If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’re already familiar with the concept of the “consumer decision journey,” the multi-modal, often-convoluted path that consumers embark upon when researching the products and services they’re thinking of buying. You may even be among those who say, “So what? I don’t have consumers; I havepatients!”

Well, guess what? Until those people become actual patients, they are consumers: Like it or not, they’re shoppers, using the Internet to research their options, glean insights from other like-minded consumers and check you (and the competition) out before they ever pick up the phone. Call the process whatever you want but, as this infographic fromFathomDelivers.com suggests, the reality is that they’re on what can only be considered a “patient decision journey.”

While the above infographic focuses on illnesses and diseases, the fact is that consumers considering elective/aesthetic procedures follow a similar path. They use search engines to seek out initial information; they turn to social media to ask questions and read reviews from others, and they visit doctors’ practice websites to get a better sense of which ones to actually contact.

Doctors who understand the shift and make an effort to help them along the way are likely to be the ones they turn to when they’re ready to take the next step.

Doctor Takeaway

Patient, client or otherwise, aesthetic consumers are very savvy shoppers

Whatever you call them, today’s seeker of cosmetic surgery has access to an unprecedented amount of information — so much, in fact, that making sense of it can be seen as journeying from a state of overwhelmed confusion to one of informed empowerment. Like almost everyone seeking medical care, today’s patient/client/aesthetic consumer wants to be an active participant in her healthcare decisions; she wants to be listened to not dictated to, and she prefers doctors who are both competent and caring. Doctors who recognize that and adapt their marketing efforts accordingly will find the journey a rewarding one.

Source: medibeauty.biz