7 Useful Marketing Tips for Medical Practices from Marketing Veterans
Building a medical practice can be difficult for many healthcare professionals. Your training is to help people get well. Yet, a medical practice is a business. As a business, it must turn a profit. To continue to turn a profit, the business side of your medical practice must grow. We talked to marketing veterans and learned their best marketing tips for medical practices.
Get Involved in the Community
To get known in your community, you must get involved. Healthcare professionals must establish a certain level of trust with their patients in order to provide the best care possible. One of the best ways that you can start building trust is to get involved in your community. Call local schools and find out if they’re going to hold health fairs. Contact the library and ask about the possibility of reserving a community room to host a free lecture about good eating habits or healthy lifestyle tips. Volunteer at your local food bank.
Look for Opportunities to Share Your Message
Most schools celebrate Red Ribbon Week and have a week for heart health. Those are great opportunities to not just get involved, but to also do extra marketing. For heart health week, consider offering an evening or a Saturday where you provide free blood pressure readings. Contact the media and offer to comment on health conditions. For instance, World Diabetes Day is November 14th. You could reach out to the media and offer to talk about diabetes and provide a free community seminar on living with diabetes.
Start a YouTube Account
Video marketing isn’t going away anytime soon. Using YouTube and Periscope is a great way to advertise your medical practice and your expertise for free. You can keep your information basic and encourage your audience to book an appointment with your office or with a doctor in their area. The use of technology is a great way to bring in younger patients. Make sure that your videos are shared on Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media accounts set up by your medical practice.
Offer Convenient Appointment Times
Consider having at least one day of the week where you offer evening appointments. You could also consider providing appointments on Saturday. Being available when your patients need you is one of the best ways to grow your practice. You could get new patients using this one technique because very few medical practices, not including urgent care which often costs patients more, offer this service.
Email Reminders to Patients
If you collect email addresses of your patients (and you should!), use them. Send out reminders about appointments. Send out courtesy emails to alert your patients that it is time for them to schedule their check-up or their immunizations. Send out short email newsletters with healthcare tips.
Offer a Cash Discount
Although more patients may have health insurance, it doesn’t mean that they have deductibles that they can afford. Regardless of whether your patients have insurance, consider offering a cash discount. This can encourage more potential patients to check out your medical practice.
Amazing Customer Service from Your Entire Staff
Customer service starts the very minute that your patient or potential patient calls your office. How long do they wait on hold? Does the person or persons answering the phone sound friendly and knowledgeable? Do they sound rushed? When your patients come into the office, how long does the intake process take? How long do they wait before their appointment? Are they seen on time? How are they treated by your nursing staff? Do they feel like you are truly listening to them? Creating and maintaining a great customer service experience for your patients is one of the best ways to grow your business.
Clients ARM – The Cost-Effective Solution for Your Medical Practice
Clients ARM provides numerous services designed specifically for medical practices. Our solutions are cost-effective and we have more than 30 years of experience providing support services. Clients ARM can be your solution for medical coding and billing, electronic health insurance claims filing, patient intake, appointment setting, customer service, and collections. To learn how Clients ARM can help your medical practice, reserve your free review.
