PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

As a seasoned marketing consultant to medical and healthcare clinics, I understand your challenges and your opportunities to grow in this dynamic industry.

But the harsh reality is that it’s becoming progressively more costly and difficult to build a profitable practice in a saturated market.

Your website is no longer enough. No one thing is enough.

Technology advancements, fickle patient expectations and fierce competition are the norm, so it’s time to think differently and do different if you want to attract your fair share of patients and profits.

Here’s a hint….the key to growing a successful practice must include a medical marketing strategy that is patient centric.

Welcome to another episode of Online Marketing For Doctors TV and Podcast show – the place to go to grow and scale your practice. I'm Huyen Truong, a Strategic Marketing Consultant for medical clinics. My team and I have been in the game for over a decade, helping hundreds of clinics thrive with our proven patient generation system.

HERE ARE 6 OF THE BEST WAYS TO MARKET YOURSELF IN TODAY’S CLIMATE:

PICK A NICHE:

Specialisation sets you apart and establishes you as an expert. That, in turn, allows you to hone your craft and your results speak for themselves. Position yourself as an expert by sharing your insights through speaking, authoring, teaching and educating the industry on your innovative techniques. By the way, as a specialist, you gain the credibility and confidence to command premium fees for your services.

In my globally published book called 'Fully Booked,' I discuss strategies for becoming a celebrity in your sector. One crucial aspect is selecting a niche and dominating it through various forms of content, such as published books, articles, videos, conference speaking engagements, and any other means to comprehensively cover that niche.

EDUCATE USING SHORT VIDEOS

Videos are in. They convey your message using visuals and audio to keep the attention of short attention span audiences. They also make the information more digestible, memorable and shareable. Share short videos of your expertise by showcasing patient stories, great results and advice to assist patients in understanding the complex world of your expertise.

Producing video and podcast content for medical and healthcare professionals is among my top priorities every week. I've been dedicated to this task since 2018 through our OMD TV and podcast channels. Creative writing, research, and content creation for these platforms are the first activities I undertake every morning. This requires dedication and consistency, which is why I start working on it at 5 am to ensure minimal distractions during the day.

EMBRACE SOCIAL MEDIA

This has become essential for building your practice because that’s where your prospective patients go for information, inspiration and fun….and it’s free. This is how you stay relevant and build a following, while increasing your credibility and trust.

HIRE AN EXPERIENCED SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR

You can either spend a fortune on “pay to play” advertising and you can use social media as an investment in your marketing plan. But you need someone who understands the platforms, trends, and audience behaviours so they tailor a social media strategy that gets you more followers, engagement, and surgeries! Check out their work to see how creative their content is when it comes to purpose, resonating with your preferred patients and how it builds your unique brand. They also need to understand scheduling and metrics to translate data to ensure continual optimisation.

If you're looking to save on budget, consider finding a Practice Manager or patient coordinator who is highly proficient in social media and content production. They can work closely with you, understand your patients and brand, and generate more authentic content than external consultants.

ADVERTISE TO BUILD YOUR LIST

Even though social media is becoming the “go-to” practice-building strategy, you need more than that. You still want to use advertising to grow your list of anyone who is interested in your services or products. Be sure you have a way to capture name, phone number and email to build your list of interested consumers. Since google took away much of the targeting audience feature, this is a way to build a targeted audience on your own. Now encourage these people to follow you on social media and consistently email them interesting content, so they connect with you when they’re ready to move forward.

We discussed patient lead generation and the 5-step sales funnel for cultivating an interested list of followers and prospects in Podcast #113 titled "Why Do You Need a Sales Funnel For Your Clinic To Grow Exponentially?" I'll include the link in the show notes for you to explore further.

Please remember that you don't own the number of followers on social media platforms because they are controlled by these platforms' algorithms, which can change at any time. However, with your prospect database, you have full access and can maintain regular communication after obtaining consent from them.

EXISTING PATIENTS ARE PRICELESS

Happy patients are your best unpaid sales team. They are your walking talking testimonials who will brag about you to their friends, family, and followers. Take excellent care of them, give them a great result, and build a relationship with them so they happily give you great reviews, approve their before/after photos, gladly do a video testimonial with you and share you on their social media platforms (if that is permitted in your country).

We talked about how to “3 Creative Ways To Boost Existing Patient Referrals” in our podcast number #88 In which I mentioned these interesting stats from a Forbes magazine's article “Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer. Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%.

The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%.” So don’t spend 5 times more attracting new patients, nurture the existing ones!

DOUBLE DOWN ON WHAT’S WORKING

Regularly look at numbers to identify what is working and resonating with your audience. For example, a particular social media platform, particular content, calls to action or copy that is working better than the rest. Double down on your efforts and/or budget to get all you can from it. Do that until it doesn’t work anymore, then try something else.

The point is that it takes a multi-channel approach to improve your brand, attract the patients you most enjoy working with and grow strategically for the long run. If you could use some clarity and would like help mapping out a strategic marketing plan for the year, let’s talk.

While there is more to marketing than a digital plan, your digital strategy, including your website, lead generator, and email campaign will serve as the foundation for all your other collateral.

I hope this episode will help you gain insights as to how to market yourself and your clinic.

And that was the end of another episode of the OMD TV & podcast show.

If this was helpful to you, please subscribe to the OMD TV and Podcast Show so you don’t miss any future episodes. And please share this episode with your staff and colleagues.

If you want to learn more about Online Marketing For Doctors offers and how our team can help you generate more new patients and referring doctors via creating a high converting website for medical and healthcare practices, please reach out to us and book a 15-minute discovery call with us as I mentioned above.  We'll conduct a comprehensive audit and a 360-degree overview of your website,  and marketing strategy session for you. I’ll leave a link to it in the show notes below.

Thank you so much and hope to talk to you on a discovery call soon. 🥳