The world of online marketing can be complex and overwhelming to navigate. The cost of advertising online can be expensive – the cost of not advertising online even more expensive! So how do you know where to spend your marketing dollars online? Recently one of our subscribers wrote in and asked me, “I only have a limited marketing budget. Which would you recommend I spend my advertising dollars on, Google Ads or Facebook Ads?” It’s a great question with a fairly simple answer. Google Ads! Why? Because Google Ads are the new Yellow Pages. When people need a service…

Congratulations, you have been asked to speak at a local civic organization about your Medical Practice or occupational medicine business. Perhaps you have been invited by a company to come and give a presentation about the services you offer to their employees. Or maybe you are just going to give a small sales presentation to a decision maker about why they should utilize your company for on the job injuries. No matter the reason you have been invited to speak, your success is more than just getting over your fear of public speaking. Your success comes in mastering your sales pitch and…

Recently I became a mom for the very first time. Welcoming our baby girl into our home has been without a doubt the greatest joy of my life. Her first doctor's visit was exciting. We asked all the questions a parent of a newborn child probably asks. By the time her two week checkup had arrived, we had begun to experience gastrointestinal issues. The pediatrician told us it was normal. When we contacted her again at four weeks, the pediatrician began to take us seriously. This time she ordered a plethora of lab work. If you've ever had to watch a four week old get blood drawn, you can…

The limiting factor to growing your business really comes down your answer to one question: How well can you recruit new providers? If you find this process a little daunting and sometimes overly challenging, you're not alone. With the nationwide shortage in physicians predicted to continue growing, and an increase in the number of Medical Practice facilities popping up simultaneously, it is not always an easy feat to accomplish. So Where Do You Begin? Some Medical Practice owners prefer to use the physician recruiter method. They agree to pay a steep placement fee in exchange for the…

When done successfully, working a booth at a local event, health fair, business expo, or other type of trade show can be a great way to grow awareness of the services your Medical Practice provides to your community. But many Medical Practice marketers flop when it comes to successfully working their booth and maximizing the number of touch points available to reach potential patients both during and after the show. Unlike doing cold calls to try and drum up new business, where often times you’re met with resistance from the person you’ve just interrupted, people who attend local…

The first day of each month is one of my favorite days. I typically spend the first few hours of the first day of the month compiling monthly marketing reports to see how our marketing efforts fared for the prior month. The great thing about these metrics is they help me make educated decisions on where to shift my marketing efforts for the coming month(s). I relay on six marketing reports to track our monthly marketing efforts, but today I’m going to focus on the top three. Report One: How Patients Found Us Before we had an EMR with a good reporting element, we tracked how patients…

I am a firm believer that you can be taught a lesson multiple times, and each time it is taught to you, you take something different away from it. Why? Because the lesson you’re going to learn depends on the situations you’re facing at the time. This past week at the UCAOA Conference in Glendale, AZ, I was listening to Dr. Tim Reynolds give a talk on leadership. I have heard the talk before at the Medical Practice Success Summit. I have heard it before at our executive leadership trainings at HealthCARE Express. But on this particular day, I had a particular issue with one of my…

While watching my nine-year-old cousin play soccer this weekend, I received a text message on my phone. The team member sending it had raised two concerns she felt were going to hurt our patient volume numbers. Caught up in the excitement of the soccer game and not really thinking, I instantly forwarded the message to our managing partner for review, and he sent back a message explaining the backside to the issue and why it was a mute concern. He also wrote, “Start looking for the good, it’s easy to find the bad.” As I pondered that entire situation this weekend, I realized…

Carved pumpkins are lit on front porches across your community as the local kids get ready to transform themselves into goblins, ghosts, and their favorite cartoon characters this Thursday night to partake in the annual trick-o-treating event. How can your Medical Practice utilize this fun evening to market to one of your primary target demographics: Moms with kids still at home? Photo Contests on Social Media One easy thing you can do is hold a photo contest on social media for a chance to win a prize. Awards could be given for things like "Best Costume" or "Best Pumpkin". According to the…

This Friday our marketing team will spend the day together hammering out our 2014 Marketing Plan. We will review our numbers from the past year, set goals for the next year, and figure out what strategies to repeat and what new strategies to incorporate to continue to grow our presence in the different markets where we have clinics. Part of that process has already started. For the past few weeks the marketing team has been compiling a list of events and strategies they want to use in their individual markets for 2014. They will bring that list with them to our planning session, and we will…