Healthcare marketing resources for private practices.
Junk food marketing works in the short term, but it’s not a sustainable way to grow your practice. Make sure you aren’t a junk food marketer!
Have you ever read ingredient labels while food shopping? Almost everything is filled with sugar, even savory foods like bread and tomato sauce are loaded with the stuff! Why? Because it’s a cheap, lazy way to make food palatable. Is it good for you? Certainly not, but it’s cheap and easy. The same thing holds true for practice marketing.
Once you decide to become a membership practice, the next step is choosing membership services for your patients. We know the benefits for providers: A smaller patient load, reduced overhead, and less record-keeping. But what services will you offer your patients?
When some people think of a membership practice, they think of fluffy robes and private waiting rooms. Those things are nice extras, but they don’t do much to make a patient’s experience better. Ask your patients what would improve their experience. The most common things patients are looking for all relate to time: Faster access to appointments, longer appointments, and a practitioner who listens (which takes time!).
Healthcare marketing and Zonkies? Seriously, what’s the connection? Healthcare providers often do the same, old, tired events and activities for their healthcare marketing. Certainly there’s a place for those things…they became “standard marketing” (or “workhorses”) because they were effective or provided useful information. We don’t want to throw them out completely…but consider enhancing them with some new, fresh, and interesting healthcare marketing activities where you dare to be different! (The zonkey!)
That’s right! Think outside of the box. Pretend there is no box! Be clever. Be unique with your marketing. Stand out from the crowd of healthcare providers clamoring for the public’s attention…
We examined the concept of internal marketing for healthcare practices in a previous blog. Let’s turn our attention now to the concept of external marketing for healthcare practices. Simply stated, [external marketing] for healthcare practices is any activity or event done outside the walls of your office to promote your practice. The most effective marketing strategies utilize a combination of internal and external marketing for practice success.
If you spend any amount of time speaking with healthcare professionals in private practice, it’ll quickly become clear as to their healthcare marketing mindset. In other words, what do they think about the concept of marketing their healthcare practice? I find this topic so interesting that I decided to write a series of blogs on the subject of practice marketing mindsets. This first installation will discuss the two main mental perceptions regarding the financial aspect of healthcare marketing.
Are you attractive? I don’t mean to get too personal with this question, so let me clarify. Are you “attractive” to other people in the sense that you draw people to you and your healthcare practice? This isn’t a discussion of the sort of attractiveness which includes cosmetics, clothing, accessories, or physique. Instead, I want to talk about your personal ability to interest and engage people.