A year ago I started doing marketing consulting as a supplement to my career as an Medical Practice marketer. Now I receive phone calls or e-mails almost every single day asking questions on everything from “Is this a good idea?” to “Can you help me understand this contract” to “Help! I’m stuck. What should I do next?” My favorite question, however, is “What’s the one thing I should focus my marketing efforts on right now?” I always know it’s going to be a longer phone call when I get that question because there is no…

When I first learned about Pintrest, I was really slow to jump on the bandwagon. I had just hired a new marketer for one of our locations, and she always had the cutest hairstyles and neatest articles of clothing. Each time I would compliment her on them she would say, “Thanks, I learned how to make this on Pintrest. You should check it out, but beware, it is addictive and can cost you lots of spare time.” … Spare time wasn’t something I had a lot of, and the last thing I really needed was a new social network to waste time on. Fast forward to this past Christmas. I’m…

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Did you know it's estimated that more people watch the Super Bowl each year for the commercials than they do for the actual game? I was one of those people last year, at least through the first half. Then I decided I really didn’t need to watch the second half of the game, I would just see which commercials my friends on Facebook thought were the best. As I pondered that thought again this morning, something hit me. There are several lessons Medical Practice marketers can take away from Super Bowl commercials. 1. Timing Matters Your message has to be played at…

My goal for this year is to read 52 books, and so far I’m still on track to make that goal happen. Over the course of my life, I’ve discovered if you want to grow and evolve as a professional, you have to take self-development into your own hands. One of the books I recently read was called The Accidental Sales Manager. As a “newbie” to management, it was full of so many nuggets and AHA! Moments for me. I actually took eight pages of notes. Instead of writing an article today, I wanted to share with you 15 of my favorite takeaways from the book. 1. You must coach the…

When you perform a Google search for "Medical Practice", or "Medical Practice (your town name)", you will typically see three types of search results. 1. Ads 2. Traditional organic search results 3. Local (Google Maps) results Ads are often very effective but cost you money every time someone clicks on one. Links from the traditional organic section can send visitors to your homepage, or to any of the other pages on your site that have been indexed by Google. Local results will send people to your Google+ Local page. This was formerly known as a Google Places page, but people will now see…

Every dollar you spend marketing your Medical Practice business is a dollar you’re not taking home. It is also a dollar you are investing in hopes of making even more money on the investment down the road. But how do you know if you’re just aimlessly throwing money away each month or if your marketing efforts are truly bringing patients in the door? There are several things you can implement to measure your return on investment, commonly called ROI. ROI = (Net Revenue - Marketing Expenses / Marketing Expenses ) *100 In the healthcare marketing ROI formula above, net revenue equals…

A good brochure may capture someone’s attention and inform them about the services you provide at your Medical Practice, but a great brochure does something more. A great, well-written, brochure persuades the person reading it. Unfortunately, most medical practice brochures never go from good to great. They never provide a true reason to the reader on why they should utilize a service. Where Does Your Brochure Rate? Pick-up your brochure right now and look at it closely. Then ask yourself these questions: 1. Who is the brochure written for and what should they do after looking at the…

By: Tina Bell Director of Marketing, HealthCARE Express When I first moved to the town I now call home six years ago, I didn’t have a doctor. In fact, I didn’t even know where to begin to go if a cold bug bit me that fall. But I knew there was a pharmacy in town on College Drive because I saw their cute little Urkle-Style car proudly displaying their logo as it zipped around town. The only other doctor I knew about was a podiatrist, whose fun yellow convertible with its Austin Power’s design, proudly displaying his logo, was also driven all over town. Later that fall I…

By: Tina Bell Yesterday afternoon I pulled into the drive-thru at a local restaurant to order a late lunch. It took me eight minutes to get out of the drive-thru empty handed , after the lady taking my order provided the most horrible customer service I've ever received in a drive-thru. I decided I’d rather spend my money where I felt like a customer not an inconvenience. I told her to cancel my order and took off across the street to another restaurant, where I ordered my usual, “veggie club”. As though I’d just made a big faux pas, I was quickly told…

There's nothing like the good old home field advantage when you're looking for publicity for your company. Local TV stations and talk radio shows, hometown newspapers and magazines, and locally oriented blogs and news websites are all looking for the same thing: local content. If you can offer them useful information or a great human interest story - particularly, if you can link it to something currently in the news - you just might become the next media darling. There's nothing to be nervous about. Once you land the interview, it can be as simple as a telephone conversation with a radio…