Choosing a Marketing Agency for Your Plastic Surgery Practice in 2023

Choosing a Marketing Agency for Your Plastic Surgery Practice in 2023

When you’re serious about growing your plastic surgery practice, it’s time to hire professionals.

After all, you wouldn’t let a patient inject their own Botox (yikes!)

Granted, doing your own marketing is probably less risky than that scenario. 

But botching your marketing can still cost you a lot of money and time you could’ve spent seeing ideal patients.

So, to help you do your research when hiring a marketing agency for your plastic surgery practice, here’s our best guidance for what to look for.

5 Steps to Choosing Your Plastic Surgery Digital Marketing Agency

1.    Determine your goals for working with a marketing agency on your plastic surgery practice’s growth

Before you start your search, it’s time to get clear on what you’re hoping to accomplish.

In fact, if a medical marketing agency truly cares about your success, they’ll ask you this question right off the bat.

The answer to this question will determine your marketing strategy—and what services you have to budget for (more on that next). 

If you want to bring in more local leads to your website, you probably want to prioritize implementing Local SEO strategies to your website. If your practice is booked out but want to switch up which services you offer, you’ll want to focus on refining offers related to those priority services.

2.    Estimate your medical marketing budget

Take a look at your current revenue margins and business savings. Now, take a look at those marketing goals you’ve written down. 

With medical marketing, it is true that you have to be willing to spend money to bring in more money for your practice. And depending on which marketing channels you’re looking to grow, your budget may vary widely—PPC advertising services will likely be pricey, while SEO copywriting may be less so.

Before sending in an inquiry, some marketing agencies may already request an estimate of your budget. So, it’s important to have a good idea of how much you’re reasonably looking to invest as soon as possible—even if it’s not exact.

3.    Do your research and create a list of potential medical marketing agencies

Now that you have an idea of your budget, it’s time to do your research and create a list of potential marketing agencies to reach out to. Google and social media sites like LinkedIn and Instagram can be fantastic places to start.

In a field like medical aesthetics, asking other practices which agencies they work with can be a fantastic way to gather names of pros who truly know your industry. 

Tip: Take a look at the websites of practices whose marketing you admire. Their marketing agency might just be credited at the bottom of their website footer.

4.    Get on calls with medical marketing agency candidates

Now that you have a list, start sending in those inquiries! The sooner you get on calls, the better—especially since some medical marketing agencies may be waitlisted or be booking out client projects months in advance.

Wondering what to ask the marketing agencies to figure out if you’re a good fit to work together? We’ve got you covered. Scroll down to the next section.

5.    Review (and sign!) a medical marketing proposal and contract with your chosen agency

Congrats! You found a match made in plastic surgery marketing heaven! 

But before you get too excited about moving ahead with your practice growth plans, make sure you carefully review the proposal (or statement of work) and contract the marketing agency will have sent you. Does everything line up with your discussions? Do the payment terms work for you?  

If everything looks good, sign that contract, and get excited! Your plastic surgery marketing is about to get a face lift.

9 questions to ask when choosing a medical marketing agency for your plastic surgery practice

Once you have a plastic surgery marketing agency in mind, it’s time to vet them. Here are a few questions to help you make your decision.

1.    Does the marketing agency “get” plastic surgery?

There’s a lot of amazing marketing agencies out there—even medical marketing agencies.

But plastic surgery is its own unique market with very particular sets of clientele. You need your marketing agency to understand that.

The best way to be sure that the marketing strategies you work on together will succeed is to ask the marketing agency about their clients—and to see a portfolio of aesthetic industry (and plastic surgery) marketing work.

Part of MD Logica’s success is our years of experience not just with plastic surgery marketing, but of actually working on the practice side of the medical aesthetics industry. We know your business and patients in ways most marketing professionals don’t.

2.    What aspects of marketing does the agency specialize in?

Plastic surgery marketing is more than glossy before-and-after photos and videos.

A solid plastic surgery marketing company will know their ways around many different types of marketing collateral (from PPC ads to email and social media marketing)—and be able to refer you out for aspects they don’t offer (like social media management or video production).

Ask the agency what marketing services they offer. That way, you’ll know what else you have to invest in elsewhere.

(In fact, we’re pretty sure the future of plastic surgery marketing lies in influencer marketing and live events. Let’s have a chat about how you can get ahead of the curve on these…)

3.    Does the agency offer other services besides marketing?

Marketing doesn’t work in a vacuum. 

And if one agency does your ad copywriting and another does your web design and another does your social media… let’s say things can get more complicated than they need to be.

Yes, it is best to work with specialists who can really nail whichever marketing or sales element you’re investing in. You don’t want to end up with shoddy graphics just because your social media manager also dabbles in logo design.

But if a plastic surgery marketing agency has in-house specialists who can work together on a cohesive marketing strategy, that can be a real asset.

Other services some medical marketing agencies may offer include:

• Sales consulting
• Graphic and website design
• SMS and email marketing
• Video and visual collateral production
• Online reputation management
• Brand and customer research

Psst… we believe a comprehensive marketing strategy includes all these elements. That’s why we offer (or partner with trusted service providers to offer) them to all of MD Logica clients.

4.    For services the marketing agency doesn’t offer… do they have affiliated partners?

The best way to ensure your marketing strategy is cohesive (and trust us, you want it to be cohesive) is to work with people who know and trust each other’s work.

A marketing nightmare you want to avoid: you’re getting ready to launch your gorgeous (and strategic) plastic surgery website but your separate copywriter and web designer disagree on the other’s strategy. 

You end up with a mish-mash of strategy, words, and visuals that don’t fit together—and you need to start fresh with a new website… again.

So, if your plastic surgery marketing agency can stick to what they do best AND refer you out to people whose work they can vouch for (and collaborate with), you know you’ll be in good hands all around.

5.    Do you want to work with a marketing agency on a one-off project or with a recurring retainer?

This may seem like a simple logistical question. But it may determine which kind of agency you work with on your plastic surgery marketing.

That’s because some marketing agencies specialize in one-off projects (or may only offer one-off projects for the kind of service you want—like website creation). Others, on the other hand, have long-term retainer relationships as their bread and butter.

Knowing what kind of marketing support fits your practice (and budget) best will help you find the right match.

6.    What kind of continued support does the marketing agency offer?

For the marketing agencies who do work with their clients for the long term, there can be a lot of variation in how ‘hands on’ or ‘hands off’ they are.

For instance, a medical marketing agency may be working with you on a monthly SEO (search engine optimization) retainer, but that may just involve uploading a handful of blogs and sending you a monthly email of your keyword statistics—no more, no less.

Other agencies will offer monthly (or even weekly) meetings, where they get in depth with you on your metrics and encourage you to be active in brainstorming strategy and campaign ideas.

7.    Does the agency monitor your plastic surgery clinic’s marketing stats? If so, how?

Here’s an important marketing rule to remember when you’re shopping for a plastic surgery marketing agency.

If you’re not monitoring, your marketing isn’t strategic.

That’s because all good marketing strategies are developed from an awareness of your audience’s behavior and your marketing’s current performance—from keyword research to social media engagement.

If you work with them for a while, your cosmetic surgery marketing agency will likely monitor these stats. However, you’ll also want to know how they report and act on these stats—so you can understand what they mean for your business and its future.

That’s why this next question is super important…

8.    How does the marketing agency communicate with you?

If your plastic surgery marketing agency only speaks marketing-ese (you know, all that jargon) and doesn’t explain their strategy to you, how are you expected to succeed?

Yes, it can feel like a relief to know a professional is handling your marketing and you don’t have to worry about it. But how are you supposed to know if your plastic surgery marketing agency is a good investment if you don’t know how their work is performing on behalf of your business?

That’s why getting clear on communication standards and expectations should be a top priority for you—from the very first meeting with a potential marketing agency.

9.    What happens if you want to move your practice to another marketing agency?

When you’re hiring a plastic surgery marketing agency, you’re probably not thinking of breaking up with them. 

But sometimes, you don’t know it’s not a good fit until you’ve worked with an agency for a bit. That’s normal!

When that happens, you want to make sure you can move on with as little stress as possible. To ensure good transitions, you’ll want to know what your rights are to your marketing collateral if you are to stop working with a marketing agency.

We know that may be shocking, but many agencies do retain rights to the work they create for you, even if you move on.

(Don’t worry, we don’t love hostage situations either. That’s why we ensure all MD Logica clients have the rights to all the work we create for them. So, if it’s not a fit, no worries at all.)

How to be successful with your plastic surgery marketing agency: 3 best practices

So you’ve hired a plastic surgery marketing agency. Congrats!

Let’s make sure your relationship is successful (and helps grow your practice) in the long run.

Start with these 3 important factors of continued marketing success.

1.    Consider your ROI and ROAS

Plastic surgery marketing is an investment—and when you invest strategically, you can expect amazing returns for your practice over time.

But to make sure what you’re putting into your marketing comes back to your cosmetic surgery clinic (and then some), you need to monitor that progress.

That means, like with any investment, you need to know your return on investment (ROI). 

In marketing, that specifically means tracking…

• How many leads you have coming in and from which marketing efforts
• How many website visitors are clicking on links and booking consultations
• How many new and returning patients you’re having book services and why.

And when it comes to your PPC ads, it means keeping a finger on the pulse of your Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS). Or, translated from marketing-ese, how much money is flowing into your business compared to how much you’re spending on paid ads.

Since paid ads are likely to be one of your priciest marketing investments, you can’t afford to not get it right. Watching your ROAS and adjusting your PPC strategy accordingly is key to successful work with a marketing agency.

That means both you and your agency should be on top of it. And if, after some time working together, you’re not seeing your ROI and ROAS at the level you’d hope, know that it may be time to reevaluate your marketing investment.

Which leads us to our next recommendation…

2.    Continue investing in plastic surgery marketing… even when your practice is doing well

It can be tempting to think of marketing as “one and done.” You put out a great ad campaign, and now your practice is booked out for a few months. Congrats! But what about next year? What happens when your patients get lured away by a competitor’s glossy offer?

If you’ve laid your marketing to the side as soon as you start seeing success, you’ll likely be in hot water. 

That’s why, like most great investments, marketing is all about playing the long game. You need to build up SEO momentum for your keyword rankings to increase (and stay high). You need to continue experimenting with your PPC and email campaign strategies until you find what works for your plastic surgery audience—and continue switching it up as consumer behaviors shift.

A solid marketing agency will act as your partner in helping you plan for the future of your plastic surgery marketing—not just nod ‘yes’ at your ideas and happily take your money, regardless of the results. 

3.    Communicate with your plastic surgery marketing agency early and often

Like any good relationship, starting to work with a plastic surgery marketing agency takes some adjustment and learning.

We’re sure you have your preferences on how you run your plastic surgery practice. Each marketing agency is the same. Finding workflows and communication styles that allow you to meet in the middle can take a little bit of work.

And that’s a great thing!

You want your marketing agency to be adaptable to what you want and need, but you also want them to be confident and well-organized in their strategies and workflows. You don’t want them to just roll over when you say so.

To keep growing your relationship with your marketing agency for the better, make sure to communicate with them early and often. Whenever issues come up, whenever you have a question or concern, and whenever you have an idea you’d like to explore.

A great plastic surgery marketing agency will be happy to hear from their client and grow your relationship. And if you ever overstep boundaries—they’ll be sure to (kindly) let you know.

Ready to start your search for a plastic surgery marketing agency? Start here.

If you found yourself nodding along to our advice in this blog—and you’re still on the hunt for that dream partner in strategic marketing—there’s a good chance you’d find a great partnership with the marketing experts at MD Logica.

We work with plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery clinics who are ready to stand out with their digital marketing—acquire new patients, and grow their dream business.

If you’re ready to work with a full-service plastic surgery marketing agency who understands your industry and can help you develop a holistic marketing strategy, give us a shout. 

We can’t wait to start brainstorming with you.