Multiple channel marketing is essential for your practice to be secure. What does that mean? You need multiple ways to get new patients in order for your practice to be secure.
For example, if you are just using Google Adwords to generate new patients and someone else decides to bid more than you, pushing you off the first page of Google, your practice’s new patient supply could dry up overnight. A scary thought when you have staff and rent to pay.
Some research by Thrive in the USA found that those practitioners who felt they had good access to new patients used 3 more or more marketing channels to attract new patients. Those who used two or less felt they had poor access to new patients.
Now while we advocate doing all you can to retain your existing patients, attracting new ones is important for any practice. And only having one or two ways of getting those newies opens you up to losing revenue fast. So a diversified strategy is necessary.
Some new patient generation ideas.
- Building internal referrals. Still the best long-term strategy. Done with:
- Patient education evenings
- Handing out relevant brochures
- Automated email sequences
- Structured conversations with your patients
- Referral cards
- Digital marketing. Second only to internal referrals in effectiveness. Involves:
- Having a high converting website that ranks well in the search engines – the fundamental cornerstone of any digital marketing
- Integrating social media (as a marketing tool, not as a time waster!)
- Pay per click advertising, eg. Google Adwords
- Speaking to local groups
- Networking with other local practitioners
- Involvement with local sporting clubs
- Public education evenings
- Stands at local events – school fairs etc.
- Local newspaper advertising
Which ones to choose?
In a recent post I discussed the cost of doing your own marketing. You need to consider that time away from practice doing marketing means time away from producing revenue for your practice. So you need to build internal systems that educate your patients and build referrals. You also should outsource your digital marketing to professionals who specialise in marketing health care practices (hint – that’s us ;-)).
You can then divide your time up amongst other marketing activities. Have your team members contact local groups to arrange talks or arrange meetings with other practitioners rather than you calling them yourself.
Have your team research topics or even put together a presentation for you to present. Even if you have to pay them a few extra hours pay, it will be far more cost effective than you taking time out of practice to do it. Even if you have the spare time, remember that your time is valuable. Use it on spending time with your family and friends.
To do items
So start by making a list of what you are currently doing to market your practice. If it is two or less and you want to grow or even just stay static you need to start doing more. Then analyse your list and look at what absolutely has to be done by you (it’s not as much as you think!)
Then delegate and outsource. We’d be happy to help you do an audit of your current marketing. Click here to request your obligation-free, free Strategy Focus Session.
