Why Quality Physician Headshots are Vital for Medical Marketing and Your Website

Fair or not, people DO judge a book by its cover. Your potential patients will see your headshot as a projection of your quality of care. Therefore, you don’t want a headshot that is poor quality or one that makes you look tired or disheveled.

Quality physician headshots are so important that it is better to have no headshot than one that is of poor quality or one where you look, well, like your passport photo.

Quality photographs are vital for medical marketing

There are several reasons why quality photographs can make or break your website and your marketing efforts:

• Users skim your website instead of reading it.

This means that they will examine your photo long before their eyes make their way to your credentials. In fact, if you have a poor quality headshot, there’s a good chance they won’t read anything about you at all. You want to give the user every reason to slow down and absorb the information.

• Headshots = assumptions

According to Forbes magazine, regardless of the business you are in, a blurry, low-quality or poorly cropped photo can convey sloppiness and a lack of attention to detail.

We realize that there’s absolutely no relationship between practicing medicine and having a good headshot, but many viewers equate a bad headshot to poor service, e.g. “if this doctor doesn’t care what his/her headshot looks like, why would they care about my problem?” A quality headshot makes a physician more personable. Patients want to relate to their doctors, which in turn fosters a sense of trust.

Just as you’d never go to a job interview or social function without looking your best, you should utilize the same principle with your online headshot.

• Headshots reinforce your brand

A casual shot outside with your family conveys a different message than one inside with a white coat or scrubs. Headshots are an important part of your brand and you want to be sure that these messages complement each other, according to information from Forbes magazine.

How to create a quality headshot

We’ve got the information you need to be sure you’re always putting your best foot forward when you’re in front of the lens.

Unless you’re wearing your physician white coat, we suggest steering away from white. It’s also important to realize that some may be intimidated by a white coat and may even have “white coat hypertension.” In addition, consider taking the photograph outside because natural lighting is much better than studio lighting.

If you decide to wear something colorful, we suggest jewel tones like blues and greens. Be sure to avoid bright and busy patterns. Ladies should avoid wearing too much makeup or large dangling earrings that would be distracting.

Make sure your picture is up-to-date! Don’t use an older picture from decades ago. Potential patients want to know what you look like now, and seeing a familiar face when they arrive will put them at ease and foster the doctor/patient relationship.

Unless you have a professional photography background, you should consider letting a professional take your photograph. Pictures that are low resolution don’t render well on websites and look amateurish. Our professional staff photographer has extensive experience in capturing our clients’ best moments, providing professional headshots and Google tours. We’ll be glad to provide an excellent, stellar headshot that captures who you are.

Proclaim Interactive can create quality headshots as part of our medical marketing services

We understand the importance of putting your best face forward. This is the image that will form the first impression potential patients have of our practice. We’ve won awards for our outstanding work in graphics, virtual tours, and we even have a Google photographer who is a Google Trusted Photographer.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but even a great portrait isn’t enough for a comprehensive medical marketing plan. We’ve provided award-winning services such as search engine optimization (seo), social media marketing, and website design.

Since its inception in 2000, Proclaim Interactive has combined excellence in design and think-out-of- the-box digital marketing to become one of the most award-winning firms in the region .Proclaim Interactive provides website design, social media management, SEO and general marketing services designed to amplify clients’ messages. For more information call 910.795.4143.