The most important thing we have noticed working with medical practices since 2002 is that every physician is unique in his or her goals, marketplace, budget, personality, interests, etc. The bottom line is that each practice needs a customized marketing approach that is tailored to the interests and goals of the physician (or group). A “one-size-fits-all” approach doesn’t work.
The majority of doctors who retain MDmanagement want to communicate a caring and compassionate branding message that strongly differentiates them from everyone else. They want to grow by winning new doctor referrals, maintain current referral patterns, and recapture referral sources that have slipped away.
While digital marketing gives consumers an important and convenient way to search for a physician, our recommendation is to not rely on your website alone. It takes a savvy digital marketing strategy to reach patients and compel them to call your office to schedule a consultation. We know it’s vital to distinguish your brand and reputation in a way that builds trust and inspires patient and professional referrals.
Whether you want to market to win more doctor referrals, open additional offices, overcome marketplace disadvantages, differentiate yourself from the competition, or simply get more patients to call you, MDmanagement is willing and able to help with a customized marketing plan that works for you.
- We’ll approach the marketing of your venous, endovascular or interventional practice just like you would treat a patient. We’ll begin with a thorough examination of all the marketing you have done over the past 24 to 36 months.
- Then we’ll diagnose your situation based upon your goals and objectives, your budget, your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, your unique clinical service proposition, your demographics and target audience, your competition, your referral patterns and more.
- And finally, we’ll create a step-by-step treatment plan (a.k.a.12-month marketing plan) designed to accomplish your objectives.
Key Components Of The Marketing Program Assessment
We will review your current and prior marketing programs (print materials, direct mail pieces, # of patient inquiries generated, # of patient conversions, review your market demographics, research your competitors, evaluate media options, investigate your visibility on search engines and analyze your current physician referral patterns).
A marketing plan for your practice is a strategy that is designed to facilitate the achievement of specific growth goals. It is not simply scheduling a patient event. It is an overall strategy that encompasses advertising, media relations / PR, physician referrals, patient referrals, as well as planned community events to create practice exposure.
To be effective, your marketing plan must be S.M.A.R.T:
S – Specific: What do you want to accomplish?
M – Measurable: How will you measure success?
A – Attainable: Are your goals achievable?
R – Realistic: Unrealistic goals are never met!
T – Timely: What is your timeline for completion?
During our analysis, we would like to spend a few hours with a practice designee and work through a SWOT analysis of your market and your competitors. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. A periodic evaluation of your internal and external environment is an important part of the strategic planning process. Strengths and Weaknesses are the internal evaluation components of the SWOT. Opportunities and Threats comprise the external evaluation.
One of the more interesting definitions of marketing is that "Marketing is the process by which resources are brought to bear against opportunities and threats." In order to determine which resource(s) you can bring to bear against opportunities and threats, you have to understand your strengths and weaknesses.
Marketing Analytics
Follow-up and tracking the results of advertising is absolutely necessary to ensure that your marketing dollars are being distributed in the most effective manner. This involves several key components:
- Office staff training and responsibility
- Effective tracking forms
- Regular review of the data collected
Marketing Analysis
Developing and implementing an effective marketing strategy is a key part of continually growing a successful endovascular & interventional practice. This part of the analysis begins with market research of your practice demographics and an in-depth review of media opportunities available in your service area.
- Zip Code / Market Analysis. We would like a zip code tally for all new patient consultations and procedures that came through the clinic in the past 24 months, by zip code. This allocation will help us better understand how far your patients are willing to travel for treatment. It will also be an indicator as to what zip codes you should focus your advertising efforts in. This process will allow MDmanagement to better understand the primary demographics of your practice in order to design highly targeted, cost-efficient marketing campaigns.
- Referral Physicians. We would like a listing of all new patient consultations in the past 24 months that were scheduled as a result of an existing or new PCP referral relationship. Rather than allocating by practice name, we would like the referrals allocated to each referring physician.
- Marketing Campaigns / Cost-Per-Lead Analysis. We will need access to all marketing campaigns and associated costs for campaigns run in the past (24) months. We will identify your ROI on each campaign by looking at your actual costs and results and discuss where you should allocate your future marketing dollars.
- Review of Marketing Materials and Print Ads. We will need to review the brochures, handouts and other materials that you are giving patients and referring physicians to help drive patient interest in your practice.
- Effective Tracking of Advertising Generated Patient Inquiries. In order to make this an effective process, we will work with your staff to assure compliance in tracking data. We will help you develop tracking and follow up forms that collect the data you need in an easy to interpret format. The information we will collect will include the following:
How did the patient hear about you?
Television? Which station and program?
Radio? Which station?
Newspaper? Which one? What Day?
Referral? From Whom? From another physician?
Digital Marketing (SEO, Social Media, Paid Search)?
Tracking response to a patient outreach event:
How many patients attended?
How many scheduled follow up appointments?
How many procedures are scheduled to be performed?
