How Can You Better Communicate With Your Patients?
When a new patient comes to see you, that’s a win for your practice. But what happens next? Do you wish them well, and wait to see if they ever return? How do keep in touch? Do you?!
Any time someone interacts with your practice, whether it’s online or in person, that’s an opportunity to start a relationship. And right now, it’s more important than ever to be communicating effectively online.
We’ve just released a detailed step by step guide to starting up your marketing strategy – and now, we want to dig a little deeper in the methods of communication that you employ to really speak to your patients and offer them the digital care they’re looking for today.
So, let’s get stuck in! Here are the key questions to start asking yourself as a practice manager to help define your communication strategy and start up more conversations with your patients.
Who Is Your Audience?
A good way to start the dialogue is to start thinking about who your audience really is. After all, you don’t talk to your best friend the same way you talk to your boss! There are different ways of communicating to particular audiences. Start by putting yourself in their shoes – where does your audience live? How old are they? What job do they do? Once you start to break this down into specific qualities, you can start to think about what they really care about, and therefore what message they might need to hear from you. That brings us to…
What do they need to know?
Think about your average audience member. What do they know about their own health care or wellbeing journey? What could you teach them? Chances are, the expertise you have is exactly what they need – considering who they are, what problems they commonly present with, and what you know can help, you can narrow down the things they most need to learn from you and your practice.
What do you currently say to your audience?
Before you start brainstorming new methods of communication, how do you currently talk to your patients? This might include the things you offer digitally or even via your printed material in your practice itself. Think about what messages you are sending already – what is missing? Do you follow up, after appointments? What more could you have to tell your audience? Once you’ve taken stock, it’s time to get creative…
What’s your expertise? What can you teach your audience?
You have specialised knowledge, and health and wellbeing are huge topics of concern for many people at the moment, especially with everything that is happening in the world. Brainstorm the topics and themes that you feel comfortable talking more about, or questions that you could answer for your patients – pay attention to what they are asking you in appointments or in your practice, and what you most wish you could help them learn more about. Start pinpointing the unique messages you have to send out into the world.
How can you keep in touch with them?
There are many ways you can communicate with your audience. From our experience, social media and email are two important ways to keep in touch, alongside updates to your website and blog. All of these components work together. Take a read of our article on the importance of blogging for more about this vital part of your digital strategy.
Once you have great content in place, you have information you can share either with an email list and it also gives you a great topic for the week on social media. Let’s dive into these communication methods more deeply:
Email is an incredible way to keep the conversation going with your patients. A great onboarding sequence is essential to making the most out of email communications. This means offering your patients information that guides them through a journey with you, developing the relationship you have.
This might include information about what to expect at their first appointment, a welcome to your practice and what you uniquely offer, pre and post report of findings emails, testimonials from patients, further wellness content, advice and videos on exercises they should be doing between adjustments and much more.
With a few emails in place, you offer your patients reassurance and information that speaks to your care and nurturing methods as a practitioner and as a practice. This is really important for return visits, and further recommendations to others in your patient’s circle.
Social Media
Social media offers a way to really build a community around your practice, sharing personal anecdotes or stories, starting discussions or sharing quick-fire information about health and your practice in particular. Social media is a more casual way to keep in the minds of your patients, and to help create more discussion, driving traffic to your site and your practice.
Social media can be time consuming, and it’s important to have a specific plan for each platform your practice appears on. We have created several more specific articles breaking down different social media types, in particular on how to use YouTube and Facebook to your advantage.
How can you motivate your audience to take action?
Ultimately, you want your audience to reach out and take action. This can be achieved with links to value posts in your emails, quality content that is both informative and relevant, a mix of media types, and thoughtful calls to action throughout your communications.
If you’re just getting started and want help with devising an email campaign strategy or social media strategy that serves your digital presence and your patients, we at Blitz have the know-how to get you on the right track. We hope these questions have helped get the ball rolling, and for everything else, get in touch with us today and start communicating more effectively with your audience.