What time of year do you think about marketing your healthcare organization? Well, if you are like a lot of doctors, you probably think about marketing mostly during your slow seasons. And the logical knee-jerk reaction would be to go out and run some ads. Makes sense, right? Wrong.
In many respects, marketing a healthcare practice is not substantially different from marketing a small business in other industries. Basic business marketing principles that apply in other industries - including market and competitive research, strategic planning, budgeting, positioning, branding, marketing strategies, tactics, media options, public relations opportunities, implementation processes, tracking processes - also apply in […]
The number of "born losers" in healthcare practice marketing, advertising and promotion is roughly the same as the head-count of ants at a summer picnic-and just as welcome. These include putting your name, logo or ad on or in:
How to lose colleagues faster than you can say "Professional Referral Faux Pas" Each time we roll up our sleeves and work with a group of doctors at one of our 2-day marketing meetings, the professional referral marketing strategies and tactics session is one of the most interesting, lively, popular and productive segments. It hits […]
Chances are someone has already invited you to join them on "LinkedIn.com." Your list of suitors may include friends, colleagues, salespeople and maybe even some people you barely know.
What should you do? After all, I am sure you already have plenty to do - do you really need to add something else to your already overcrowded plate?
Everyone wants their marketing materials to look attractive. After all, most patients have a very difficult time evaluating providers, and therefore consciously or unconsciously, look for clues about you based upon what they can see and understand. If your facilities, office, hospital and marketing materials look professional and inspire confidence, you are set up to […]
Physician Relations personnel often tell us that they share similar problems: High-admitting doctors can be extremely demanding of hospital resources When the hospital wants to recruit one or more doctors, candidates typically ask for the hospital's help to acquire patients Once on board, new doctors often need a lot of help getting started Many admitting […]
We've marketed many thousands of doctor practices over the years, and our experience clearly shows that nothing wins doctors' hearts (and loyalty) like helping them to increase their bottom line. Beginning April 19, 2002, however, most pharmaceutical companies discontinued virtually all significant efforts to assist doctors with their practices due to the PhRMA Code On […]
It's easier than you think to find a co-op friend in the neighborhood. Whether you are a physician, surgeon, dentist, physical therapist, optometrist, veterinarian or other healthcare professional, developing win-win relationships with nearby businesses is always a great marketing idea... and something we have been teaching for years. The trouble is, in the real world […]
Here's a familiar scenario. Someone in a rumpled suit drops by your office without an appointment. He tells your receptionist that he is selling a new and amazing marketing service for only $700. It is guaranteed to "get your name out there." But here's the catch: you've got to make a decision today, because if […]
How to link arms with a kindred healthcare practice for a win-win-win marketing success. Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of the parts—and so it goes with cost-effective cross promotion. With minimum time and expense, two or more healthcare entities can team-up for a healthy Return-on-Investment.
Listening to the voice of the customer - what patients say they want from your practice A doctor's office told us recently: "We don't have email or Internet connection in the office." It was a bit of a surprise to us-most of the practices we consult with routinely do have Internet and email, many with their […]
Like so many other business processes, marketing implementation is far more successful when a practice executes a solid marketing plan with the support of a structured system. Marketing Plan "If you fail to plan, plan to fail." Everyone's heard this saying, yet so few healthcare practices follow this sound advice when it comes to marketing.
The first four diagnostic questions to ask before you take a marketing leap... Imagine this happening in your office... A new patient presents himself and announces that he needs a broad-spectrum antibiotic. How's that again? Yes -- could you please write the prescription so he can be on his way? And thank you very much. […]
The overwhelming reason why patients don't ask about your high-end procedures is because they don't know much about your practice or procedures — high-end or Otherwise. And unless they have a strong personal need or envision a value to themselves, they also have no interest. Short conversation … over before it begins. It's simply a […]
How to Avoid Looking Like "Plain Vanilla" Let's say a new family moves in a couple of blocks from your office, and the mother holds a gathering for her new neighbors. At the gathering she asks, "I'd like to find a first-rate doctor for my family. Is there anyone special here in town?" How many […]
In dental marketing, we’re passionate about knowing the source of new patients. It’s the clarity needed to drive a successful program and keep a bundle of marketing dollars from being wasted. These tracking principles also apply to many other healthcare professions. What troubled us recently in the results we reported from the State of Dental […]
Here are two remarkably easy-and highly effective-ways to encourage patients to refer family, friends and colleagues to your practice. The cost is almost nothing, so your Return On Investment (ROI) is through the roof. This is the closest thing you'll find to guarantee success in internal marketing, and with a little practice and persistence, it's […]
8 Extremely Helpful Guidelines for an Ideal Executive Portrait Healthcare is a people business...where trust and confidence begins with the first impressions. Here's how to create an effective professional photo that helps build and extend your first-class reputation.. OK—we'll be the first to admit that not everyone is incredibly photogenic. But a professional's professional photo […]
Marketing is defined from various sources as a process, as a set of strategies and activities, as a series of communications, and more. There are many good and accurate definitions of marketing. Here are a few.
By Michelle Boyles, Managing Editor (This article was adapted from Optometric Management, though the Internet marketing principles apply to all healthcare practitioners.) A recent Harris Interactive poll shows that 80% of consumers today research health information online. But with the wealth of information out there, how do you drive patients to your Web site? And […]
What your most successful competitors don't want you to know Various sectors of the American economic picture have been described lately as "soft," "bumpy," or according to Pundit Mr. C. Little, "the sky is falling!" The truth is that everyone's situation is different, and we can't guide you about broad economic affairs in the nation. […]
There is a cure if you follow a strict treatment plan for feeling better. A doctor called not long ago and told us he desperately needed our help. That's not unusual, but he said he couldn't even wait to go to one of our monthly strategic marketing planning meetings; he wanted us to work with […]
While 98 Percent of Doctors and Dentists Hate the Yellow Pages, the Other 2 Percent Quietly Laugh All the Way to the Bank. It's a Zero-sum Game, and Some Rules. It's like the line attributed to Mark Twain: "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Nearly 100 years later, the same is true […]
For your internal marketing audience, it's all about caring. The established patient base for any healthcare organization, practice or group is never permanent...and may not be as firmly established as you might think. The process of improving retention is grounded in the internal communications skills of doctor, staff and everyone who works there. Surprisingly, the […]
The patient experience begins from the inside of the practice outward By Lonnie Hirsch and Stewart Gandolf, MBA Editor's Note - The following Healthcare Success article by Lonnie Hirsch and Stewart Gandolf was originally published by Dental Economics magazine. The principles of branding and marketing management are appropriate to healthcare organizations, group medical practices, hospitals […]
While many methods of marketing may be available, the two most commonly utilized techniques are brand-based marketing and direct response marketing. > Brand-based Marketing > Direct Response Marketing There is also a third, increasingly common method that is a hybrid of the other two.
Your achievement checklist to getting ahead and staying ahead. Successful marketing for large groups or organizations includes navigating and balancing many voices and varied interests. Be aware of the possible problem areas, and have an objective third-party bring the group together for marketing success. There's nothing simple about marketing—even if you've only got yourself to […]
Here's How We Develop Hospital Marketing Plans, Medical Marketing Plans and Dental Marketing Plans For Our Clients
How to protect your turf and keep from losing ground to the competition. We'll get right to the point.. If you're not geared up with a new or refreshed marketing plan in the starting blocks NOW for the first week in January, you've just given your competition a giant head start. And that's a fast-blast […]
It's frightening. We've seen 6-figure marketing programs go down the tube six seconds after the phone rang. In each case, the carefully crafted advertising produced dozens of prospective patient calls to the practice, but none – repeat none – of these callers became patients. Why? Because they never got past the first phone call, much […]
No budget? Unrealistic budget? How to begin when the page is blank. Two different practitioners called us recently. Let's just describe them as smart and experienced doctors in different professions, in different parts of the country and on different ends of the promotional spectrum. They both were experiencing an "ah-hah moment" of personal insight and […]
Skilled practitioners want everyone to appreciate the work they do, and before-and-after photos can work wonders. But, remember that patients are interested in personal benefits, not clinical process. For external marketing materials, use images that illustrate positive outcomes and benefits and save the clinical pictures for colleagues. We are often asked about using "before-and-after" photos […]
You can't sell enough $100 products in a year to replace one patient lost in a day Here's a brief, but absolutely real-life, patient-experience story. The venue is the office of a general dentist, but the "how-not-to-do-something" message applies to many other provider settings. Picture yourself as the patient and you'll have no trouble reading […]
Editors note: This article is the second of a two-part series. If you haven't chosen your new practice location yet, we recommend you also read, Medical Office Space: How to Choose a Great Location. Congratulations! You have signed the contract for your new office space, and your staff is on top of all the administrative […]
The Internet has become the tool of choice for prospective patients in making dental and other health–care decisions. But there are a ton of practices that don't have a first–class online marketing tool, and that's a missed opportunity and lost revenue. If it's time to take a critical look at your tired, gen–one version, here's […]
Dentists want to grow their practices, but most are operating without a marketing roadmap. "This is an increasingly tough business." This comment from an experienced solo dentist (age 55 to 64) practicing in the Midwest was clear and direct. And many, perhaps most, dentists who participated in the first-ever State of Dental Marketing Survey seem […]
Medical marketing efforts that attempt to reach anyone, anywhere-are doomed to produce only a squandered budget. Carefully and precisely identifying the target audience is a critical success factor in brand strategy development. You know whom you want to reach, where they are located, what makes them tick...and how to speak directly to them.
The three big ideas behind every successful Professional Referral Program. Referrals are all about relationships. And professional relationships—the source of professional referrals—don't blossom spontaneously. There's a well-considered system that fuels a successful Professional Referral Program, based on these three concepts. Healthcare referrals are the financial lifeblood of many hospitals and practices. And for others, referrals […]
"If you can get our phones to ring more often, we'll be happy campers!" It would be very hard to estimate how many times we've heard that request in our combined 30 years of healthcare marketing experience. Hundreds of times would be a conservative guess. "Get people to call us and we can take it […]
Editor's note: This article is the first of a two-part series and covers how to CHOOSE a new practice location from a marketing point of view. At the conclusion of this article, we'll provide you a link to the second article, which covers how to PROMOTE your new location. "Location, location, location..." This wise old […]
Can you guess what spaghetti marketing is? (A lot of healthcare businesses do it.) Simply spend a lot of marketing dollars randomly, throw a bunch of "spaghetti" against the wall, and see if anything sticks. As you might suspect, we are not big fans of spaghetti marketing. You could throw a lot of spaghetti -- […]
Real-world insights and ideas A marketing plan is not a list of marketing ideas from which you randomly select different concepts to test or combine for trial-and-error experimentation. That is just random, episodic, spaghetti-on-the-wall marketing activity - which is almost always a high-risk prescription for disappointment, frustration and failure. A marketing plan is a strategic […]
Shouldn't you trust your practice marketing to two of America's top physician marketing and dental marketing experts Done properly, ethical marketing can grow your profits, attract patients who appreciate and can afford quality care, deliver the high-paying fulfilling cases you want and even enable you to have a life again. However, the stakes are far higher than […]
