Essential Guide to Great Content Marketing for Plastic Surgeons

Plastic surgery is a highly specialized field that also requires a customized approach to marketing. But where do you start?

This post shares a five-step guide to content marketing for plastic surgeons:

• Always begin with an objective to guide your plan
• Identify the content types that align with your healthcare content marketing strategy
• Write high-impact content that focuses on your clinic's marketing goals
• Track the performance of your content to improve future return on investment (ROI)
• Optimize your content with the latest trends

How do you implement each? Read our comprehensive guidelines below.

5 Steps to a Concise Content Marketing Plan for Cosmetic Surgeons

Digital marketing needs a well-thought-out, campaign-specific, niche-centric plan to succeed. If you're a plastic surgeon, here's how to begin your content marketing strategy.

     1. Always Start With an Objective To Guide Your Plan

What's the difference between a boat without a rudder and a content marketing plan without an objective? Nothing.

Provide direction to the entire campaign by zeroing in on a specific goal whether attracting more leads or revamping your existing content marketing efforts.

Why does this matter? Because:

• Too many goals will lead to content that's all over the place and trying to be everything to everyone.
• No goals mean your team will be left wondering what they should work on.
• When you know what you want to achieve, it becomes easier to measure your success.
• You have limited resources. You can't do everything, so it's crucial to focus on what's most important.
• Elements such as content marketing types and channels often depend on the overall objective.

     2. Identify the Content Types That Align With Your Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy

Now that you have a marketing goal, the next step is determining the best content type that satisfies it.

You have many choices:

• Blogs are great for medical SEO and work well in nurturing leads through the buyer's journey. Possible topics include skin care tips, the benefits of certain procedures, and what to expect during recovery.
• Videos are perfect for humanizing your brand and increasing engagement. You can use patient testimonials, before-and-afters, or educational pieces that show how a procedure is performed.
• Social media posts are perfect for quickly disseminating information and announcements. Content examples are short tips, memes, or quotes.
• Infographics visually represent complicated data, making it easier to grasp. They're ideal for sharing statistics or procedure information like the risks and benefits of breast augmentation.
• Podcasts are a fantastic way to establish thought leadership and connect with listeners. You can interview other experts, answer frequently asked questions, or give listeners a behind-the-scenes look at your practice.
• E-books and whitepapers are terrific lead magnets that can be gated behind a form. They offer in-depth looks at topics like the history of cosmetic surgery or how to prepare for a facelift.

While it's best to have only one objective per hospital content marketing campaign, it is ideal to combine various content types. Doing so allows you to take advantage of the different strengths of each and create a more holistic marketing strategy.

     3. Write High-Impact Content That Focuses on Your Clinic Marketing Goals

At this stage, you're ready to write your content. But we're not talking about cookie-cutter blog posts here. Your job is to publish something that's high-impact: purposeful, clear, concise, and valuable to your target audience.

Here are some medical content writing tips to consider:

• Talk the language of your target market. Match the tone or voice of the content with that of your audience. For instance, use a more serious or scientific voice when writing for other physicians.
• Use short paragraphs and sentences. Long blocks of text can be intimidating and overwhelming to your audience. Break them up for easier reading and more efficient skimming.
• Include calls-to-action (CTAs). What do you want your readers to do after finishing your article? Include a CTA to prompt conversions, such as signing up for your e-newsletter or registering for an event.
• Add media. People are visual creatures, so include images, infographics, and videos whenever possible. Make sure all visuals are high quality and relevant to the topic.
• Follow the E-A-T guidelines. Google states that content must be expert, authoritative, and trustworthy. In other words, it should come from a credible source, cover the topic in-depth, and be free of errors.

     4. Track the Performance of Your Content to Improve Future Return on Investment (ROI)

Now that you've published your articles, what's next? Don't just cross your fingers and hope for the best, or worse, forget about it and let search engines figure out what to do with it.

Get data to know if your healthcare content marketing efforts are reaching your target audience, engaging them, and, most of all, generating conversions.

The key performance indicators (KPIs) will depend on your campaign objectives. If you want to increase brand awareness, you'll focus on measures like social media engagement and organic reach.

Some of the vital metrics include:

• Referral traffic. How many website visitors came to your page from another, such as social media channels?
• Bounce rate. How long are visitors staying on your site after landing on your content? A high rate could indicate that your content isn't relevant to their needs.
• Subscriber growth. Are more people signing up for your e-newsletter or blog after reading your content?
• Generated leads. If you're using gated content offers, how many leads are filling out the form?
• Cost per lead. How much are you spending to generate each lead? Your content could be effective if budget spending declines or the return on investment (ROI) increases.

Create a spreadsheet to track progress over time. Check in regularly to see how your latest content pieces perform and make changes as needed. Do A/B testing on different elements, such as headlines, to see what works best.

     5. Optimize Your Content With the Nitty-Gritty Details

Optimizing healthcare content also means paying attention to factors that may actually have a huge impact on the overall performance. These include:

• Technology. Growing trends like big data can help you collect and analyze large pieces of information to identify patterns, correlations, and trends. You can use this information to improve your marketing efforts and make better content decisions.
• User experience (UX). Creating a positive UX starts with your website design and extends to every interaction potential patients have with your brand. Popular techniques include responsive design (for mobile optimization) and personalization.
• Repurposing of content. You can revitalize existing well-performing articles through repurposing. This content marketing tactic involves updating copy with new information, a different perspective or angle, and applying new SEO guidelines.

Summing Up

Content marketing for plastic surgeons is a long-term complex strategy that requires a detailed, specific plan to work. This five-step guide lays the foundation.

But to give your business the best chance for success, we highly recommend hiring a healthcare content marketing agency like Digital Authority Partners (DAP) that can assess, execute, and track your campaign effectively.

The right efforts always come with a reward that helps the bottom line. Call us today and let's figure out the ideal customized approach for your practice.