According to Alfie Lombardi and Nicole Montgomery, video is, and will continue to be, the most effective form of communication and engagement.
Thriving clinics in the aesthetic space all have one thing in common. It’s how they retain and upsell their treatments. Achieving a high retention rate of reoccurring clients, while attracting new clients is no simple task. You would need to write a novel to deep drive into all the aspects of a comprehensive business advertising and marketing strategy. So rather, we are going to focus on how you can attract new clients using videography, while upselling and educating your current clients.
Most medical practitioners do not run on time, leaving patients sitting in the waiting room either observing the clinic and its staff or on their phones. This is an ideal time to capture the attention of your clients, utilising videos looping in your waiting room. For the new client, they are getting to know you, your staff and about your treatments. Your existing client is learning more about you and possibly about a new treatment, package, offer or news. These new treatments quickly become a great talking point when the consultation is underway. Patients will make remarks such as ‘I just saw you talking about Radio Frequency, would that work for my skin?’ or ‘I saw you on the TV do lip fillers, that has always scared me’.
You are capturing someone’s attention while they are stuck waiting. It’s the most ideal time to communicate with your client. These natural conversations are what resonate with a client, facilitate building rapport and give you an opportunity to talk about what you know best. In turn, you naturally sell yourself without seeming like a pushy car salesman or giving anything away for free. Nothing beats a face-to-face conversation, eye contact, personality and our unique features.
We all know in this digital age; time is precious, and advertising is cutthroat. Stock images, click bait, banners and social media are just some of the many forms of communicating with our clients. So, when it comes to attracting and nurturing new clients, how do we build trust, rapport, relationships and loyal supporters? The simple answer is through being ourselves – and video is a medium that allows you to express your ethics, values, practice and what treatments you specialise in. When you build positive rapport, this translates to increased word-of-mouth. When word-of-mouth cascades, we grow from a small business to an empire.
Humans are very visual. It is far easier for someone to watch a video and listen to a message than try to read something in a post or treatment list. We find videos more engaging, more memorable, and they are more popular than any other type of content across all social platforms. If you think about how we disseminated information prior to this modern age, it was though story-telling. People tell stories about the girl who had a breast augmentation, or the brother who had skin cancer. Video as a means of story-telling and advertising is no longer a nice option, it’s a necessity. If your life changing, feel good stories reach a larger audience, your clinic becomes an authority.
As fast as we can create content, the platforms we use to attract clients are changing; the only content continuing to rapidly grow is video. As time gets away from us a platform like Instagram, which started as a static image feed, is becoming a video feed. IGTV started slowly only 12 months ago, but has skyrocketed. Unlike YouTube, IGTV videos are vertical, to compliment the way we hold our phones. The one-minute feed preview has proven to give brands like Sephora millions of views on a video previously too long for Instagram.
If you are new to videos then this can be a scary place, with much to consider and understand. Marketing videos can take many forms, such as: Explainers, Presentations, Video blogs (vlogs), Tutorials, Webinars, Ads, Customer testimonials, Interviews, Live streams and so much more. Outside of these different forms are also the different formats that videos can be created in and displayed. This also has a bearing on where you propose to display your video.
An Instagram feed video is square (and limited to 60 sec), while the Instagram TV video is vertical. Your waiting room video screen is horizontal as like YouTube & Facebook video in a traditional movie format of 16:9. These are some of the basics that need to be considered when capturing footage to create videos.
Being medical professionals, we always work on ‘best practice’ and like to have some data and a clear rationale behind what we do. Which is why we have included some statistics:
- 52% of marketers say video is the type of content with the best ROI. (HubSpot)
- Adding video to your emails can increase click rates by 300%. (HubSpot)
- 50% of viewers aged 18-34 said they would stop what they were doing to watch a video from their favourite creator. (Google) – Affiliate marketing opportunities for products, would be favourable for this demographic.
- Video is expected to make up 82% of internet traffic by 2021. (Cisco)
- Nearly 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store. (Hubspot)
- 25% of companies publish videos every week. (Buffer)
- 85% of consumers want to see more video content from brands. (HubSpot)
- 65% of executives have gone to the marketer’s site and 39% have called them on the phone after watching a marketing video. (Forbes)
- 97% of marketers say video has helped users gain a better understanding of their products and services. (Hubspot)
- 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound, while 60% of Instagram Stories are watched with the sound on. (Instagram)
I spoke to Dr Jonathan Brown, founder of Cityskin Cosmetic Clinic www.cityskin.com.au ‘Videos are a fantastic way to educate patients before, during and after treatment at the cosmetic clinics. By watching videos patients have a chance to ‘meet’ you and establish if you are the right practitioner for them. Patients can find out about the procedure, watch it being performed and gain trust from having seen you treating someone. I feel that you cannot have too much information. Patients will choose to watch as much or as little content as they feel interests them. It always amazes me how much content patients actually watch – they come to Cityskin so well informed having watched our videos. This makes for a smoother consultation process where we can both sing from the same hymn sheet.
In a study by the Institute for Social Research, about 62% of people used their mobile phones to pass the time while waiting. You have a captive audience in your waiting room who are potentially viewing ads on their phone, when they could be watching your video on a screen in the office.
5 key considerations
- Where is the video being posted? Every platform from the screen in your waiting room through to YouTube has a different format and best practices. You can post on: You Tube, LinkedIn, Instagram page, Instagram story and IGTV (all different formats), Facebook and your website.
- Who is watching your video? When creating your key messages, it is important the message and story resonates with the viewer. Creating a plan prior to shooting ensures you maintain direction and concise messaging. A video of you behind a desk talking, is not entertaining. However, editing, adding images, subtitles, headings and keeping the story moving will keep your viewer engaged.
- Talent. When we refer to talent, we are referring to the people being filmed. If you have a mature audience, you ideally do not want a young sexy model. If you are trying to reach a young audience you would not use a mother figure. Having appropriate talent and using a language which is consistent with your audience
will only assist in increasing the reach of your message with your ideal audience. - Duration is important. Wa ing videos are like pulling fingernails. The last thing you want is hours and hours of footage and no clear, clean messaging or spending hours editing for little quality and a poor resulting video. When you have chosen the platform and the duration required for that platform, keep it simple and full of personality.
- Like writing an essay, have an introduction, body and conclusion. This may sound silly, but it is surprising how many people do not introduce themselves, explain the purpose of their video or have a clear close. This is a great opportunity to build rapport, brand awareness and connection.
It may be becoming clear that there is a lot involved when it comes to creating a video library. Also most of your time in developing video content, is pre and post-production. If you want your business to be reflected as professional, consistent and with high attention to detail, we strongly recommend you hire a professional videographer. As with any medical procedure there are best practices to ensure your video achieves the most impact over a long duration of time. We specialise in creating customised video loops for aesthetic clinics, allowing you the opportunity to engage your audience during their idle time. The customised loop video passively displays what you do, why you do what you do, your values, skill and sta . Basically, displaying all you have to o er and introducing all your team. Your clients will feel like they know you after having waited 20 minutes to see you. A much better outcome then a patient scrolling on their phones and watching the clock.
Hopefully, we have conveyed one important message: video is – and will continue to be – the most effective form of communication and engagement. Video gives you the opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with your current and potential client. Video is unique to all forms of advertising as it maintains a human element which is unique to you and your business. We can help you harness the power of video with our packages tailored to your needs and scale. AMP
For more information contact Nicole Montgomery nicole@trusteddigitalmedia.com
