Case Study -- How website increased a Surgeon’s business by over 379%?

This is a marketing success story of a surgeon who performed lap-band surgery in Mexico for mostly US patients. The surgery costs about half of what a patient would pay in the US.

The surgeon was facing the following challenges:

• Prospects could choose between two surgical options, gastric bypass & lap-band. Gastric bypass was the more common procedure.
• US based patients were concerned about the quality of doctors & hospitals in Mexico.
• There was a relatively small marketing budget.

This is how we solved his problems:

Conducted a consumer research of his patients and found that:

• Patients were happy with the results.
• They found out about the surgeon through word-of-mouth.
• They rated the surgeon very highly.
• The surgeon believed that life-style was not the reason for their obesity; which is what patients wanted to hear.
• Their biggest issue before the procedure was Mexican hospital, not the surgeon.
• They loved the US based patient facilitator of the surgeon.
• They liked the support group meetings offer by the surgeon. Many prospects also attended those meeting.

with the above information in hand, the following marketing program was launched:

• Developed a website with the following objectives:

1. Educate the readers about the surgeon’s qualifications and experience.
2. Education of the lap-band procedure and its advantages.
3. Highlighted the patent facilitator’s so that patients call a US based person.
4. Education of the hospital facility in Mexico; which is at par with any US hospital.
5. Several before & after pictures with testimonials on the website.

• Launched pay-per-click advertisement on Google, MSN & Yahoo.
• Tracked the pages with most visits; which turned out to be the price page.
• Created a gateway and made visitors fill a form to see pricing which helped capture the visitors’ contact info..
• Everyone who filled the form to see prices automatically received a marketing email.
• Started sending informational bi-weekly newsletter about the disease, latest news, and success stories to the prospects through email.
• Sales team called prospects that also left their phone number on the contact form.

The results were spectacular:

• The program generated over 100 incoming call from prospects every week.
• In addition, 1,000 lead a week were generated from people who filled the form, 40% with phone numbers. These leads were followed by email campaign or phone call by the sales people.
• Prospects contacting were already educated about the procedure, surgeon, prices, etc, from the website (average 25 page-views); resulting in a much easier sales process.
• AND most important – average monthly bookings jumped from 19 to 91 surgeries per month – a 379% increase

The marketing program generates inquiries based on the advertising budget; hence the surgeon controls his workload.

Any business can get similar result from website design and marketing if done right. The basic strategy is same

• Identify target customer
• Understand their hot-button issue that the product addresses
• Design marketing material (website, or brochure, or radio ad, etc.) addressing hot-button issues
• Design a website that addresses the consumer hot-button issues and how the business addresses these issues.
• Use internet marketing tools like pay-per-click advertising, affiliate program, email campaign, Blog, and Podcasting.

Visit www.gmrwebteam.com or contact us at 949-679-3418 for web design and marketing solutions if you want to replicate the results of this surgeon.