Many aesthetic practices are being forced to shut down operations due to COVID-19, AKA the coronavirus. If you are one of many who are being asked to close your business in an effort to help flatten the curve, there’s still an opportunity.
If your practice has closed, we highly recommend you consider virtual consultations…
A virtual consultation is similar to an in-person consultation, except it’s done digitally, and all you need is a webcam and software (or simply your smartphone). Here are a few different tools to consider:
- Zoom
- Facebook Messenger
- UberConference
- Google Hangouts
- Viber
- FaceTime
**Two other solutions that are telemedicine-focused are: Doxy.me and VSee Clinic. Also, teleHEALTH by Symplast is running a promotion allowing practices to use their telehealth platform for 60 days for free. All three of these are HIPAA compliant.
As you can see in the graphs below, there’s still demand for aesthetic procedures right now, despite the chaos in our country. This might be because everyone is cooped up, working from home and bored.
Even if you’ve shut your ads off, you still have organic traffic flowing to your website and leads being generated. Make sure you have someone in place to follow up with these leads and schedule virtual consultations.
Google Trends Data: the past 7-10 days has not seen significant drops for many queries…
“Breast Augmentation” in past 90 days:
“Facial Rejuvenation” in past 90 days:
“Lipo” in past 90 days:
These are admittedly just a few terms, but the point is that unlike the stock market, search demand has only seen slight downward movements. As things settle down, hopefully in the coming weeks or months, and some competitors take longer to recover, there will be an opportunity and your practice will want to be positioned to capture the inevitable uptick in demand.
If your practice is still open, we highly recommend you proactively…
- Send an email to your list announcing your policy regarding COVID-19
- Add a message to your website about your policy: consider a popup or a floating sidebar button that links to a page
- Update Google My Business, if your hours are affected in any way
- Update your social media channels with the status of your practice
- Update any auto-responders you have (email, text, phone), if necessary
- Keep your ads running: as I mentioned in an article we published earlier this week, the cost per click for our clients has dropped by an average of 19% this week on Google Ads. However, Google Trends is showing that search demand for many queries hasn’t dropped by much or at all, as I mentioned above
- Stay nimble with your messaging: everything is fluid and changing daily, so make sure your stay on top of all your digital communication channels
TRBO has your back in times of chaos…
Right now, you need a partner you can trust because digital marketing is the last thing you should neglect in times like now. You need to control the message to your patients; stay on top of updating patients and prospects of your status; keep your website maintained; and stay on top of your SEO. Additionally, whether your practice is open or not, you cannot neglect your leads that are coming in.
If your practice needs help don’t hesitate to reach out directly by phone at 877-673-7096 x2 or drop us a line here.
