Using Conflict to Drive Content and Revenue (Viscerality Part 5)

We have nothing without conflict.

We talk a lot about storytelling in marketing. A lot of the time, the conversation is about getting medical professionals to understand that marketing themselves doesn’t really mean marketing themselves. It means marketing your patients.

You have to tell your patients’ stories — not yours. You have to create an experience that is tailored to their wants and needs, not your own preferences. It’s much more important that you create marketing that speaks to your patients' interests than it is to cover your own.

Of course, figuring out that story — any story, really — is hard. But for those of us who spend time diving into the art of storytelling, there is one idea that you can latch onto to help you figure out what those stories are about. That idea is conflict.

What Is Conflict?

In traditional narrative storytelling, conflict is the primary driver of the plot. Everything that happens in a movie, book, TV series, play, or any other method of storytelling is driven by conflict. Will they fall in love? Will they save the day? Will they reach their goal? Will they win the medal? The match? The contest? These are all examples of conflict-driven plots.

Conflict is your story, so if you want to create a story for your audience in your marketing (and you should), you have to understand the common points of conflict for your potential patients. What are they worried about? What are they trying to achieve? How is their life being affected?

Identify Your Patients’ Specific Pain Points

In most cases, you will know your patients’ motivations more intimately than anyone else… as long as you ask about them. Take a moment during the consultation or at any point in the process to ask your clients what drove them to medical aesthetics.

You’ll probably be met with some variation of the following motivations:

1. They have been self-conscious about some aspects of their appearance for some time
2. They want to feel comfortable and confident in certain social situations
3. They want to treat themselves to a bit of self-care and pampering
4. They want to feel young or attractive again after the effects of aging, pregnancy, or nursing

But it goes beyond simply motivations. If a patient wants a Mommy Makeover, there is likely going to be this kind of  internal dialogue happening:

“I want this procedure because I want to feel better about my appearance and be more confident, but it costs so much money, and I am nervous about the procedure. Is it worth the cost? Will I regret it? Will I be safe? Do I deserve to have the procedure? I think I do, I work hard and do a lot for the people around me, but am I being selfish? Who will I burden to help out during the recovery period? Can I miss work that long? What will people think? Should I care what people think…?”

In the moments it takes for the brain to rapid-fire through these thoughts, this patient has identified more than five individual pain points or objections to having treatment performed.

Ultimately, this stream of consciousness demonstrates the great conflict you will be facing:  the desire to have aesthetic treatment against the range of potential objections.

Understanding Your Target Audience

These objections and motivations are never resolute, however, and you have to know your audience well enough to not just understand their internal dialogues, but connect with them. The unfortunate truth is that you can’t connect with someone you simply don’t know or don’t understand.

Don’t be the “how do you do, fellow kids” guy. It's a very skibidi toilet, as they would say.

In addition to simply talking to your clients, you can roll the sleeves up and do some old fashioned research, as well. For example, this study discusses in detail the factors that motivate people to undergo cosmetic surgery.

While it isn’t exactly your target demographic, there are plenty of insights to be gained:

On a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, with 1 being the highest amount of disagreement and 7 being the highest amount of agreement, people made the following ratings:

If the participants of this study happened to line up with your targeted demographic, you could use this information to understand how your audience is feeling. For example, women seem to be much more accepting of the idea that cosmetic surgery can benefit someone’s self-image. Good to know if you are marketing a service or treatment to women.

Even reports like the ASPS Plastic Surgery Statistics Report can provide valuable insights since they break down data by various categories, such as age, sex, and treatment types.

Don’t be afraid to get in the weeds with this. (And don’t forget that it’s also a key part of your mandatory Patient Persona program, anyway.)

Using Data to Find Conflict

Once you have these insights, you are off to a good start. But you have to figure out how to use this conflict effectively in your marketing material.

Let’s say you survey your patients over several weeks. If you find that 51 percent of your potential or current patient base is afraid of having a specific procedure performed, say, thread lifts, we can create marketing content that focuses on its safety and your training.

If you find that only 10 percent of your potential or current patient base is concerned with the cost of the treatment, then we know we don’t need to worry too much about the value proposition of your services as part of your marketing.

These are the insights and connections you need to find if you want to truly understand the conflict of your targeted audience.

Creating Emotional Connections Through Conflict

We’ve talked a fair bit in this series about emotional resonance, or creating emotional connections with potential patients.

Building anticipation, in medias res, allegory, satire — all of these are ways to engage your reader’s brain and make them feel more emotionally connected to what they are currently consuming.

But, it's important to know how to use conflict to build these connections even further.

Let’s say we take the same patient from earlier who is considering a Mommy Makeover. We already know they are having that massive internal dialogue talking through their desires and objections. Here it is as a refresher:

“I want this procedure because I want to feel better about my appearance and be more confident, but it costs so much money, and I am nervous about the procedure. Is it worth the cost? Will I regret it? Will I be safe? Do I deserve to have the procedure? I think I do, I work hard and do a lot for the people around me, but am I being selfish? Who will I burden to help out during the recovery period? Can I miss work that long? What will people think? Should I care what people think…?”

Let’s break down some of the big objections we see and figure out how to use it strategically in our marketing content:

…it costs so much money…

This is probably the trickiest one because you never want to position yourself as the “cheapest” option. Instead, focus on the cost vs. benefit analysis here. Sure, it might have a high sticker price, but how many reviews can you find from other patients who have gone through the treatment saying it was well worth the money? Can you find testimonials where patients are saying they wish they had done it sooner? Maybe even record some social media content where you ask point blank: do you regret spending X amount of dollars on your Mommy Makeover?

Will I be safe?

Perfect. This is an amazing chance to demonstrate your expertise and mastery of this procedure. Explain the entire process to them on a procedure page so that they know you are an experienced professional and have mastery over this treatment. Then, make sure to include the potential risks as well — it might seem strange, but being honest and upfront about what can actually go wrong in very rare cases will make your patients more trusting since you didn’t withhold information that they found somewhere else.

…the recovery period…

You can tackle this in so many different ways. A social media reel about a patient’s recovery process, an interactive timeline on your site, or even a standard, well-written explanation of the process on the Mommy Makeover webpage. Make sure to include mentions about when people are able to return to certain activities like exercising, childcare, or work since that is likely why they are concerned in the first place.

Rules for Using Conflict in Content

Conflict, by its nature, can be a risky thing to use in your marketing if you aren’t sure to do it right. So, to help prevent some bad practices, here are some important rules to follow.

1. The conflict tension must always be relieved. You don’t want your audience to feel like you are confirming or exacerbating their pain points or objections; so, the golden rule is that if you are discussing or addressing a conflict, you have to resolve it in the same piece of marketing you introduced it.
2. Don’t ever trivialize their conflict. Phrases like “that’s silly” or “you shouldn’t be worried about that” are absolute no-go's in your marketing material. Regardless of what your communication style is, making someone feel bad for having a concern is never a good move.
3. Be conscious of your conflict use. If the woman considering a Mommy Makeover is your targeted demographic, avoid marketing material that goes overboard. A video of a new mom crying about her body with a crying baby in the background likely isn’t going to go over too well, no matter how happy she looks at the end of the advertisement.

Conflict, Compelling Stakes, and Viscerality

If you manage to leverage the power of conflict and the naturally occurring stakes of your patients, then you stand a very good chance of creating content that becomes visceral. That is, as long as you followed the other four Tenets of Viscerality as well — if not, no worries: head back to parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 for even more guidance on creating memorable content that propels your practice.