NAVIGATING THE NEW NORMAL: 5 Places to Put your Practice Marketing Dollars in 2021

Bottom line is this – patients, potential patients and referral sources need information. Now more than ever, it will create a strong and reputable brand for your practice and build trust in you in your community. We know that people are turning to healthcare professionals for credible information, which gives you a chance to build awareness, answer questions, and drive engagement among your patient and referral base.

Patients want to know how to seek care and how do it safely. Referral sources (other medical providers, community businesses, etc) want facts. Building trust with them and nurturing those relationships will be absolutely paramount to how your practice fares in 2021 and for years to come. Think of these challenging times as a tremendous brand-building opportunity. Ensure your communication is compassionate, useful and trustworthy. Work with a partner that helps you to provide content to your patients and referrers that is source verified, factual and relevant. Building rapport and trust through strong communication will serve your practice well into the future.

Nothing has a greater marketing impact or is a better use of time or money than specialists taking the time and effort to make themselves known to referring physicians and other referral sources (maybe schools, daycares, community businesses?). The referring physician is in fact your most important customer, next to your patients. This simple but effective approach to marketing yourself and your practice will be well worth the time and dollars spent.

Utilizing a Physician Liaison, a representative that can help build these referral relationships on your behalf, can be highly effective – no matter what the environment. Other doctors, nurses and patients have choices, and referral habits can change. Staying top-of-mind and cultivating and maintaining trust and rapport in your community is one of the best long-term marketing strategies out there for medical practices.

In addition to reaching referral sources where they are at, this is a great time to build goodwill in your community. Patients want to go to a practice that they see contributing to the community around them. Referring physicians and their nursing staff want to see you active in the community, perhaps by donating time, food, money or volunteer hours. Writing a column in a local new publication or doing a brief interview on a local TV station are also great and effective ways for an exposure opportunity for your practice. Anything to build awareness of your practice and providers within your community is a great way to stay top-of-mind!

As with every other industry, social media content marketing has become one of the most powerful strategies for healthcare marketing as well. It is imperative to keep your patients engaged with your brand online. Social media, especially Facebook (for the sheer volume of users), is an important channel to keep you top-of-mind in your community. It serves to build your authority further in the eyes of current and potential patients – they get to know you and trust you. Focusing your message on your commitment to the health and safety of your community will continue to reconfirm your value to them.

Right now, social media is one of your most important practice tools. If you have “dabbled” in the past and have lacked in consistency and frequency, now is the time to change that. Guide your budget towards social media and providing high-value information. Spend the time and money on this low-cost strategy that yields huge ROI quickly. If you are medical practice that is relying on its website and doesn’t have a strong social presence, it’s never too late.

Think about the kind of information that patients need right now, 2021, and that only you as a medical authority can provide. Patients appreciate rich, high-value content that helps them look after themselves and their families. And remember to provide social media content that is true to the quality of the in-person experience at your practice. Show not just what you do, but also who you are. Sharing valuable content will not only educate your patients and referral sources, but it also creates trust in your practice and its providers.

Lastly, remember that – through social media – you have the power to be a beacon of hope for your community by connecting them to the lighthearted and happy news they’re looking for.

• Use social media to highlight positive stories about your staff and patients.
• Utilize content and stories from your community that give people hope.
• Identify community partnerships that allow you to give back, support social causes and strengthen your community footprint. This will help boost your internal team’s morale to create positive change while strengthening your own community footprint.

Reputation Management – which covers digital reviews, social media engagement, service quality, and more – is imperative. Period. Consider these statistics:

• 94% of healthcare patients use online reviews to evaluate providers. Reading online patient reviews is an easy first step for your audience to get a feel for your practice (Source: Software Advice).
• 84% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations. Having a strong review management strategy is crucial for acquiring new patients (Source: Inc.)
• 81% of consumers are unsatisfied with their healthcare experience. To maintain positive reviews, encourage satisfied patients to leave reviews and mend relationships with dissatisfied patients

Even if your referral network is strong, potential patients will still look you up online. Monitoring Google, Facebook, Healthgrades and other channels for reviews (or posts) is essential. Negative reviews can hurt your practice substantially. Most every provider and practice at some point is going to receive a negative review, regardless of whether it was accurate. There are ways to help boost reputation to ensure that negative reviews are overlooked by the strong positive feedback left. A few strategies to implement:

• Stay on top of reviews (both negative AND positive) and respond immediately.
• Ask satisfied patients for feedback and/or survey patients after visits to build and maintain trust and rapport.
• Showcase testimonials on social media to positively impact your brand’s visibility and digital reputation.

Caring for patients is what you do best. Hire great people to help you with what you aren’t great at. Patient care improves when you let experts do the rest (marketing, accounting, etc).

Knowing how to best promote your practice to patients and other medical providers is a big task. The more well-known you are in your community (and online!), the greater your opportunity for referrals from other medical providers and new patients in general. No time for this? Outsource your marketing (community outreach, social media, advertising) to a medically-specific healthcare marketing firm and keep your sights set on providing the best patient care possible. Having the added hurdle of a marketing partner with a learning curve about what matters to your patients, slows down your practice at a time when reaction time is critical. Hire help that understands how medical practices function and how to build patient pipelines that ensure long term success.