There is no doubt that dermatology is a rapidly growing field of popular medicine. Marketing your dermatology practice successfully can be a great challenge however, especially for the smaller or new dermatology practice whose advertising budget is probably not that large at all. So how do you successfully advertise you dermatology practice without breaking the bank?

Traditional forms of advertising such as the local Yellow Pages, or radio and television, however small the station, are just too far out of the advertising budget that many dermatology practices have to work with. In addition, how well this kind of investment works is almost impossible to track. You may indeed be gaining a new patient as a result of a commercial they have seen or heard, but the chances are you will forget to ask, and your new patient will likely be far more interested in how you are going to make them look and feel better than telling you how they found out about your dermatology practice specifically.. However, in order to survive and prosper in this growing field marketing your dermatology practice successfully is crucial.

There is another, very effective and economical method of marketing your dermatology practice that you may have never considered, or even heard much about. In today’s economic climate, the savvy dermatologist should consider the great power of online advertising. Thanks to the great spread of everyday Internet use by exactly the people you need to target and the power of major search engines like Google, you can target specific geographical areas for people searching basic keywords, in this case things like “dermatologist” “skin care” and “skin doctor”. Even better, online advertising lets you target the specific demographic you are seeking. If you specialize in the care of difficult teenage skin for instance, you can target both potential young patient and their concerned parents directly.

But how does this kind of marketing really convert into great dermatology practice advertising? Most effectively you need to direct the person who clicked on your brief little online ad to a more expansive “landing page”. On this page you need to create a great and compelling reason for this potential customer, or visitor (they are “visiting” your page now) to share their basic contact information with you. Offering a free or heavily discounted service to those who sign up is always a fabulous marketing tool; consider offering a free consultation or skin treatment in return for the visitor’s name, telephone number and email address. The results of these contacts are emailed to you immediately, so that your practice staff can follow up on these ‘hot leads” while your dermatology practice is still fresh in the minds of your landing page visitors.

The real beauty of using the Internet and this kind of dermatology practice advertising is how little it costs. You will only be charged for potential customers who take the time to “click” on your ad specifically, those people who are demonstrating a real interest in your dermatology practice. Online advertising like this really is the best and economically sensible way to make the best of your dermatology practice advertising budget.