# Advertising & PR perspective

*Synthesized from three specialist angles (PR strategy, owned-surface brand strategy,
word-of-mouth/referral design) — raw outputs in `../research/workflow-outputs.json` under
`pr_perspectives`. Everything here respects the hard constraints: the practice stays small,
no social media, no ads, no discounting, quiet-luxury register.*

## The strategic read

For a practice that must **not** scale, marketing inverts:

- **Earned media is not a demand channel — it is a verification layer.** Every referred
  patient Googles Seolhee before writing the note. The job of press is to make page one of
  that search confirm the story the friend told, then stop. Optimize for searchability and
  permanence, never velocity.
- **Owned surfaces exist for referral confirmation, not discovery.** When a friend says
  "trained in Seoul, does everything herself," Google Business Profile, the voicemail, the
  suite door, and the confirmation email must all say the same thing, in the same quiet
  first-person voice, within three seconds of looking.
- **Word of mouth travels as a story, not a result.** Subtle work creates a referral
  paradox: nobody says "great Botox," they say "you look rested." The system's job is to
  script that exact moment — a ten-word retellable story plus a beautiful object to hand
  over — and to close the loop with gratitude (never rewards; see legal guardrails).
- **The capacity cap is the strongest referral line.** "She's hard to get into" is the only
  social proof a quiet-luxury practice needs. Frame scarcity as method, never apology.

## The messaging house

**One claim (the roof):** *Korean aesthetic medicine, practiced by one clinician.*

**Three proof pillars (everything is built from these and nothing else):**
1. **Trained in Seoul** — in person, in Gangnam, under a Korean dermatologist; twelve-hour
   days on patients over multiple stays.
2. **A decade at the bedside** — ten years of NYC emergency and surgical-ICU nursing;
   NYU-trained, board-certified NP; Young Nightingale Award, top of class.
3. **Restraint as skill** — one private suite, every treatment performed by her, results
   kept subtle, patient photos never published.

### Ready-to-use copy (verify board certification + Seoul mentor naming before use)

- **Referral one-liner (what patients say):** "I see a Korean nurse practitioner in
  Brooklyn Heights — she trained in Seoul, and she does very little, on purpose. I'll give
  you her card."
- **Checkout permission line (spoken):** "Most people will only notice that you look well.
  If anyone asks, you're welcome to give them my card — and if you'd rather keep me to
  yourself, that's fine too."
- **Press boilerplate (third person):** "Seolhee Patel is a board-certified nurse
  practitioner in Brooklyn Heights. She spent ten years in New York emergency rooms and
  surgical intensive care, several more in hospice care, and trained in Korean aesthetic
  technique in Gangnam, Seoul. Her practice, FaceSPec, is deliberately small: one clinician,
  one suite, subtle work. She does not maintain social media and never photographs patients
  for publication."
- **The decline line (listicles, TV, roundups):** "Thank you for thinking of the practice.
  I keep it deliberately small, so I stay out of where-to-go pieces. If you ever need a
  clinician to explain how these treatments actually work, I'm glad to be a source."
- **Website capacity line:** "I see a small number of patients each day, so nothing is
  rushed. Most new patients come by introduction; if we haven't met, write me a note."
- **GBP description** (~750 chars, first person): see `research/workflow-outputs.json` —
  drafted and ready to paste.

## Owned surfaces (rough order of importance)

1. **Google Business Profile — treat it as the homepage.** Claim "FaceSPec — Seolhee Patel,
   NP." Categories chosen for accuracy, not reach: primary *Skin care clinic*, secondary
   *Nurse practitioner* — deliberately **not** *Medical spa* (ranks for deal-seeking
   discovery). 10–12 photos, zero faces: door plaque, entrance, treatment chair, gloved
   hands with instruments, tea tray, one framed credential. Seed the Q&A herself. *(3–4 hrs
   once; 20 min/month.)*
2. **Reviews: slow, personal, compliant.** Target 1–2/month, asked verbally only of patients
   who volunteered delight; one follow-up text with the direct link. Never incentivized.
   Reply to every review with a fixed HIPAA-safe template that never confirms anyone is a
   patient.
3. **Apple Business Connect + Bing Places.** Brooklyn Heights is iPhone country — a referral
   shared in Messages resolves to Apple Maps. Identical name/address/phone everywhere,
   kept in one source-of-truth text file. No Yext subscription; it's a 90-minute manual job.
4. **Yelp: claim, neutralize, don't play.** Correct the listing, load the same photos and
   description, then stop. Never solicit Yelp reviews (their filter punishes it); decline
   Yelp Ads calls in writing once.
5. **Skip Zocdoc/RealSelf deliberately** — per-booking marketplaces built to fill empty
   calendars with comparison-shopping volume; they commoditize exactly what she built and
   surrender pricing power. Do verify her NPPES/NPI record shows the Boerum Place address.
6. **The three transactional emails** — signature (4 lines, seen more than any listing),
   appointment confirmation ("Your appointment at Suite 210" — wayfinding, what to expect,
   her direct reply address; never treatment names in subject lines), and the same-evening
   aftercare email whose closing line plants the referral story.
7. **Voicemail + form auto-reply** in her own voice, 20 seconds, ending with the
   one-business-day promise.
8. **Suite 210 as physical media.** Etched plaque ("FaceSPec — Suite 210 — Seolhee Patel,
   NP"); one framed credential moment (the Nightingale Award or Seoul certificate with a
   two-line caption); barley-tea tray; a printed fee card on the website's paper stock and
   typography.
9. **Printed matter: exactly three cards, one stock** — aftercare card, calling/referral
   card (explicitly *not* a coupon — "the absence of an offer is the offer"), appointment
   card with a handwritten line. Cotton stock, single celadon ink, matching the site.
   (~$150–300 at a letterpress shop or Moo Luxe.)
10. **The whole maintenance budget:** one 30–45 minute block on the last Friday of each
    month — review replies, GBP Q&A, holiday hours, one new photo, the referral ledger.

## Earned media (only through the filter)

**The flagship (do once, then stop):** one canonical local profile in a Brooklyn
Heights-native outlet — Brooklyn Heights Blog first choice, Brownstoner or Brooklyn Magazine
alternates. The angle is **not** "Seoul's Skin Botox arrives in Brooklyn" — it is *"the
ER-and-hospice-trained injector two blocks from Borough Hall who talks patients out of
treatments."* Gangnam is texture in paragraph three. Ground rules agreed upfront: no patient
photos or anecdotes, no book-now framing, interview outside patient hours. This becomes the
permanent third-party link on page one of her search results — after it runs she's done
with consumer media for a year or more.

**The Suite 210 pass/decline filter** — five questions; any "no" means decline:
1. *Searched, not scrolled* — will one referred patient find this in two years, or five
   thousand strangers this week?
2. *Expert, not destination* — is she explaining how something works, or being listed as
   where to get it?
3. *No faces, feeds, or follow-up* — does it require before/afters, a handle, or a
   recurring commitment?
4. *The read-aloud test* — could the likely headline be read aloud in Suite 210 without
   wincing?
5. *The flood tripwire* — could this plausibly generate more than 5–10 inquiries in a week?
   If so, decline or accept only with soft attribution ("Seolhee Patel, a nurse
   practitioner in Brooklyn Heights who trained in Seoul" — no address, no link).

**The steady drip (all optional, all capped):**
- Expert-source quotes via **Qwoted** and **Source of Sources** (HARO's successor
  Connectively shut down), max two responses/month, national explainer pieces only, with
  three pre-written 150-word answer blocks.
- **One trade placement a year** (ISPAN's *Plastic and Aesthetic Nursing*, AANP member
  press, or a practitioner podcast) — invisible to consumers, builds the highest-value
  referral channel: other clinicians.
- **Podcast guesting, twice a year, audio only** — nursing-career shows, K-beauty industry
  analysis, end-of-life shows (the hospice thread handled respectfully, never as
  marketing). When asked "where can people find you": the website sentence only.
- **Neighborhood presence:** Brooklyn Heights Association membership; one library talk a
  year framed as consumer protection ("How to read a medspa menu — a nurse's guide to being
  a skeptical patient").

**Pre-build the flood valve before any press runs:** a decline template, an alternate
form auto-reply for inquiry spikes, and the standing waitlist sentence. And wire the form
backend first — a press hit against a dead form burns the one door in.

## The referral system

1. **Script the mentionable moment.** The trigger is always "you look rested — what are you
   doing?" Equip every patient with the ten-word story and explicit permission to share
   *or* stay private (the permission-to-be-private line paradoxically increases referrals —
   it marks the practice as discreet).
2. **The calling card** — a hand-off object, never a coupon. No offer, no QR coupon, no
   "refer a friend."
3. **The Day-14 note** — handwritten, clinically timed to when neurotoxin results settle
   and the touch-up window opens; doubles as follow-up and referral vector; two cards
   enclosed; discreet envelope (no treatment words visible). The single highest-leverage
   ritual in the system. ~5 min per new patient.
4. **Gratitude, not goods** (see legal). Handwritten thank-you notes; disproportionate
   *care* for the 5–10 connector patients the ledger will reveal — never tiers, credits, or
   promised priority.
5. **Close the "who sent you?" loop HIPAA-safely:** ask the new patient "May I thank
   [name] for sending you? I never mention what brings anyone here — only that I'm grateful
   for the introduction," and record the consent.
6. **Waitlist language that converts scarcity into desirability:** real horizons ("I'm not
   able to offer a first appointment until October"), an offer to hold a place, never
   "fully booked!", never apology.

## Legal guardrails (New York specifics — do not skip)

- **No consideration for referrals, ever.** NY Regents Rule 8 NYCRR 29.1(b)(3) and Educ.
  Law § 6530(18) make it professional misconduct to offer "any fee or other consideration"
  for patient referrals — applies to NPs, covers non-cash value (free units, credits, guest
  privileges, promised priority), no de-minimis safe harbor, enforced as license discipline.
  Kill any "give $50/get $50" idea before it starts.
- **No fee-splitting with non-licensees** (8 NYCRR 29.1(b)(4)) — friendly mutual
  introductions with salons/facialists are fine; money or gifts flowing either way are not.
- **HIPAA in public:** never confirm anyone is a patient in review replies or to referrers
  without recorded consent; no patient anecdotes to press (neighborhood + profession + age
  identifies someone in a small community); no journalists in the suite during patient hours.
- **Review rules:** FTC's 2024 consumer-review rule sanctions incentivized reviews; Google
  prohibits incentives; Yelp prohibits even asking. The verbal, unrewarded ask is the only
  compliant mechanism — and the only on-brand one.
- **Title accuracy:** she is a nurse practitioner — never "doctor" or "dermatologist";
  request corrections immediately. Confirm whether the Gangnam dermatologist may be named
  before it appears anywhere in print.
- **No outcome promises anywhere** — describe what patients seek; "Skin Botox" is an
  off-label technique using FDA-approved products (Jeuveau, Xeomin) and should be described
  exactly that way whenever asked.

## Effort budget (reality check for a solo practice)

- **One-time setup:** press kit + GBP + Apple/Bing/Yelp + email templates + voicemail +
  printed matter ≈ **15–20 hours** total, mostly delegable except the writing in her voice.
- **Recurring:** the monthly 30–45 minute owned-surface ritual, Day-14 notes (~45 min/month
  at her volume), and at most 1–2 expert-source responses a month ≈ **2 hours/month, hard
  ceiling.** Anything demanding more than that violates the brief by definition.
