Any business needs marketing to get started, to grow, and to survive. Medical practices are no different. While, yes, the primary focus of a medical practice is the health of its patients, the practice must stay in business in order to continue to care for those patients. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what practice marketing is and why it’s important for your practice.
What is practice marketing?
When put simply, practice marketing is the process of seeking out, attracting, and keeping patients. As with most other things, this is rarely as easy as it sounds. Too many businesses fall into the trap of believing that marketing is simply advertising. This isn’t the case, though. While advertising should play a part in your marketing, so should client support, market research, public relations, and community involvement. Marketing, essentially, is about connection. Successful marketing considers its audience and engages in a conversation with them. Think about who your patients are and what they want and need from their provider’s practice. Offer information that’s valuable such as tips for healthy living, important vaccination reminders, and details about diseases that are currently affecting your community. If you create a strong marketing strategy and are intentional about having an ongoing conversation with your patients, you’ll be more likely to have a thriving practice that can maintain a strong roster of patients.
Why is this important?
The bottom line is that marketing is necessary to your business. Providers who invest in marketing see their practices thrive, while those who ignore the need for marketing find themselves falling behind. Aside from that, though, there are a number of important benefits your practice can expect to see from marketing. First, you will generate a greater amount of revenue by not only attracting new patients to your practice, but also retaining existing patients. This is obviously a very important component to maintaining a successful business.
Next, marketing will help to keep your patients engaged with your practice on a more regular basis. When patients are more engaged with their healthcare providers, this keeps their health in the forefront of their minds, allowing for better lifestyle choices and improved health outcomes. Finally, if you are particularly effective and intentional in your marketing strategy, you will be able to evaluate how productive each component of your marketing is and allow for adjustments to your strategy as needed.
Clearly a strong practice marketing strategy is integral to your practice’s success. This can feel intimidating, and it can be time consuming. Thankfully, there are resources available to aid you in this process so that you’re able to market your practice well while maintaining the obviously necessary focus of patient care. One such resource is Practice Builders. Practice Builders focuses on social media, web design, reputation management, staff training, brand building, and electronic brochures and videos to provide a holistic marketing solution for your practice. The goal with Practice Builders is to attract new patients and increase the profitability of your practice. With Practice Builders, practice marketing isn’t seen as a one-size-fits-all solution. Practice Builders collaborates with each customer to create a marketing strategy that is unique to their practice and designed to bring success.
Another service that helps practices with marketing is PatientPop. PatientPop works to improve search engine results in order to help your practice reach more patients through web and social media channels. PatientPop’s platform is designed for growth, HIPAA-compliant, and delivers results that are clearly measurable. This is achieved through PatientPop’s engaging social media posts, informative blog content, and high-performing websites. Additionally, PatientPop establishes a continuous feedback loop with automated patient satisfaction surveys in order to proactively manage a medical practice’s online reputation.
Each of these services are a fantastic resource to help medical practices use marketing effectively to keep their business strong, and both Practice Builders and PatientPop are offered through Henry Schein Solutions Hub. Are you ready to take your practice marketing to the next level and see the difference it can make in your practice’s success? Visit henryscheinsolutionshub.com or call 833-433-2482 for more information on how to get started.
