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Medical Spa & Laser Clinic Click Fraud

July 13th, 2010 Jeff Barson Comments off

[youtube:XYfYpHWllSs;[link:Social Media Marketing & PR: Twitter];http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYfYpHWllSs&feature=related]If you’re one of the tens of thousands of cosmetic medical practices, medical spas or laser clinics advertising online with Google Adwords or Yahoo, don’t be surprised to find that at least some of the money you’re paying every month is sucked out of your marketing fund by click fraud.

You don’t think it’s already happening to your skin clinic, med spa or laser clinic? Here’s a recent quote from the CEO of click fraud services vendor ClickFacts:

“In particularly fraud prone verticals such as finance, class action lawsuits and medical, we see click fraud rates in the 30%-45% range. These are categories that see high keyword pricing in the PPC auction model. That makes them particularly tasty for click fraud artists. If you can make more money from the dark side than the light side of search, there are plenty of people who will take advantage.”

There are two main ways that your plastic surgery, laser clinic or cosmetic dermatology practice marketing budget is being drained by click fraud:

First: competitors who see your ad simply click on it, draining your advertising dollars. Second; click fraudsters set up ‘affiliate’ sites are set up that run your ads where they are clicked on by bots or employees. These sites are the most damaging since you’re paying for every click without any return. Click fraud around skin clinics, med spas or laser clinics can be very lucrative since dermatology or plastic surgery clinics are becoming such a competitive market and the payment per click can be as high as $4-5.

Unfortunately, to keep your marketing budget safe you have very few tools. You can bet they’re not that Google’s not interested in your individual account, especially since Google is making money from click fraud when your ads are clicked on.

Start by limiting your exposure to click fraud. If your plastic surgery, laser clinic or cosmetic dermatology practice is still running an Adwords or Yahoo campaign, they allow you to limit the maximum amount you spend in a day. Take advantage of this feature by limiting your maximum cost to what you can afford to spend. You can also look for the tracks of click fraud by examining the reports you might have available to you. Multiple clicks coming from the same IP address are a sure sign of fraud.

Countries like Malaysia have become such a haven for click fraud ‘sweat-shops’ that clicks generated there are completely discounted by Google and accounts for Adwords or Adsense are routinely turned down.

Protect your skin clinic, med spa or laser clinic by keeping track of your PPC account. You can be sure that you’re the only one really trying to.

If you are thinking about determining exactly what cosmetic surgeons and other physicians running laser treatment centers think of the modern Intense pulsed light (IPL) and skin laser choices out of Sciton, Candela, Alma, Cutera, Cynosure, Lumenis, Solta, Syneron, Palomar and others, or treatment options such as Thermage skin tightening, Smart lipo, Botox, fat melting and other IPL and cosmetic laser treatments, be sure to check-out all the aesthetic laser community forums of Medical Spa MD, a community of physicians practicing cosmetic medicine.

Medical Spa MD is a cosmetic laser center community of plastic surgeons, dermatologists, laser clinics and medspas with more than 5,000 physician members and hosts the most current physician discussion forums on medical spa marketing and non-surgical cosmetic medical technologies.

Sales Automation Benefits without Software Headaches

October 15th, 2009 Jeff Barson Comments off

In recent years, cloud computing driven sales force automation has pulled way ahead of traditional on-premise sales tools. Why? Because sales force automation is easier to learn and use, more affordable, globally accessible on demand? and frees companies from the huge upfront investment and complexity of server-based sales software that takes forever to deploy.

Software as a Service Sales Tools

SaaS sales software is the ideal sales tool, built to address the full spectrum of sales activities. It all adds up to rapid, universal adoption, torrid sales productivity, and fast-growing revenue.

Sales Lead Management. With sales force automation, you can manage and distribute prospects to the right reps, so leads and opportunities are pursued quickly and never fall through the cracks.

Manage Opportunities. Smarter collaboration means higher productivity and the ability to close more deals faster. And because it?s Web-based, it’s always securely accessible by everyone who needs it. From any continent and time zone, your entire team can instantly communicate and collaborate in real time.

Account Management. Sales force automation provides a view of each opportunity.

Activity Management. Reps need to stay organized and coordinate their activities to provide customers with prompt attention, and speed the closing of sales. With automation sales tools such as activity tracking and collaboration, team management, activity scheduling, and real-time alerts, your teams stay on track and on schedule. Activity reports can be generated for up-to-date snapshots of what?s going on in your organization, and tailored to fit the criteria you care about most.

Analytics. Sales force automation gives you a perspective on your entire business that provide consolidated views of real-time sales data. Tools for sophisticated analytics take the pulse of market demand and more.

Customizable Sales Forecasts. With CRM sales force automation, you gain real-time forecasting capabilities far beyond those of traditional sales software. You?re empowered to create the timely, precise forecasts that are critical to expanding the business, aligning expenses, growing revenue, and predicting future demand. Sales force automation leapfrogs outdated sales software and alternative sales tools?enabling you to set pipeline targets and quotas by rep and territory?create your own data views using the methodology and matrices you prefer?role up sales data across regions and levels?and analyze deviations between forecast and actual.

Managing Data Quality. Eliminate errors that can mar analysis, impair forecasts, and delay sales. Tools are provided for quickly cleaning and clearing your database.

Point & Click Customizations. In contrast to legacy sales software, professionals can customize their sales force automation experience while developers and IT professionals have a full palette of tools for deeper customization and development.

Integration. Conventional sales software is difficult to integrate together with other systems. But with software as a service (SaaS), sales software headaches and limitations become things of the past.

Workflow. Tools inside SaaS sales software let you create custom rules based on any business event. Sales force software lets you set up multi-step approvals for any of your sales or business processes or opportunity-close approvals. With these capabilities, you can streamline routine activities and enforce your best practices.

Summary: Sales Automation SaaS

Installed Sales Automation Software. The old client/server model for on-site Sales Automation software requires you to invest cash in an IT infrastructure to run it.

Web Based Sales Automation SaaS Solutions. Web based Sales Automation, hosted Sales Automation, on-demand Sales Automation, software-as-a-service (SaaS) Sales Automation?all these terms refer to the same thing: a new method for accelerating sales. With this popular type of Sales Automation offered by Sendside, there?s no software or hardware to buy, install, maintain, or upgrade. It’s the smart choice.

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