Marketing Your Medical Practice
You most likely opened your medical practice to help people, but you may not have fully grasped the business aspect of it all. Just like the retail store down the street, you should market to your audience. You may not be selling a product to clients, but you are selling a service—your healthcare. You need to encourage people to visit your clinic or office instead of your competitors. But how do you draw in more patients?
You have to start marketing.
Odds are, you’re not sure where to start. Luckily, Medical Practice Success is here to help with a few helpful tips to get your practice more business.
Have a strong online presence.
You need to have a website for patients to touch-down on. It should look professional, so if you aren’t sure how to build a website, you may want to hire someone who can. For sure, your site should include your contact information and address, as well as a description of your practice or your mission statement. You can include a function there where patients can sign up for appointments online, or, if you’re in urgent care, go ahead and get their name down on the list before they arrive at the clinic so they can be treated faster.
A blog is a good way to keep patients up to date on what is going on within your practice, as well as with healthcare news. This needs to be well written and error-free. Make sure it is interesting to read, and that its spelling and grammar are correct. Ensure that the information that you include in your posts are fact-checked and accurate.
Make accounts on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. Stay active on these accounts. Nearly everyone nowadays has a social media account, so this is a sure way to reach people. You should create a social media plan, laying out what you post when. You want to be consistent, but not annoying. Don’t post too much. Once a day is a good recommendation. Do things on your social media to keep people involved. Do giveaways, or other fun activities with your audience. Interact with commenters and reviewers. You should thank people who leave good reviews, and inquire about how you can improve when you receive a bad review.
Be active in the community.
Be part of community events and host some of your own. Work with the community and your local chamber of commerce. You can get involved with local cancer walks and health fairs. As for your own events, you can host charity drives or other projects the community can get involved in.
Send out press releases. Let the media know about any of these events you may host, or let them know about the current illnesses that may be going around. For example, you can write a press release about the flu, and mention that your clinic will have flu shots.
You can also put ads in local magazines. Getting yourself in a local magazine that is popular in the community is a good way to get your name out to everyone.
Focus on patient satisfaction and loyalty.
You want patients to keep coming back to you after they visit. You don’t want them to visit your office or clinic and leave feeling unsatisfied with their care. Train your staff to be friendly and helpful. Your patients aren’t going to be feeling well when they come see you, so give them a smile and positive energy to try to help them through their visit. Check up on patients after they visit. Calling people about a week after they visit you and checking in on them makes them feel cared about, giving a more human face to your practice. Send out appointment reminders to those who make appointments with you if they do so far in advance.
Not sure you can handle all the above marketing strategies and manage a medical practice, too? It may be a good idea to hire a marketing team. This could include, but is not limited to, graphic designers, content marketers, and social media specialists. We here at Medical Practice Success have various products that can aid in hiring a creative marketing team. You can find them HERE.
With this information, you can now start working towards building a successful marketing plan for your medical practice.
