Growing your medical practice is not rocket science, even if you have tried several times without recording much success. Of course, it is understandable that after rigorous years of studying to become an exceptionally skilled and experienced medical doctor, the art of marketing your medical practice still eludes you. To bridge that little gap, we provide a few simple but powerful secrets you can employ to transform your business exponentially.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of these powerful secrets that are specifically engineered to help you grow your medical practice, let us look at some of the common challenges your practice might be facing.
Top 5 Secrets On How To Grow Your Medical Practice
If you can find the antidote to growing your medical practice, then you have conquered the fundamental obstacles. Let us look at some powerful medical growth strategies that can be the fulcrum to the exponential growth of your business.
- Doctor-Doctor Partnership
We discussed flexibility above as a panacea to keeping up with the constant changes in the medical arena. Doctor-doctor partnership is one of the easiest ways to become more flexible. It is a symbiotic relationship that works with the principles of trade by barter. You can target the partnership on patient acquisition and referrals, or exchange of services and just about any solution the strategy can proffer to you.
To make this smoother, you can employ the services of a coordinator who will be in charge of scouting for the right partners for the different solutions you seek. This middleman will handle all the fine details, yours is to execute. This way, you create a win-win situation where you, your patients, staff and medical practice all benefit immensely, resulting in the growth of your medical practice.
- Community Outreach
Do get involved in your community activities more often. This is where networking occurs and networking is a powerful tool for the growth of your medical practice. At these community events, you get to meet your colleagues, meet potential and existing patients and their relatives, and meet important figures in your community.
Discuss everything under the sun with these people but never forget to discuss what you do and how impeccably you offer those services.
You may volunteer to speak at these events. This is an effective way to establish yourself as an authority in your field.
The events are not restricted to physical, face-to-face events. Online events are part of the events where you can indulge in community outreach, likewise radio and television.
- Digital Marketing
Granted, you may not have the savvy required to be a medical marketing guru, but then these are simple steps you can take. You may also consider hiring an expert to bring the needed juice into your medical practice digital marketing strategy.
First of all, take a hard look at your online presence. Then compare yours to that of your competitors, what are they doing differently? Your social media should provide interesting and educational content. Video content is exceptionally impactful for medical practice as it shows your audience that you can be trusted.
You need to have a user-friendly website rich in quality content, including videos. Spread your tentacles by listing your medical practice on review sites, especially Google My Business and medical review sites. Ensure that your patients leave reviews on these sites for you by providing excellent medical services.
All these channels will provide potent avenues for lead generation, engagement, visibility and booking which will in turn translate to growth.
5. Acquisition Strategy
Set up a practical patient acquisition strategy to help you get more leads and convert bystanders to loyal patients. Bring out your entire ammunition on this one because without new patients, where will your practice be? Include offline promotions, digital promotions, and SEO promotions in your medical practice marketing strategy.
Do not focus on one aspect and neglect the others. This is why you must know our audience completely so you would know how to reach them and what their needs are. Word of mouth alone will not be enough impetus to convince a lot of people these days. Patients want to be sure that they are entrusting their health to a competent and reliable doctor. Therefore go all out, from reviews to providing easy access to bookings and contact.
Do you need to change your USP?
I assume you already have a unique selling proposition for your medical practice, that is the core value and goals of your medical practice. Your USP is what sets you apart from the crowd, it is your loud voice in the wilderness. So, if you are yet to discover your purpose, then go back to the drawing board.
If you already have a USP, is it working for you? You may want to consider also going back to the drawing board. Determine the ‘WHY’ behind the establishment of your business.
The great Simon Sinek said the WHY is not about money. Everybody hopes to make money from their business. Your WHY has to be what drives you, that unique reason that pushes you even when all fails. Find it and build on it as a solid foundation for your medical practice.
Common Challenges with Growing Your Medical Practice
- Meeting patients’ ever-changing needs
The internet has opened a lot of opportunities for patients, giving them endless choices. With all the information on the internet, a patient can have hundreds of doctors to choose from when she searches for ‘surgeons near me’. Therefore, she realises she has the power to make demands and she uses her powers to her advantage. For instance, she may opt for robotic-assisted surgery rather than open surgery.
You will be forced to think about inculcating robotic practice into your medical practice if you realise that the demand is high and your competitors are jumping in to grab their share of that market. Another patient may insist on home, treatment for some reasons. Then you begin to put that into consideration too.
These ever-changing demands keep medical practices on their toes as competition becomes stiffer. It may eventually become difficult to keep up with these demands and that becomes a hurdle towards growing your medical practice. What to do? Provide patient-centred medical services. It does not mean you should break the bank to keep up, but you can manoeuvre certain situations. For instance, you can partner with another doctor who runs a total robotic practice and has a referral program in place.
- Keeping up with the constant changes
Times change, patients change, technology keeps evolving, and different laws are promulgated and amended by the day. How do you keep up? How do you even know when the changes occur to know that it is time to change with the tide?
It becomes imperative to run a flexible medical practice or risk losing out to your competitors. Today, patients are happy with coming into your clinic for certain treatments, tomorrow, the world is doing virtual reality treatment. You have to be attentive, flexible, creative and innovative to keep up.
- Hiring the wrong team
Employees are integral to the success of every medical practice. This is a common hurdle in growing your medical practice. With the wrong team, your practice will remain a toddler incapable of maturing further. It begins from the point of hiring. How do you know the right staff with the right attitude that aligns with your medical practice objectives? You may be able to decipher the skills during the interview (even if this has no guarantee). But you may not notice their attitude until they are under pressure or until they are given the power to work with patients.
There is the issue of burnout which may cause a decrease in staff strength from time to time. At this juncture, how you treat your staff becomes very crucial. This can be an advantage or a challenge, depending on whether you treat them right, whether you provide an enabling environment for them to thrive in despite the professional challenges they face or whether you are a slave driver.
- Patient Acquisition and Retention
The stiff competition ensures that patient acquisition and patient retention remain big hurdles for medical practitioners. How do you constantly attract new patients to your medical practice? And when you acquire these new patients, how do you ensure that they keep coming back to the point of becoming loyal to you?
There is a lot you can do to improve the situation. From excellently providing the required services when it is needed to inculcating medical marketing. Whatever path you choose, never lose sight of the fact that patience is king.
Conclusion
A medical doctor may not know how to successfully market his/her medical practice, and may not even have the time to do so. However, it is a sine qua non for the growth of your medical practice. Learn what hurdles your medical practice is facing and find creative and lasting ways to solve them. Then go on to practice how to grow your medical practice armed with these 5 powerful secrets we discussed above. Discovering who you are, why you are in this business and who your audience is will greatly help you to create and nurture a fruitful medical growth marketing strategy online and offline.