Advertising Management

Most Plastic Surgery practices are too small to warrant having an advertising agency take care of their business. There’s just not enough money in it for an ad agency at the usual commission rates of 15%. Consequently, plastic surgery offices often use ad hoc suppliers like graphic artists, printers, and local advertising talent in order to meet their internal needs.

Without an agency, practice managers are inundated with calls from media companies trying to convince them that their billboard, TV campaign, or radio spots have the best possible audience for the plastic surgery market. Indeed, all the sales people from all these media sources have just one thing in common, they do not understand the plastic surgery target audience, and therefore their recommendations usually benefit their employers more than their clients. Furthermore, their socio-demographic studies or focus group studies are not good enough to be able to cast a fine net over the plastic surgery prospect. Their nets are so wide-meshed that as a result, the cost of advertising for most plastic surgery practices is prohibitive.

The Plastic Surgery Prospect is 1/2 of 1% of Consumers

According to ASPS, the plastic surgery prospect is only one half of one percent of consumers. ANY advertising strategy that does not recognize that fact is destined for failure. We recognize that problem and have developed a strategy similar to the old time westerns; "to catch them at the pass." We know how to find the prospects when they are ready to buy, and that is what makes our campaigns successful.

TV & Radio Cost Too Much Per Impression on Target

Twenty years ago, you had a small chance to be on TV, but today, your ads won’t make it past the surface clutter, unless you’re willing to spend so much money that you will be obliged to do free plastic surgery. Radio offers more possibilities, but there again the problem is cost per lead because it’s impossible to contain those radio waves in a tight little area around your practice. Print is hit and miss, but very measurable so it’s easy to determine which ones work and which ones should be left alone.

Analysis of Cost and Source of Leads

All these advertising options need to be measured and evaluated by one person in the clinic, and where this measurement must start, is at the front desk. Every call that comes in must be measured. If you are not doing this, you are not going to be able to manage your advertising. Finally, after all the different media have been measured in terms of cost per lead, they are compared by a methodology called the Internal Rate of Return. This knowledge is critical if you want to lower the cost of lead acquisition to enable your practice to obtain the maximum advertising ROI.

Our goal with advertising management is to make sure you are not wasting your money on ineffective media. In our experience, most practices do. The most common excuses we hear are: it’s cheap, it’s local, I’m supporting the community, my wife likes opera (for the opera schedule ad), or I’ve heard many people tell me that they saw me on TV. And, we have heard many other excuses but the bottom line is: don’t use them unless they bring in enough revenue to pay for themselves three to five times over; that’s the minimum you should accept for advertising in any media. If it's less than that, move the expense over to charitable contributions.