Why is Photography so Important?
When patients are searching for a clinic to have a treatment performed or to have a consultation about some concerns, how do they find you? The data tells us that the vast majority of potential patients are scouring the internet looking for the best option that suits their requirements. And what grabs someone’s attention better than anything else? Visuals that tell them who you are and what you do. Photography and Videos.
Part of your marketing strategy for your practice should be a robust set of high quality before and after images of your own patients, NOT stock images provided by industry. Nothing speaks more to your insincerity and lack of experience than generic images created by someone else for someone else.
Your EMR or aesthetic practice management system should be able to capture high quality images and then share them easily and seamlessly within the system for before and after image creation, consultations, creating marketing material, tagging for future reference and sending images to patients directly.
Capturing images on a phone or ipad speaks to a potential lack of professionalism in your practice and the captured images are very poor quality if you want to use them for any purposes other than patient identification. Some photography systems out there also save images in proprietary formats so you can’t extract the images easily unless you pay them thousands of dollars. We feel this to be highly unprofessional as those images belong to you and your patients and no-one should be in between this process.
Top 5 things you should be looking for in a photography system that integrates directly into your EMR or aesthetic practice management sytem.
- High quality images should be captured by the system using a new and modern DLSR camera or comparable mirrorless camera.
- Images should be uploaded directly into the system immediately after capture.
- No local storage should be required, all your images should be stored in the cloud.
- All images should be saved in non-proprietary formats so they are easily extracted and downloaded for whatever purpose you and your patients choose.
- Your photography systems should be pre-setup for your use and very easy to use with little to no room for error. This will allow for more consistent photography and better comparisons for consultations and discussions with patients.