Be Authentic to Earn More Patients (Viscerality Part 2)

The internet demands authenticity.

Since its inception, one of the biggest critiques of the internet has been its unique ability to annihilate authentic relationships and communication just by virtue of existing. People can claim to be anything they want — and they often do — despite that image not being an accurate representation of themselves. 

In the context of viscerality, or, to put it more plainly, your ability to effectively connect with your target audience and build your business, authenticity is a nonnegotiable tenet. If your audience can’t interact with your marketing material and get a clear, believable idea of who you are, you are going to have a very hard time building your practice’s clientele. 

So, how do you become authentic? And what aspects of yourself should you present to let potential patients know that you are their best option for their aesthetic journey? Let’s discuss.

Be a Person, Not Just a Doctor

There is nearly a direct correlation between the amount of time someone has dedicated to medical education and training and the degree to which their identities are tied to their job title and profession. I know that you have dedicated your life to learning so that you can serve your patients… or whatever motivates you. 

(Some people were in it for the power, prestige, or plump pockets… no judgments here.)

But being a doctor, nurse, or any title of medical professional isn’t enough to build an authentic image. Potential patients want to see two things communicated in your marketing: 1) you are a highly trained and knowledgeable medical professional, and 2) you are a reasonable human being capable of seeing them as people, not just science projects.

Your identity as “surgeon,” “doctor,” “nurse,” or any other profession within the medical aesthetics industry only satisfies one-half of that equation. If you don’t have a clear idea of who you are outside of that, you are in some pretty serious business (not to mention existential) trouble. 

After all, people will choose you for the person you are before they choose you for the doctor you are.

I know, that’s a painful truth. Especially since your personality was free and your medical training was tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars…

A lot of this includes humanizing yourself with interests and facts about your personality and personal life, such as hobbies, family, vacations, interests, volunteering, etc., but the core of a patient’s concern is whether or not you can interact with them as a fellow human being.

Can you respond kindly when they share an insecurity? Can you assure them they are in good company and that their concerns are valid? Can you talk with them about their lives and get to know them beyond their anatomy? Can you feel like another human being or a friend when they come into your office?

Think of these two elements as points on a graph:

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When we are discussing the ‘high/low doctor” axis, we are referring directly to the level of training and expertise you are communicating throughout your marketing material. When we are discussing “high/low human” we are referring directly to how well you are communicating to potential patients that you are capable of treating them as a person.

There are four quadrants you can fall into:

1. Low Human, Low Doctor — Without a marketable level of medical expertise or an ability to connect with patients on a personal level, it is unlikely that anyone in this quadrant can find marketing success. Unfortunately, if they pursue authenticity, they will likely develop a poor reputation. If they do not have a positive they can market authentically, patients will likely not seek them out over other options.
2. Low Human, High Doctor — Professionals in this category are likely to receive criticism that they treat patients as though they are numbers or “just another patient.” While not ideal, it is possible to market this kind of individual as someone who is more concerned with providing exceptional results without the emotional fluff of other people in the medical aesthetics industry. If the results can justify the lack of humanization, it is difficult, but possible to carve out a niche with an authentic portrayal. 
3. High Human, Low Doctor — If a medical professional is able to communicate kindness, respect, empathy, and emotional consideration, they can provide an authentic portrayal and, to a reasonable degree, overcome shortcomings in terms of medical expertise or knowledge. The medical professional and practice can focus on providing patients with an experience with simpler treatments that require less technical ability.  
4. High Doctor, High Doctor — A highly trained medical professional who can relate to patients as human beings and provide them with a comfortable experience will have the easiest time building their reputation and business. They will provide the best results to showcase and build the best bonds with existing patients, which will ultimately lead to more repeat, referral, and new business.

In most cases, medical professionals who take their work seriously will always land north of the High Doctor, Low Doctor axis, but your goal should always be to skew as deep into the High Doctor, High Human quadrant as possible. In that far northeast corner is where greatness lies.

A Note on Patient Preference

Keep in mind that many patients are looking for someone who they feel comfortable with, and they might be willing to sacrifice a little bit of technical reputation for someone who is willing to spend the time learning about them from a holistic perspective. Be honest with yourself about where you fall — and do your best to portray that authentically to carve out your own niche. 

When you do this, your practice and marketing will resonate with certain demographics better. It will move toward becoming visceral. 

The Influencer Model (And Why It Works So Well)

Authenticity might not have been the first association you made when I saw the word “influencer,” but the truth is, people trust online personalities. They spend a lot of time building parasocial relationships with people behind the camera they will never meet. And here is the most frustrating part: they trust influencers to make quality recommendations. 

69% of consumers trust influencers, friends and family over information coming directly from a brand. -Source

Friends and family, you might understand… but influencers? Are we telling you that someone will trust a momfluencer who recently had a procedure performed over a trained doctor who went to school for over a decade?

Yes, we are. In the eyes of the audience, the influencer has no ulterior motive in reviewing the process. They are free to express whatever feelings they want and give an honest account of what can be expected. Not to mention, it is entirely possible that the influencer has spent a lot of time and energy building that relationship to be in a position where they are trusted.

(The good ones, anyway… there are bad apples everywhere. Read this guide if you want to sift through finding the right one.)

The audience has followed this person’s life. They know that they hate ketchup and do their morning routine next to their shower. They know their kids go to school and four different sports throughout the week. They feel like they know this person, so the review that they give feels authentic.

The perception of authenticity is why the influencer model works so well. In the eyes of the audience, this person would only promote services and products they truly believe in, which is much more trustworthy than other sources. 

Get Off the Armchair

It’s not good enough to simply understand why the influencer model works. You have to study and understand how they build this parasocial relationship to begin with. How do they share their lives? How do they relate to their audiences? How are they communicating? What are they communicating? What commonalities exist between their audience and yours?

Most importantly, though: what can you emulate or adapt to serve your own purpose?

You might scoff at the idea of an influencer now, but when you tap into their ability to relate with your audience and become authentic in the eyes of that audience, you’ll improve your marketing efforts exponentially. 

A Note on Patient Reviews

Online reviews aren’t always a silver bullet for authenticity, but they can indicate a very good start for your potential patients to feel as though you are someone who will take good care of them. Of course, you’ll need to make sure that you follow through on those promises… otherwise, you’ll find yourself flooded with more bad reviews than Megalopolis.

But if there is a single type of endorsement you could snag that would make the most amount of patients feel as comfortable with you as possible, it is the endorsement of other patients who potential patients can see themselves in.

Build Relationships, Not Transactions

We often get caught up in the marketing race and think too much about acquiring new patients. We need to bring in new leads, find new audiences, and tap into new revenue streams. But the truth is, we should place a much greater emphasis on fostering recurring patients than most do. 

Recurring patients, strictly from a numbers perspective, are more valuable than one-time customers. Why? It’s simple math, really:

P^a x ( T x C) = LV

In this equation, we see “PatientA” represented by P^a , the number of total transactions that the customer would make represented by T, and the cost of that transaction represented by C. When you multiply those, you get the patient's lifetime value, represented by LV.

This probably seems self-explanatory, but let's break down two patients:

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P^a x ( 1 x $1,000) = LV

P^a = $1,000

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P^b x ( 5 x $1,000) = LV

P^b = $5,000

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I know, I know. This is rudimentary. More procedures equal more money, we get it. No need to write out some equation about it. I hear you…

But consider the second part of this equation: the cost of acquisition. Both of these patients might have cost you a total of $500 to acquire through various means, like time and money spent on advertisements, marketing collateral, and time.

This means the actual formula for patient value becomes much different.

For PatientA, you are only bringing in about $500 of profit. 

But for PatientB, the patient who will keep coming back, you’ll only need to pay that acquisition cost once. This means over the course of the patient’s lifetime, they will generate $4,500 worth of profit. 

(If you want easy math, I’ll ask you which one of these patients you’d pick as a new patient.)

Be Their “Doctor for Life”

I am using the term “doctor” as a catch-all here, but the idea remains for any medical professional: you want to be the person that your patients see as their go-to. Why would they go anywhere else? You already know them, and you’ve already proven you can provide results they love. This is the goal with authenticity, and, from a larger perspective, the goal with visceral content: become attached to the brand and results so that there is no need to shop anywhere else.

In Part 3 of this series, we are going to cover the art of engaging your audience's senses in your marketing copy. If you’ve ever struggled to create content that you felt was truly special, you won’t want to miss this next article.