Whether you are an experienced physician, just entering your practice - or, somewhere in between - you are today confronted with a challenging medical practice marketing environment.
For me t o add that the current economic swings compound the situation is to point out the obvious yet such must be considered for any plan for marketing for doctors.
Thus, both new and experienced doctors must reconsider medical practice marketing techniques and tactics and consider the steps set forth in this article.
As I have written elsewhere, an experienced professional related to me that he recollected the rise of television and how it had replaced the radio in his early childhood. He reminisced that the boob tube had at least kept his family
together. He bemoaned, however, the conduct of his grandkids who he says are in a distant world of internet browsing and game playing.
Another surgeon related to me how his network of referring physicians and patients had seemed to stop sending referrals and wondered why that venerable source of new business had seemingly dried up.
Well, here is the simple truth of the matter: people just don't like talking about their health concerns with others! Many people do not even like talking about health issues with their attending physician. It is not denial, just human nature.1
Thus, if you are one of the fortunate physicians who are not part of managed medical care, the following points could really be important to your financial future.
So, how do these people get the medical attention needed? Usually, the answer is simple: www.google.com with a search term such as "hair replacement kansas city kansas" or "heart surgeon prescott arizona". Yes, that is where the growth of the practice of medicine is.
The internet has replaced talking with your Mom, your neighbors and even getting referrals from your family physician.
This is not to say the more traditional modes of practice development are completely extinct, however. Such tools as community involvement, education hospital activities and committee work are not only beneficial they are helpful to your overall mental attitude, as well.
But, all of that takes time and, in some cases, a lot of time. Just like a potential patient saves time by seeking medical assistance on the internet so too can the practicing surgeon save time by seeking patients on the internet. It is truly a two-way street.
So, what is the value of your time. Take a look at the following chart:2
Specialty
US Average Salary
Family Medicine
$165,000
Int. Medicine
$170,000
Ob/Gyn
$253,000
Gen. Surgery
$278,000
Anesthesia
$309,000
Urology
$318,000
Do the math: divide your annual income by 1,920 (40 hours a week
X forty eight weeks which includes three weeks of vacation and one week of CME). So, if your business earns $600,000 gross
(before employee and operating costs) then each year you can safely assume you are generating from your personal efforts slightly more than $300.00 per hour.
So, let's look at how you can build time-saving tactics into medical practice marketing.
Marketing for Doctors Includes Media
The fastest way for surgeons to establish themselves as "experts"
is to proclaim that they are and do so publicly. Traditional
media love this approach. For example, if you publish a series
of articles on the web you might be considered an "expert" so long
as you pulled them all together through a summary page or on your
own website. We'll call this your "electronic press kit" and
it should include:
A summary page with links to all of your article
A "photo" page of you in all your splendor, at work, at play
and with family
Your contact information including email
Your résumé
A full description of your specialized knowledge, you know,
why you're the expert you say you are
A list of the presentations you have already made (if any)
If you are up to it (time-wise and intellectually) a
PowerPoint presentation or Flash movie
For this effort you might employ a ghostwriter so long as you
kept final creative and editorial approval. Nowadays the
so-called "ghostwriter" is more often referred to as a search engine
optimization (SEO) expert.
Then, the traditional media can be contacted with but a single
link: your expert page. Viola, you are an expert.
Modern Medical Practice Marketing
The modern axiom of practice expansion is this: you must be
available to new patients at their time of need. This is true
whether is is 2:00 AM or Noon. The way to be constantly
available costs less money than you might imagine.
Ask yourself this question: when was the last time I
researched the Yellow Pages for a contact?
Another question: when did I last look in the newspaper for
an advertisement for something I needed?
The probable answers are,
"I cannot remember." The reason why the Yellow Pages and
printed media are dying is because fewer and fewer people use them
and more and more people rely on the internet.3
So, here is a detailed explanation how to effectively leap onto
the top of this wave.
Physician Practice Marketing Benefits
Physician Website Design: Doctors need to look
beyond the aesthetics of a website. Generally, it really does
not matter what the site looks like! A good site could be pure
text with hyperlinks. In fact, today, too many physician
websites say to their patients and potential patients, "I am
beautiful, are you?", instead of saying, "I can give you the best,
most ethical and professional level of healthcare you can find
anywhere and, oh, by the way, please leave me your name, phone
number and email address and I will call you immediately."
Certainly, artistic prowess, pictures and graphics are fine -
especially if you are in an aesthetic specialty - but what really
counts for most physicians is a résumé, a few pictures, great copy,
an electronic media kit and multiple ways to get a hold of you on
every single page. You might also add a few testimonials
if permitted by your boards.
Generally, too many physicians want medical website design
services to provide showcase, flash-driven, graphic-laden
spectaculars. Either that, or shameless SEO types have sold
the medicos on this silliness. Stay away from it as best you
can.
We have all heard about the "graying" of America or that our
population is growing ever older. Yet, look at your own
website and think, "Can my older patients even read what is
written?" Many, many medical websites are in 8- or 9-point
type that is just a blur to many seniors. Additionally, many
medical websites are so busy (made that way by MSN-emulating
medical search engine optimization specialists) that seniors
cannot pick out what is relevant to them from what is not.
KISS = keep it simple, stupid! Your potential patients will
love you for it.
Physician Internet Branding: The idea of "branding"
a surgeon entails presenting a unitary image to both the internet
and your patients. Doing so is of great benefit because your
efforts are more easily identified as belonging to you.
A psychiatrist client of ours had a "Three Faces of Eve" identity
crisis when first we met. His practice had one name, say
"Family Psychiatry", his website had a different, say "Forensic
Analysis" and he used a Yahoo! email address. He was not
indexed in any search engine despite trying.
The point of this example is this: your internet "branding"
is vitally important. You should have a unitary branding in
all that you do. If you are a family psychiatrist, get your
logo, website, email addresses and all of your business cards and
stationary to scream FAMILY PSYCHIATRIST.
It is difficult to determine why a professional who has spent
thousands on creating a website, perhaps tens of thousands, and
countless hours on advertising, would use joe_phillipezemd@yahoo.com
and not doctor@phillipezemedical.com because every mention of his
email address on the internet is a direct link to the website's name
which, of course, greatly improves rankings as well as
accessibility.
Medical Search Engine Optimization
Every physician should examine his, or her, current web presence.
Try this out: Use Google, MSN and Yahoo! and query (a) your
common name, (b) your full name, and (c) known variations of your
practice's name (such as "Feel Better Institute"). When ever
you get a response on the first 3 pages, investigate each one.
You can have us perform that for you if you wish at no charge by
completing our online "Get
Quote" form. You may be surprised at the results, both
positive and negative.
One item almost all physicians find are so-called professional
directories that list your name (and every other doctor on the face
of the map) along with patient evaluations of you. Did you
ever consider asking a patient to complete one of those forms? While not a career-maker it won't ever hurt to get an online
recommendation from a patient.
Marketing Medical Practices
As noted above, today's economics may be daunting. Take
heart and be bold. Follow these ten "Golden Rules" and your practice
will survive:
1.
Only consider what patients
want to the extent possible. It is axiomatic that when a
patient comes to you, the patient's concerns are paramount.
But such is not the case. Allopathic doctors think, for
example, in terms of chemicals. Try this, ask your patient
when appropriate if she, or he, actually wants a prescription noting
that such-and-such a drug may not help greatly. Or, if a
patient wants one elective procedure, do not try to upsell unless it
is indicated.
2.
Focus on money-making
strategies. For example, invest that $500.00 the charity
auction will cost into new advertisements. Or, if one area of
your practice is profitable while the other is not, work to diminish
the unprofitable area to the extent possible.
3.
This economy is a fantastic
opportunity! While your fellow physicians may be running
scared, cutting back on marketing and letting staff go, you should
consider this: all of this cut and run are creating a vacuum
that you should only be too happy to fill. The dearth of
medical marketing means that your actual costs for marketing will
lower and you'll be better able to negotiate with your marketing
vendors, including me! There are two steps to putting together the
marketing effort. First, make a detailed budget of what you
are spending on now and finesse that into what you think you should
be doing. Second, recognize that you cannot do all of the
marketing by yourself. Hire someone good, like Crown SEO.
4.
Act on your marketing
detailed marketing budget. Look at everything in it. Do
you consider credit card service companies part of your marketing
budget, for example? You should because the only reason you
use credit cards is to make your patients happy. Just by
negotiating with the service companies you may save thousands a
month. This principle can be applied to all of your budget
line-items.
5.
Instead of upselling,
bundle! For example, cosmetic surgeons are now offering
packages including Botox, tummytucks, liposuction or
microdermabrasion in a package deal at a substantial discount to the
patient. Bundling has greatly increased the gross revenue of
many practices even while providing patients the services they
actually crave.
6.
Does recession equate to
lowering payments? Of course, and that is why you should
highly tune the credit facilities you are able to offer your
patients. In today's market, with currently shrinking credit
available, any credit is certainly better than none for all your
patients.
7.
Do "live" market research.
When a patient is cost-conscious, as most are, have your offices try
lowballing to see if your kind offer will be accepted, reminding
your patient of your typical charges. Oversee this effort and
raise your prices until the sensitivity point is reached. Watch your revenue go up.
8.
Join new marketing efforts
that go beyond traditional professional and patient referrals.
If you do not do this, your practice may die on the vine. For
example, many doctors refuse to employ pay per click (PPC)
advertising on Google, MSN or Yahoo!, thinking such somewhat
hardscrabble and undignified. It is not! It may make the
difference between growing and shrinking. Think of it this
way: If PPC made Google into the wealthiest internet company
why couldn't PPC do the same for you?
9.
Talk with your physician
friends and acquaintances in different specialties about doing joint
marketing through Crown SEO. Incredible cost savings can be
realized through joining forces with your friends.
10.
Have your staff focus on
low-cost internal marketing. This adjunct to the traditional
marketing system, however, has to go beyond being nice. Being
nice, professional and obtaining excellent results is expected. Consider this:
Background: If you search Google
for an unrestricted phrase you will get thousands of pages that use
the words of the phrase. If you put the term in quotes, for
example "doctors giving gifts to patients" Google will only return
pages with that exact phrase.
Using the phrase doctors giving gifts to
patients, thousands of pages come up and each page is about
doctors receiving gifts. If you use the phrase "doctors giving
gifts to patients" not one single page comes up concerning a
doctor that actually gives a gift to a patient. Come on!
Break the mold and give in. Give gifts to patients within the
ethical parameters of your licensing boards.
As you may well know,
marketing of medical services has been eagerly sought by doctors in
search of growth, and facilitated by medical practice marketing
specialists, such that patients in the United States receive
personal attention undreamed of in other countries. Thus, in
order to stand out you should be different by becoming a giver, even
if the giving is only of information. For example, one point
of discontent heard from many patients is that their doctor pretends
not to know the pricing of procedures when every patient knows that
price setting in private practice is wholly the domain of the
licensee. So, become able to confront this issue and be
different than your competitors. You'll grow both in terms of
patient trust and income.
Hispanic Marketing for Doctors
As our Hispanic population surges, consider this: employ a
native Spanish-speaker on your staff; and (b) make some of your
webpages available in Spanish; and, finally, (c) advertise in
Spanish. This can be a doorbuster if you do it with care and
dignity.
Footnotes:
1. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14621334
2. See
http://student.pnhp.org/content/what_about_physician_salaries.php
3. See
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/28/decline-of-us-newspapers-accelerating/#comment-2491587
Copyright 2008 by Charles Benninghoff | All Rights Reserved
