5 Steps To Creating A Marketing Strategy For Your Practice
Being a practice manager, there are a lot of things to manage – not just how your business operates, but also how you let people know about it! A marketing strategy can be something that’s easy to forget when you’re so focused on providing the absolute best care you can to your patients. But without a marketing strategy to hand, your efforts to attract patients that need your help may be limited.
In this blog post, we hope to help explain the ways you can get started in creating an effective marketing strategy that really serves your practice and its needs. After all, patients looking for care should know what you uniquely offer them.
In this moment in time, providing digital care is just as important as providing physical care – many people are searching for that support, which you can provide through a comprehensive content strategy and marketing strategy to let people know what you can do to help them.
So many practices have 0 strategy when it comes to their online presence, and most are doing posture screenings alone which is a less efficient way of finding new patients, By implementing the tips we share in this post, you will by default stand out in the crowd – so let’s get into it!
Step 1: Create your perfect Patient Avatar
Nobody knows your patient better than you do. So, what are they really like?
This is your chance to not only define who your existing patient base consists of, but who you’d ideally like to attract to you. Think about their key demographic information, including age, job title, income, location, hobbies and interests, and what challenges they might be trying to overcome.
We call this a Perfect Patient Avatar. By creating your avatar, you can help build your strategy in an effective and focused way! This may change over time, but it’s important to start somewhere. Think through their qualities and get to know what they most need from you.
Key Questions:
Who is your typical patient? Think: Age, Gender, Symptoms, Interests
What are they like? Are most people who come to see you in the later stages of life? Or do you see more young athletes?
Step 2: Identify your top goals and existing tools
Your marketing strategy has to serve your Practice’s bigger goals. What are they?
If you haven’t defined them yet, now is your chance! Think about what would be reasonable for you to achieve, and what would really impact your business. It might be a certain number of new patients, or repeat visits. It might be about starting a community or hosting particular events. Anything is possible – but it’s important to know what you’re aiming towards.
So, whatever the case may be, start defining what’s most important to your practice. Then, take a look at the tools you have on hand already. Do you have knowledge about how websites work, social media ads or emails? Or do you have someone who is already confident in front of a camera? Start pooling your resources.
Key Questions:
What are your core values?
What are your practice’s goals?
What tools do you have on hand already?
What skills do you or your team already have?
Step 3: Audit your existing efforts
Chances are, you’ve tried advertising your practice in some manner in the past. Think about what efforts you’ve already made and what form they took – this means thinking about each aspect of your public face, such as your website, any social media or emails you might already use, as well as the physical presence you have, and any other traditional advertising styles you’ve employed in the past. Think about the success of these efforts – what did they do for your practice? Or what did they not do? Once you have a sense of this, you can start to fill the gaps – which brings us neatly to step 4!
Key Questions:
What have you already tried?
What was the result?
Step 4: Figure out what’s missing
Now that you have a sense of what you have tried and what you still want to achieve, you can start to figure out what’s missing. Maybe your website is still a bit 90s, or you don’t have any email or social communication with your patients. Maybe your branding is off, and no longer represents your current values.
If you’re not a graphic designer, it can be hard to know how your branding can best represent your values as a business. You might not have time to write blog posts, or struggle to edit video yourself. This is where we would love to help you. We work with chiropractors across the UK to help plug these gaps, so you can get back to running your practice! There is a button at the bottom of this page, if you would like us to help with any of these areas then please click that button and complete the form to ask us any questions you may have.
Key Questions:
What skills do you need?
What aspects of your marketing and branding is missing?
Where do you need help?
Step 5: Start creating
All that’s left to do now is to get creating! Once you start to release your marketing efforts into the world, it’s easier to track and review the things you’ve tried. Taking action will give you new information that you can use to refine your strategy even further down the line.
So, ensure you’re able to measure your own progress. Give your audience an opportunity to keep telling you what they need – keep the discussion flowing! With a great back and forth between you and your patients, you’re able to keep refining, keep offering the best information, and keep serving your community.
Key Questions:
What should you try first?
How can you take action?
Don’t forget: Your strategy has to be unique to your practice! So, while these are simple steps, it’s important to take the time to tailor them to your practice and what you stand for. Take these steps as inspiration to guide you. If you’re stuck or need some help, get in touch with us today and let us know what you need.