Healthcare practice marketing is about your ability to sell your message to patients who need you. Ideally, that awareness will lead to them utilising your services when a demand occurs. There is much talk about social marketing, online marketing and advertising; in my experience as a healthcare practice coach, the essence of excellent marketing is developing relationships. Not only is this extremely cost effective but it also constructs a strong and trusted business/practice base.

Sell Yourself

You are the person who understands your practice most. You also comprehend your offerings much better than anyone else. Be the person that patients can trust, and develop important relationships with people who can on-sell you to their networks. These relationships are built on a trust and belief in the value of your services.

What’s Your Message?

Have a key message. Every time someone experiences pain or injury, or knows a person in trouble, they will certainly consider you. We try to state all things we do, however too many messages may be confusing. Begin with one clear message and build on it later. Your key message needs to be so clear and significant that when someone has a problem they will certainly believe you can help.

What Is Your Vision?

It may be tempting to get too technical in describing your services and exactly what you do. But you must fit the vision to your target audience. This means instead of marketing how you are going to achieve the results for your patients, tell them what you can do for them. Let them know what the benefits are of being under your care. If you are believable, everything else is virtually automatic. Use this in your marketing with images along with a few simple words. This enhances your offering.

Branding

Once you have a clear vision of your message and your promise you can deal with your brand. Purchase a good website that genuinely shows the professionalism of your practice. Engage a good designer that can help you brand all your aspects, including your brochure, your business cards, referral pads, and your letterhead. Have professional images taken of you and your staff and include short bios on your site to highlight your abilities.

Attempt to select an internet platform that allows you to easily manage the back end and make regular, basic updates. This conserves great deals of cash and time in the long run and permits you to be proactive and regular with your updates.

Remember that happy patients are your best referrers. They know your service, they like you and they have actually had success. Help them sell you to their friends. Purchase some brochure display stands for your waiting room so patients can take the brochures to their family and friends to help sell you. Your brochure is the ideal location to display the various other services you offer, as your patients often are not aware of the breadth of your capabilities.

Connect Connect Connect

Each time you have a new patient, ask who referred them. Likewise ask them if they have another person who has been associated with their pain management but may not have actually referred them. A GP? Another therapist? Ask the patient if they would like you to write a brief letter describing your findings. This is a terrific means to keep continuity in their healthcare but it likewise informs prospective new referrers to the reality that you are working in the vicinity and providing high quality care. Doctors are often too busy to make time to see you, but will certainly always read a letter about a client. You can add a brochure with your letter.

Develop Networks

Developing referral networks is vital. In my experience, GPs are more likely to refer up the chain to medical specialists. Target specialists such as sports doctors and orthopaedic surgeons. They know how essential your abilities are and together you can develop a wonderful cooperative relationship, which will benefit both your practices.

Contact regional allied wellness experts in your location. Organise to meet them. Have a coffee, invite them to your facility, run seminars or free workshops and offer to present short health talks on the most up to date evidence in a particular location which would be relevant to their team. This takes some time and trust but is an essential part of building a strong expert network.

If you have a new referrer who is sending you a couple of patients, handwrite an quick thank-you letter on letterhead, parcel up some brochures and include a screen stand and a referral pad. If you make it that simple for them to display your brochures, there is even more opportunity they will put them in their waiting rooms.

Become The Specialist

Offer to write pieces for journals, magazines, blogs or the local paper. This is the best free marketing you will likely get and in time people will certainly begin to perceive you as the acknowledged specialist in your field. Check out various other health-related media material and begin to get a feel for the kind and style of messages. The more you produce articles that are in the style of their existing content, the more likely organisations will be to use you again. Newsletters are an excellent method for keeping in contact with new and old patients. Brief, simple pieces with interesting info, about any current developments in healthcare, or links to new studies, keep you in their mind without doing a hard sell.