As a physician you’ve spent years becoming credentialed and learned about your medical specialization. Now you’re finding that sustaining and growing your practice requires you to enter into competition with other offices to get new patients and referrals. You’ve realized that you have to learn about marketing and branding your practice. A sound marketing and branding campaign can help grow your practice, increase patient-retention, and when done right will inspire staff.This article will give you a comprehensive overview of branding and marketing your practice, so you can work confidently with the best design and marketing team you can afford.
One. Define your practice. Decide what kind of an image you want your practice to portray to your patients and/or referring physicians. Write a mission statement describing (a) your goals as a practice and the goals of your marketing efforts (b) describe how the benefits of your practice will relate to achieving your goals.
Two. (a) Perform a SWOT analysis. Write down your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. (b) Define your “unique selling proposition” (USP)—the element(s) of your practice that differentiate you from your competitors. This is also a good way to become familiar with your competition. Test your USP by imagining it as a print ad headline. Does it capture the best part of your practice? Is it unique to your practice? (c) Define your geospecific target area – how far away will patients come to your practice? (d) Define your demographic and think about how you are going to educate your demographic about your practice—this is the heart of zen marketing.
Three. Brand your practice. Branding is one of the most important investments you’ll make. Branding can be explained best with the three “C’s.” Credibility. Consistency. Connection. How do you know if your designs are any good? Answer: are they credible? High-end professional designs used consistently become familiar and with familiarity comes trust. When we talk about connection, we’re talking about a “value proposition” (who you are, what you can deliver, why you can be trusted). Can your target audience of patient and/or referring physician connect with your value proposition? To summarize, branding is about credible high quality designs, used consistently, and joined with texts that make a connection with the reader.
Four. Prepare for marketing by developing texts about your practice. Write it down, or better, hire a copywriter. This is the best way to determine if “this is who we are” or “wait, that doesn’t capture what we’re about.” Marketing is the process of getting your practice out in front of the people that will sustain your practice–either patients or referring physicians. Marketing requires thoughtful messaging, a plan and then action to follow the plan. Organization along with consistency will help your campaign achieve its goals. And of course, you will need a budget. Practices that target the individual like dentists, dermatologists or cosmetic surgeons have larger budgets than practices relying on referrals.
Five. Design cohesive and matching corporate collateral: business card, letterhead, envelope, prescription pads, signage, brochures, print ads, newsletters, etc. Cohesive and matching marketing materials build trust with patients, referring physicians and the community. Poorly designed and written materials reflect poorly on your practice. People don’t have time to read loads of information, so employ short paragraphs of text and bullet points. It is recommended that you have a separate short branded brochure for each specialized service you provide and a general one for the practice. Patients and referring physicians alike will be able to easily get the information they need about your practice with this method. THE KEY to successful marketing material, print or web, is to emphasize the benefits of your practice. If possible, create differentiation between you and your competitors.
Tip: You can send referring physicians a branded brochure to pass along to their patients as a great marketing tactic. Make sure your brochure is “something of value” with quality information.
Take note: Remember that it will be the combination of all your marketing and branding efforts that will yield results. That being said, more or less, you will only go as far as your budget will allow.
Take note: Your main brochure should contain all the basic information such as office hours, a map, your website address, and services. Not only will this help market your practice, it can free your office staff from answering frequently asked questions and help avoid potential patient misunderstandings. It is recommended that you employ a professional copywriter.
Six. Look for high quality strategic partnerships with other practices. Make sure that this is a win-win situation.Take time develop lasting strategic partnerships.
Seven. The Waiting Room. Make sure that your brochures and some giveaways like pens are readily available. Consider a kids corner to help out patients with small children. A relaxing waiting room that makes every patient feel at home is something to market.
Eight. Web development. You must have a brand coordinated website design that is easy to navigate and informative. A website is very much like a virtual employee and you want your best employee greeting web visitors. The website will become a prominent part of your marketing plan, so make sure you’ve also hired a professional that will make it SEO-friendly (easily picked up and ranked high by search engines). Particularly for plastic surgeons, dentists, psychiatrists and other professionals reliant on web traffic, your goal is to show up on the first page of Google for the keyword search terms that patients will use to find you. Additionally, you also want to show up on Yahoo! and MSN on the first or second page. However, if most of your patients come from referrals, then your web presence will be much more engaged with providing information. In this case while SEO may be less of a priority, credibility certainly is not. And don’t forget to include directions to your practice as well as any patient information sheets or other information that will help spare your receptionist.
Nine. Choosing marketing vehicles. Your marketing strategies depend upon whether you are targeting the individual or the referring practice. If you are targeting the individual or perhaps even companies, you have more options available such as local newspaper advertising, direct mail, coupon mailers, yellow pages, etc. However, if you are targeting referring physicians or practices, your activities will be more focused. In this case you’ll need to decide if you are going to do this through one-on-one meetings (highly recommended) or by sending marketing collateral in the mail (or both). Your marketing firm should tailor your efforts to your specific needs. In either case, you’ll need the highest quality marketing and promotional materials you can afford. And at the very least you do need to be ready to go with your website, appointment cards, and a brochure as your base.
Ten. Before its too late, check in with your own practice. For example, ask yourself, am I doing enough to keep the appointment books filled? Am I contacting patients that need an annual evaluation? Do referring physicians have marketing materials from my practice at their fingertips? Am I doing enough to keep current patients engaged in my practice?
Eleven. Branding goes beyond design, it also applies to your support staff. Your patients are the lifeblood of your practice, so take care of them not only with expert medical care, but also excellent and courteous office and billing support. You and your staff are part of your brand.
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Source: Momentum
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