer service is tailored to the times people are online. This tends to be first thing in the morning between 7am and 9am and evenings between around 5pm and 8pm.
People appreciate a speedy response so ensuring this happens will help you to stand out during the early stages. Don’t send a quick response if you cannot concentrate on it fully for a couple of minutes, however. Inaccurate or sloppy replies – spelling mistakes, poor grammar, or simply wrong information – will give a far poorer reflection than you sending a beautifully crafted response a little later on.
Set your own boundaries in order to have the work/life balance you need, however, when you’re starting to build your own business, it can pay to put in some extra hours, especially if it involves responding to people who express an interest in your services.
Different people have different communication preferences, however, so it’s important to be mindful of these. In order to get the best response from potential patients, during your initial interaction with them – where appropriate – ask how they would prefer to interact with you.
For example, here’s how you could respond when someone comments on a post you’ve published on Instagram…
“Love this! I’d really like to get this done”
“Thanks @! I’ll send you a private message here with the details and a link to my website, if that’s ok with you?”
“How much is this treatment?”
“It starts from £ although we do have a number of different options. Shall I send you more information and a link to our price list via private message so you can click straight through?”
“Would this work for me?”
“Every person’s face is unique so I’ll need a few details first, then I can give you a fully informed answer. Shall I send you a private message?”
If you don’t hear back from them, you can either leave it as they may not be interested after all. Or, you can send the direct message you mentioned and start it with “I understand you must be busy so I thought I’d send this across so you can take a look whenever you have a moment.”
After this, leave any further communication up to them – if they want to get back in touch with you, they will. Chasing people up is rarely a good idea as it is not only annoying for the recipient but it can come across as you being desperate for business, which is also off-putting for the patient.
We hope this advice has given you some points to consider when building credibility through your patient communications online. As a key part of aesthetics marketing that can be of huge benefit when establishing and growing your reputation, it’s worth putting some time into exploring.
Do let us know how you get on and if you found any of the tips particularly helpful! You can feedback to us via the Harley Academy Comma if you’re an existing student. Alternatively, leave us a comment over on our Instagram account where we’ll be sure to get back to you quickly!
All information correct at the time of publication
