The marketing space is one of the most dynamic areas of business. Each year the platforms and technologies we use to reach potential clientele ultimately change. Thus, as a practice, your tactics for achieving those clients must adapt year after year. This is why digital marketing is essential to your dermatology practice and the success of your business’s future.

About half of all companies don’t have a digital marketing strategy. For you, this is both good news and bad news. The good news is that, if you do have a solid digital marketing program, you may be ahead of half of your competitors. Conversely, if you don’t have a strategy in place, about half of your competitors have an advantage – and you may be leaving potential business on the table. (Source: HubSpot)

Online marketing programs deliver an excellent return on investment over traditional advertising, such as direct mail or radio shoutouts. However, while conventional marketing has its place, you’re often provided with little to no data on your campaign’s success. With digital marketing, your agency will give detailed statistics and insights into what works and what’s not.

What Are the Main Components of Digital Marketing?

Whether you’ve been in business for a decade or have just opened your first dermatology practice, a strong digital marketing strategy is a crucial component of success. While the topic of which areas of digital marketing are most effective, five specific areas stand out in 2021 as ways to increase visibility and leads for your dermatology practice. Understanding these different aspects of digital marketing will help to prepare you for working with or hiring a digital marketer.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click is an advertising method that allows you and your digital marker to pay for increased website traffic only when someone clicks your ad. This will enable you to get your dermatology practice seen at the top of the search engine results page on platforms such as Google. So essentially, you only pay when someone comes to your website.

According to Google’s Economic Impact Report, businesses overall are making an average of $2 in revenue per every $1 they spend on PPC (or Google AdWords). So, while you may be spending money to attract new patients to your dermatology practice, your business makes back twice what you spent on the said ad. 

Over 60 percent of online users are likely to click on a Google ad, compared to 15 percent on Amazon and 9 percent on YouTube. (Source: Clutch). Online users that visit a website after following a Pay Per Click ad are also 50 percent more likely to book a service versus visitors who clicked via organic search (Source: Wordlead). PPC can also be hyper-focused on location, and local sites that show up in search results in the first position, have the highest CTR (click-through rate).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You’ve probably heard the term “SEO” (or search engine optimization) half a dozen times or more, but what does it mean? SEO is essentially a list of factors that assist your dermatology practice’s website, service page, or content rank higher on search engines such as Google. 

The main difference between Pay Per Click and SEO is that the latter is considered organic ranking. In other words, unlike PPC, you do not pay to be in that number one position on Google. Instead, your digital marketer will create content or website landing pages that are “optimized” so that Google will show your business at the top of the page when online users search for a particular service (e.g. chemical peels in Fort Lauderdale, FL).

Almost two-thirds of marketers admit that having well-ranking organic content is a good strategy for high inbound traffic/leads. (Source: HubSpot, State of Inbound). In addition, businesses that appear on the first page of Google search results get over 90 percent of consumer traffic (Source: Joal House). So essentially, if you utilize programs that can get your practice website to rank high for specific dermatology services in your area, you have a 9 out of 10 chance (or better) to get that consumer’s attention.

Website Design

In order for your practice to succeed in today’s digital landscape, it is essential that your business has a well-designed website. While it may be tempting to use a self-serve platform, you will be at a disadvantage to practices that have hired a digital marketing agency to design an optimized website.

Everything from branding and logos, to likeness and user experience, are key components of website design. And with the cost-per-acquisition increasing by nearly 5 percent from 2018 to 2019, you can bet that having an aesthetic advantage (coupled with good SEO) is going to make the difference (Source: IRP, E-commerce Benchmarks).

Having a mobile-friendly website is also something that many business owners tend to overlook. We do so much of our work right on our desktops in the office, that we often forget that phones account for over half of all organic search traffic (Source: Merkle, Digital Marketing Report Q1).

Your digital marketer will also work with you to create a content strategy for your website. The purpose of this is twofold: to get said content to rank on search engines and to increase brand awareness/provide value. Today, many view content creation as an unnecessary expense. However, 98 percent of B2B marketers say that content performance warrants the cost of creation (Source: Walker Sands, The Future of B2B Content).

Email Campaigns

Email campaigns are sent to a group of individuals using your current email list. Essentially you’re sending an email that includes either: advertisements, sales, events, or resources. Research shows that over 80 percent of people who receive even just a “welcome email” open it. While CTR on said emails is under 25 percent, it’s essentially a law of numbers (Source: GetResponse, Email Marketing Benchmarks).

Let’s say you and your digital marketer have worked to gather 100,000 emails (a mix of patients: past, present, and future). Even if just 15 percent click through to your website, you’ve still amassed 15,000 visitors on said day.

Over 50 percent of consumers say that receiving emails is the best way for companies to reach them. Although personalized messages are often more effective (72 percent) statistics show that email marketing is one of the most reliable ways to connect with patients (Source: SmarterHQ).

Social Media Presence

It’s 2021 and that is reason enough why every dermatologist should have a social media account. 3.5 billion people are now on social media as of last year, roughly 45 percent of the global population (Source: Hootsuite, The Global State of Digital). However, by skipping on social media, you may be missing out on a ton of new and repeat business.

Beyond breaking that fourth wall and connecting with patients and the community on social media, it’s also a great lead generator (with both paid promotions or organic, direct messages). In addition, once you’ve established your practice’s social media presence, you may choose to work with your digital marketer on influencer marketing. According to consumers, recommendations of influencers make them over 80 percent “highly likely” to follow a suggestion made by a micro-influencer (Source: Experticity).

Whether you’re running your account or your digital marketer, you should utilize the platform’s most prominent features. For instance, 57 percent of brands admit that social media stories are a vital part of their digital marketing strategy (Source: Buffer, State of Social Report). Here are all the reasons why you should develop a social media presence: 

• Build trust and credibility
• Gain greater visibility
• Improve the dermatologist-patient relationship
• Educate your audience
• Stay relevant
• Promote new deals