Over the years, the marketing of a medical practice has come a long way. Previously, marketing a practice generally consisted of being a good doctor, performing well, and then waiting for clients to refer you to friends and family. While effective, this type of “word of mouth” marketing is not very reliable. After all, you can’t control or force your customers to talk about you with their friends.
It is important and necessary for physicians to use more innovative techniques to market their practice. This is especially true since there are now more doctors competing in the same field. Lack of marketing for your practice could lead to lost revenue, while those who use advertising and promotions can expect an increase.
Here are some innovative strategies that can be used for medical / medical practice marketing:
Website placement
• In this digital age, doctors need websites just like other companies. Websites can target a wide variety of customers. Unlike before, when websites were used primarily by young people, even older people have accessed the Internet for a wide variety of reasons.
• Having a website helps doctors practice digital marketing strategies for doctors by giving you an online presence. People browsing your site may be more aware of your capabilities and specialties and may begin to consider you as a treatment option for their conditions.
• Of course, creating your own website would require some skill and effort to do so. If you don’t have them when it comes to design and content, then you can choose to use the services provided by those types of sites.
Advertising through social networks
• Related to but slightly different websites, social networking sites like Myspace or Facebook could be used to great advantage. Having a Facebook page about your practice would help you market your services to large numbers of people.
• The scope of this networking opportunity is all the more remarkable when you consider the fact that people across the country (or even the world) have an account on one of the most popular dating sites. As such, having a website would open up your service to a broader and more varied customer base.
Expand your services
• Another way to promote yourself to both current (to help word of mouth) and new patients would be to expand your services. This could mean acquiring newer medical equipment that can help with your treatments, making house calls, adding staff, or even a simple extension of your office hours.
• By expanding, the reputation of your practice would improve; having better service or a more accommodating office to go to are signs of improvement digital marketing strategies for dentists. This type of expansion would help you attract more customers. An added benefit would be that it would improve your relationship with previous clients, which can help spread your practice.
• Of course, the doctor knows that, ultimately, advertising would be useless if he did not have the skills to support them. So aside from sheer publicity, a wise physician knows when he must hone her skills and abilities.