Health Care Mareketing Ideas

Three Essential Tactics for Marketing a Medical Practice

Whether you are a physician, psychotherapist, counselor, chiropractor, massage therapist, acupuncturist, or other health care practitioner, marketing your medical practice is essential to increasing your patient load.

Marketing a healthcare practice can be done ethically and respectfully. It is simply a way for you to inform the patient population about your services and build a solid reputation that will draw patients to your practice. Listed below are marketing methods that will help you obtain new patients.

1. Focus on patients’ problems

When advertising your practice, focus on patients and their problems. Certainly you will want to discuss the benefits that you offer but place emphasis on prospective patients’ fears, needs, and problems. Consider the following opening paragraphs for the online profiles of two therapists.

Introduction 1: “I have 25 years of experience providing therapy to teenagers and adults. My treatment philosophy focuses on helping patients release their inner wisdom to undercover the emotional issues that contribute to their problems. My approach has helped many people feel whole, develop confidence, and better cope with life’s challenges.…”

Introduction 2: “Are you feeling overwhelmed with the problems in your life? Are you having difficulty sleeping or concentrating? Are you anxious or nervous? Maybe you feel so sad that nothing in life is enjoyable anymore. If you are struggling within yourself, in your relationships, or at work, psychotherapy can help you search inside yourself to find the sources of your troubles. It can help you find peace-of-mind and develop healthy coping mechanisms.…”

The first introduction focuses on the therapist’s experience and treatment philosophy but does not directly address the reader’s needs. Conversely, the second introduction is more attention grabbing because it goes right to the problems that the reader might be experiencing.

2. Create an image that is consistent with your skills and expertise

How does a new patient really know that they can trust you? Even if you come highly recommended from someone that the patient trusts, she still doesn’t know how you will treat her. Until patients get to know you, they will draw conclusions about your abilities from external factors such as the condition of your office building, décor of your waiting room, customer service from your staff, cleanliness of your exam rooms, and wait time. If such external factors are not up to par, they might assume that the quality of care will be lacking as well. Besides attention to these factors should be an on-going part of customer care and service.

3. Stay in touch with patients

Is your contact with patients limited to periodic follow-up exams or annual check ups? Or do you use every opportunity to stay within their presence? The more you interact with your patients, the more likely they are to continue to see you and refer others to your practice. Contact with patients also makes them feel special and cared about.

Besides providing excellent care, how can you build relationships with your patients?

• Send welcome letters to new patients
• Send birthday cards to active patients
• Send appointment reminders
• Send thank you cards for referrals
• Send holiday cards
• Deliver test results to patients via phone or mail
• Return phone calls in a timely fashion
• Send “miss you” letters to inactive patients
• Show courtesy and care during every patient interaction

These marketing tactics require time, persistence, and money. If your practice has limited financial and human resources to devote to marketing, it will be difficult to market on a consistent basis. But, if you can find the time and money to implement these tactics, they can help increase your patient load.