Dermatology Marketing Strategies and Ideas that Really Work

Proven marketing strategies and ideas to successfully differentiate your private dermatology practice from your competitors and attract more patients.

Author: Jennifer Highland, Content Manager of Miiskin | Reviewed by: Slavica Nikolić, SEO Specialist of Miiskin

Covered in this article:
Customer personas | Job-to-be-done | Value proposition | Outsourcing | Teledermatology | Referral and loyalty program | Socialize with dermatologists

---

When you start your own private dermatology practice, you are responsible for developing a marketing plan for your dermatology clinic. One of the best ways to begin your dermatology marketing strategy and marketing plan is by creating a solid virtual presence for your clinic because you’re losing patients without it.

On the other hand, with a solid virtual presence, it will be easy for your potential clients to find your dermatology clinic’s website, professional profile, and social media networks. Patients will also be able to ask you questions about your practice through these channels.

Besides, it’s a well-accepted fact that people tend to do research before deciding to book an appointment. Research indicates that people trust personal recommendations from friends and family (word-of-mouth), the same way they trust online reviews. Today’s patients want to find out everything about you and will go through reviews from other patients on different platforms. So don’t miss this opportunity!

So, How do you Market your Dermatology practice?

The list below gives you great dermatology marketing strategies and ideas for your private practice.

1. Build a solid virtual presence for your clinic
2. Build the customer personas for your dermatology clinic
3. Understand the job-to-be-done for each persona 
4. Develop your value proposition and unique selling points of your private practice
5. Outsource marketing tasks
6. Implement teledermatology in your clinic
7. Develop a referral and loyalty program for your skin clinic
8. Socialize with other dermatologists

Build a Solid Virtual Presence with these Digital Marketing Tips

Patients nowadays want to know they are dealing with a professional, reliable dermatology clinic—otherwise, they will go to another clinic.

Online marketing is defined as the strategic promotion of a site to drive relevant traffic (people who may be interested in your services) and get new customers. 

The main goal is to rank highly in SERPs by implementing a content strategy, campaigns, and SoMe. One study from BrightEdge estimates that paid and organic search drives around 70% more traffic than other channels.

Sites that rank in the top 3 organic results on search engines (such as Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Bing, etc) get more than 50% of the traffic, while the sixth ranking page only gets around 5% of traffic.

Read more about how to improve patient acquisition with digital marketing for dermatologists.

Create Customer Personas for Your Dermatology Private Practice

A customer or buyer persona is defined as a semi-fictional character representing critical traits of an important segment of your audience based on the information you know and the data collected from user research and website analytics. Building your personas based on actual data, not intuition, would be best.

Two ways to ensure this is by conducting qualitative (customer interviews or focus groups) and quantitative research (website analytics, online surveys.)

Customer personas help you better understand your patients’ needs and how to address them.

They also help you create alignment across the organization and prioritize the marketing campaigns and initiatives to invest time and resources.

Understand the Job-To-Be-Done for Each of Your Personas

The jobs-to-be-done framework is essential for any marketing strategy. It aims to develop products or services based on understanding the specific “job” your patients “are hiring” your “service” to do for them¹.

For example, in the case of Sarah, the customer persona mentioned above, she is not going to your dermatology clinic to do skin checkups and get fillers or other cosmetic procedures. 

Sarah is “hiring” your dermatology clinic to “keep her cancer-free and help her look her best and advance in her career.”

In this case, your “dermatology service” may compete against another clinic, a personal trainer, expensive skin care products, and spas.

You may think that a personal trainer is not your direct competitor; however, Sarah has limited money to spend on herself because she also needs to pay rent, bills, food, and entertainment.

Therefore, if Sarah decides to pay for a personal trainer this month, she may not have any more money to spend in your dermatology clinic. In this case, a personal trainer competes against your dermatology clinic for Sarah’s money.  

This information is helpful because to do some advertising, you can do it in the same channels where spas, personal trainers, or skin care products also advertise. 

You can also consider cross-promotion with local businesses such as fitness centers, spas, or a shop selling skin care products. Although you are all competing for Sarah’s money, she may choose to buy skin care for one month, pay a personal trainer for another month and do some cosmetic procedures during another month.

Draft a Value Proposition for Your Dermatology Practice

To complete this step, you must build at least three customer personas with their respective jobs-to-be-done.

After that, you can create a table with the customer pain points on one side and how you address these pain points on the other side.

Outsource Marketing Tasks to Freelancers

Don’t worry, you don’t need to handle these marketing tasks by yourself. There are many sites where you can find talented and affordable freelancers to help get more patients to your dermatology clinic.

These freelancers can help you with ad-hoc projects such as creating a practice website and with ongoing tasks such as managing the social networks of your newly established dermatology practice.

Below you will find a few alternatives to hiring freelancers from all over the world.

Tips for Working with Freelancers

• Always check their customer ratings
• Make sure that the freelancer you choose speaks English (at least to an intermediate level) 
• Don’t hire the cheapest freelancer, you pay what you get
• Make sure to schedule an initial virtual conversation to talk about the goals and business objectives (this is also a good opportunity to evaluate their English level)
• Ask to see samples of their work (usually called work portfolio)
• For the design and development of your dermatology practice website, choose someone with at least 5 years of experience so they can lead the project and ask the right questions
• Choose someone who seems knowledgeable and whose work samples you like the most, even if they are a bit more expensive; in the long run, it will be cheaper 
• Set a limit on the number of hours they can work for you each week or agree on a one-time budget for the project

Implement Teledermatology in Your Dermatology Clinic

Teledermatology is one of the most common telemedicine applications, and it is usually delivered via live video conferencing (synchronous) or store-and-forward communications (asynchronous). 

A live video conference is when patients and doctors communicate via a live platform such as Zoom for Healthcare or Doxyme. 

Store-and-forward telemedicine is when patients use a teledermatology app or web portal to take photos of their condition, fill in their symptoms, and share this information with their dermatologist.

This type of communication is very efficient because patients can skip appointment booking altogether, get an answer from their dermatologist with a treatment plan, or be called in for an in-person consultation.

If you see the image below, you can see a pop-up on the dermatology website that says, “Need Urgent care?.” 

So, for example, if a patient with an acne problem doesn’t want to wait 30 days for an in-person appointment, they can download the Miiskin app, upload photos of their problem areas, answer the fully-customizable patient intake form and share this information with you. 

If the case seems straightforward, you can review the photos during a no-show visit or at the end of the day and initiate treatment immediately.

Develop a Referral and Loyalty Program for your Dermatology Clinic

Reward the customers of your cosmetic treatments for being loyal and for bringing you new business. Create a loyalty card where they get points every time they visit your clinic for cosmetic procedures. Give them extra points when they bring someone to your clinic.

Socialize With Other Dermatologists in the Area

Whether you are setting up a new clinic or want to attract more customers, networking with other dermatologists in your area is always a good idea.

If they have more customers than they can handle, they could refer business to you in exchange for a referral fee. If you are setting up a new clinic, they can give you tips and tricks on what to do or what not to do. You may get many new customers if they are looking to retire in a few years. You can always consult them if you need a second opinion on a patient’s case.

Conclusion

Dermatology Practice Marketing can be a challenge given the nature of the practice and the wide variety of services it offers. When it comes to creating an online presence, there are many different factors that need to be explored. 

Many dermatology clinics offer similar services, so you must find a way to make your clinic stand out. On top of that, some nationwide online dermatology services diverge patients from local private dermatology clinics.

References:
¹ https://strategyn.com/jobs-to-be-done/

---