As the Acara team continues to monitor the impacts that COVID-19 is having on the aesthetic medical community, we’d like to spotlight a few strategies and considerations for your practice.
Our team is recommending practices adjust the emphasis of their marketing efforts from being promotional and urgent in nature to being educational. Many of your potential patients are “WFH” (working from home), and are primed to be researching all of the incredible treatments/modalities you have to offer. There is, and will continue to be, a demand for these treatments. We want to ensure that you still market to these potential patients, however, our approach needs to be a bit more subtle right now.
Subtlety bring us to our next suggestion – which is an emphasis on sensitivity. There is a chance that people in your communities will be highly impacted by the coronavirus. Just yesterday our team saw a post on social media of a local business in Connecticut posing with Corona beers, saying “Still open for business and we have corona!” We urge you to refrain from making any playful jokes like this about the virus and maintaining a high degree of seriousness regarding COVID-19.
With many local and state governments restricting group events, we do not recommend you host any educational or promotional events at your practice. We do, however, recommend taking some of these activities digital! Consider posting informational videos via Facebook / Instagram Live, or hosting a webinar that spotlights your work.
If you are closing your business for a set period of time, we recommend the following tactics while you’re down:
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Adjust Google ad campaigns to focus your CTA (call to action) on “Update Me Regarding Future Specials” or “Sign Up for Updates.” It’s important that practices do not shut down their campaigns all together, as it will take another 2 months for their ads to reach peak performance again. Use this time to build your list of interested patients that can be contacted when it’s safe and appropriate for consultations.
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Use this time to train your staff (whether in the office, if the right precautions are in place, or via a virtual conference).
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Take this break to get the “house in order.” When was the last time you cleaned up your chart of accounts? Combed through your B&A library? Or established strong KPIs for your business? Use this opportunity to get yourself situated for our return to normality.
Overall, with some small adjustments to your marketing strategy, a good operational plan, and a sensitivity to the virus – we’re confident that the majority of practices will be able to weather this storm.
Please, be safe, take this seriously, and do not hesitate to reach out to our team for anything. Acara is here to guide you and your business through this tough time.