Physician Marketing Techniques to Help Grow Your Practice
Let’s face it – there are entire industries dedicated to physician marketing tactics. Men and women across the country attend conferences to help learn about strategies for growing their practices. But how many of these ideas are actually good?If your current physician marketing strategy involves simply creating Facebook and Twitter accounts that you don’t use, then you may want to take some of these tips for marketing your physician practice. These tried and true tips from our Orlando advertising agency can help you steer your marketing efforts in the right direction. Make a Plan: Develop a strategic plan for your practice by setting goals for your business. If you want to reach out to a particular demographic, then work to ensure that you’re reaching them where they are – and they may or may not be on social networks. If they are, then target them where they’re active – young mothers may spend hours on Facebook, while you may be more likely to engage with professional organizations on Twitter. Remember the End User: In the end, marketing your practice should be about your patients, whether prospective or returning. The more you can connect to them directly, the more they will feel connected to you, and will feel inspired to return to you time and again. [quote] When developing a marketing strategy, think about your patients – would they rather see a vague marketing postcard mixed in with their junk mail, or would they instead prefer an appointment reminder to be sent to them from your office directly through Twitter? [/quote] Blog about It: It’s true that blogs require substantial effort to create and maintain, but particularly for physicians who love to write, blogging can be a great way to connect with your readers. Loyal patients will almost always want to know your opinions on subjects directly related to your line of work, and will be interested in the news and things that are around your office. Plus, building a blog is a great way to create search engine optimized content, so that your practice will appear early in Google searches related to your field of practice. Be agile: The term “agile” made our Florida advertising agency’s list of marketing buzzwords, and with good reason. As the term implies, an agile marketing solution allows flexibility within your strategy. Once you implement your strategy, pivoting courses allows you stay on top of trends to remain up with the times. Mistakes are par for the course; if you’re not making mistakes, it typically means you’re not trying something new and innovative. And, as the group at our Orlando ad agency knows, new and innovative is going to be what sets you apart from other physician practices. As your practice continues to grow, you will likely see more and more of a need to adequately market your business. If your business has an administrative staff, you may wish to train one of those individuals for the role of marketing coordinator to help oversee your company’s marketing efforts. And, if you need to bring some fresh perspective to marketing your physician practice, our Florida marketing agency is happy to offer some additional ideas on making effective use of your marketing resources.
Patients are a virtue: A look into hospital marketing
Hospital marketers are in a tough position when it comes to pleasing physicians. Doctors, surgeons and specialists typically have years and years of expertise, and often believe that their ideas and personas warrant marketing and publicity recognition. Many times, this is true – a long list of award-winning services may entice people to choose your hospital’s services over another’s.However, at our Florida advertising agency, we’ve noticed that physicians and other hospital service staff are quick to jump on opportunities to recognize their own accomplishments, but sometimes neglect outreach efforts to potential and returning patients. Hospital marketers may find it difficult to strike the balance between pleasing physicians and engaging in effective outreach. The team members at our agency recently wrote a white paper titled Marketing to Meet Hospital Business Objectives While Keeping Physicians Happy, addressing how hospital marketers can effectively please hospital physicians while also meeting their own marketing objectives. We suggested that there should be dual service lines; one of which addresses the needs of the physicians, and another other that involves creating marketing objectives at the executive level and analyzing the success of such initiatives. There are entire industries dedicated to physician reputation management, which encourages physicians to find effective ways to tout their accomplishments, particularly against any potential negative publicity. But hospital marketers must remember that, while marketing to maintain physicians’ reputations is important, it is but a single slice of the pie. At our Florida marketing agency, we believe that hospital marketing will see greater success with marketing toward patients. In this digital era, there are numerous ways to reach out to potential patients, and many of these methods may not involve touting the merits of your hospital’s physicians and staff. In engaging in effective hospital marketing, you are trying to persuade potential patients to believe in your message, and to think of your organization first when they are sick or injured. In order to do this, each piece of content you create should be in service of your audience. What is your hospital staff doing to differentiate itself? Why are your hospital’s services better than a competitor’s? Notice how a strategy that emphasizes these efforts aims to reach the potential patients at an emotional level. These efforts tend to work much better than efforts that simply offer a long list of physician credentials. One way to frame the difference is, rather than asking whether the physicians are happy with marketing efforts or whether the efforts are serving the needs of the hospital as a brand, to ask whether the efforts are serving the needs of potential patients and of the community as a whole. If your hospital marketing is struggling to reach patients in a meaningful way, perhaps it is time to revaluate your strategy to put more emphasis on patient needs. Go to where they are, find out what they’re seeking and speak to them on their terms. While meeting the needs of physicians is important, the team at our Orlando marketing agency believes it is even more important to meet the needs of the patients who will keep coming back, year after year. Contact us for more information, we’d love to help!
Read up on why a hospital really does need a Twitter handle
Before Twitter, most hospitals connected to potential patients through direct mail marketing, newsletters, press releases and fundraisers. While each of those items is still important to a hospital’s integrated marketing scheme, many hospitals and other health care organizations have also found success using tools created for the digital age. Your hospital already has a Facebook page, and has thousands of Facebook members as fans. Many of them are partners within your community, people who’ve lived to see another day due to the hospital’s services, and the physicians that comprise your hospital’s team. It also also has a website, chock full of relevant information and designed using state of the art concepts for search marketing, which ensures that when people Google your hospital, they can find everything they need. So, do you really need to be on Twitter? In a word, no. But will being on Twitter help your hospital’s business? You betcha. “Need” implies a basic, fundamental state of being. Your hospital will probably survive without a Twitter handle. People fall ill all of the time, and with a baby boomer population nearing elderly age, there’s going to be a constant need for the services of educated people who can treat all types of ailments. But, is it a good idea for your hospital to be on Twitter? That’s another question. [quote]Twitter helps people and businesses connect in ways that were impossible before the 140-characters-or-less application disrupted the way people communicate online.[/quote] Twitter corners an area of the market that Facebook doesn’t – it’s a real-time stream of happenings, thoughts and ideas. With Twitter, it’s easy for brands to follow companies that are of interest to them, and garner followers. [featured] While we’re on the subject, follow us on Twitter. And Facebook. And Instagram. We’re pretty social. [/featured] If you’re considering incorporating Twitter into your hospital’s marketing strategy in 2013, here are some tips to help you get the maximum impact: Use it to Share Information: If you see an article about a new radiology treatment that might be interesting to your patients, don’t hesitate to share. Or, if your hospital is mentioned for its service or expertise, be sure to retweet, which serves as a testimonial to your team. Doing these things will establish you as a leading healthcare services provider within your field. Get Input from Followers: If you’re seeking honest opinions, Twitter is the place to go. People tend to censor themselves less on the internet than they might in real life, so it’s essential that if you’re trying to elicit quantitative information, you do so in a way that doesn’t cause any backlash. Asking for opinions on controversial subjects will hurt your hospital’s reputation. Brag a Little: Was one of your physicians nominated for an award? Was your hospital ranked the best in your region? Items like this are brag-worthy, and you can post Tweets alongside press releases and Facebook status updates. Many internet users prefer Twitter to Facebook because of it’s quick and efficient design, meaning that you may miss a large section of your existing segment if you fail to post to Twitter. Interact With Others: Twitter is great way for you to reach out to your subscribers, but it’s also a terrific way for them to reach out to you. People may have informal questions pertaining to new hours for specialty units, or may want to know where they can park nearby. Responding to a Tweet can help build rapport and trust between you and your patient, and will keep that person coming back because she knows your team is committed to providing impeccable service. Even if you don’t think you need to have a Twitter account for your hospital marketing efforts, the platform offers yet another way to connect with your audience. At our Florida advertising agency, we can help your team develop an integrated social media strategy that includes creating and maintaining an active Twitter account. Don’t worry – we’ve got a handle on it!
