Physician Practice Marketing - Why More Channels Make For Better Results
Useful Tools to Consider When Increasing Business
We often think about the traditional methods of doctors getting clients - reputation, referrals, waiting for the phone to ring. This used to happen. In fact, it still does, but for a growing practice - you may need to let marketing become a part of what you do as a daily strategy.
After we started the agency, we took on a physician practice that was having trouble with its advertising and marketing. They were running Google Ads on a limited basis and had a website that wasn’t really doing much but sitting there. We convinced them that we could do more and they allowed us to take over the website and start a blog, which we happily filled with content over the course of a couple months and started getting them natural website referrals and pushed hard for better SEO results. As always, they came in time.
As the relationship grew, we then asked to take a look at the Google AdWords account and see what was going on and make a few recommendations. We shortly noticed that the company paid to develop the account had done just that, but they had fallen asleep at the wheel and were not looking at the account monthly. We admit, the budget was small, but felt there was potential.
We tweaked the campaign and started seeing immediate results. The client went from an average of 20 conversions a month to north of 40. In fact, we set a goal of 40 because some months we were hitting 60+ and easily achieved 40. This was all with the same budget, however, the random month that we may not have hit 40, you can be assured of two things. 1. It was no less than 38 and 2. Our annual average was well above 40.
Now, when the client needed to open a new office, they wanted a strategy that could be replicated time and again as they expanded. We continued to blog, added Google Adwords to a new location, used Maps and local targeting, and also added Facebook marketing as part of the digital equation. All of these methods, we tracked and determined the number of leads from the various channels. What we found was that the more that were turned on, the better the results.
When we added TV to broaden the message, the results continued to improve. The key was being able to track the results and the people to determine if they were converting.
One of the biggest tell-tale signs of success was using landing pages vs driving traffic to the website without a call to action as part of the strategy. That way, instead of tracking clicks, we were tracking people and the client could not argue the results. In fact, it allowed them to track the ROI in a way that they had never seen before and helped justify the marketing like never before. Certain clients paid for the marketing on an annual basis if the client needed an expensive procedure done. The rest was simply gravy.
When thinking about your marketing try to experiment with more strategies and consider the results to help measure your success. It is a budgetary expense, but is also one that brings in clients and enhances revenue. Your business will need to adapt to the processes and figure out how to best take the calls that come in and be ready to make room for your new patients and do so quickly. If you are booked 3-4 weeks out, perhaps you should consider adding a new doctor rather than adding marketing. Otherwise, you will have new clients that get frustrated not to be seen in a while and may find a provider that can help their issue sooner.