What does it take to get a return on your investment in RealSelf? In this series, we’ll walk you through the approaches your peers have taken in order to get peak performance from their profiles.
Playbook highlights:
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Dr. Jason Emer
Dr. Jason Emer is a cutting-edge cosmetic dermatologist and body contouring specialist, and that extends to the way he promotes himself online. For years, he has used social media and other digital marketing to promote his unique aesthetic approaches and pioneering treatments.
He describes RealSelf, which he joined on October 30, 2013, as “the future of connecting doctors with interested consumers.”
What set RealSelf apart was that the platform was specifically dedicated to educating aesthetic consumers and connecting them with doctors, primarily by “showing them results and answering their intimate questions” about their procedures. “Advertising on RealSelf ensures that our ads are viewed by the right people, maximizing the efficiency of advertising expenses,” Dr. Emer explained.
To make the most of the opportunity with potential patients on RealSelf, Dr. Emer and his team approach the platform with a gameplan. Here’s how they built RealSelf into a formidable patient referral machine that drove more than 70 profile leads (converting at 30%), nearly 400 phone calls, and more than 2,500 profile views for his practice in the first four months of 2021.
RealSelf Profile By the Numbers
Specialty: Cosmetic Dermatologist & Body Contouring Specialist
Board Certification: Dermatology
Years in practice: 8
Joined RealSelf: 2013
Location: West Hollywood, CA
Patient reviews: 365
Star rating: 4.7
B&A photos: 1,039
To get the most value from RealSelf, he takes an education-first approach
Dr. Emer knows that confidence is one of the overriding emotions potential patients need to feel in order to select him as their doctor. To engender that confidence, he focuses on turning his profile into a powerful destination for consumer education.
“I build confidence with potential patients on RealSelf by educating them about the incredible care my patients receive with the latest treatments, techniques, and procedures in skin and body transformations,” says Dr. Emer.
The philosophy leaps off of his profile, where he maximizes opportunities to customize what patients see, and adds context that bolsters their understanding of his specific approach.
- Custom descriptions of his top procedures. Consumers can read comprehensive and medically vetted procedure overviews on RealSelf before reading doctors’ profiles. Dr. Emer’s procedure-specific profile modules for body contouring, fillers, and other injectable treatments detail his unique approach to these procedures. These descriptions create points of differentiation that bridge the gap between potential patients’ general knowledge of these procedures and the specific approach and results they’ll enjoy under Dr. Emer’s care.
- Detailed before-and-after photo descriptions. Dr. Emer also includes helpful and descriptive context with before and after photos, adding relatable details about patients’ motivations–and even their emotions (“this client was very nervous about filler injections”)–and unpacking the subtleties and details of his treatment approach.
These details amplify Dr. Emer’s voice and expertise with scores of potential patients each month, all before he has an opportunity to personally see them one on one.
He nails the handoff from RealSelf to his practice
After using the rich content on his profile to curate the experience—and information—potential patients have online before their consultation, Dr. Emer and his team orchestrate a powerful transition into his consultation pipeline.
The approach: make the first encounter potential patients have with his office immediate, actionable, and customized. “The questions that come [from prospective patients at this stage] are usually unique to the patients’ personal needs and might not be available on our website,” explains Dr. Emer. The consultation request is a signal that they’re ready to move on from general research and talk about their specific case. Here’s what Dr. Emer does with that understanding.
- He empowers staff to answer patients’ questions pre-consult: “Our staff works with the patient to provide accurate and actionable information for them to consider while making a consultation appointment,” he explains.
- He directs inbound calls coming from RealSelf: To field calls coming from RealSelf, Dr. Emer and team use a dedicated phone line. With Google Voice, practices can sign up for a local phone number that redirects to their main office phone. The benefit: you can download a log of all phone calls coming from that number, and you can even see transcription of every voicemail.
He accounts for “indirect leads” from RealSelf when thinking about the overall value of the platform
Ask Dr. Emer to describe the value he gets from RealSelf, and you’ll get precise figures back: the number of direct profile inquiries received, and how many were converted to patients. Knowing these figures is why he can definitively report that “RealSelf is a truly effective strategy and generates leads that convert into clients.”
But Dr. Emer also knows that “attributable” leads–those he can be certain came from RealSelf because they came directly from his dashboard–don’t tell the entire story of the platform’s influence on patient inquiries.
In fact, potential patients sometimes closely peruse his doctor profile, then leave RealSelf and contact him through other means, like his website. That’s why Dr. Emer says the website traffic he gets from RealSelf is “extremely important” and notes that, overall, a smart digital presence equals patients.
“The number of leads captured by RealSelf is not a real reflection of the numbers we received from RealSelf,” says Dr. Emer. “The more potential patients see my digital presence and profile across multiple digital platforms, the more patients we have,” he continues. “The number of visitors we get from digital advertising and our website is a big opportunity for the business to generate leads, share our work, and ultimately build relationships.”
Want to learn more about how RealSelf can drive growth to your practice? Visit here to request time with a RealSelf Advisor.
