Medical & Dental Practice Marketing

Your practice is a business. Let’s market it like one.

There is a common misconception that “if you build it, they will come.” If only that were true. Medical and dental practices are businesses and they must be marketed like any other business. If you want to attract patients to your practice, you’ll need to make sure they know you exist.

Start by investing in a professionally designed logo and website. After all, perception is reality. You’ll never get a second chance for a first impression, so make it a good one! Once you’ve established your professional web presence, your marketing campaigns can be set in to play. All marketing campaigns should include your website address. This is why our first recommendation is to have a professional looking website that is mobile-friendly and loads quickly. According to a recent article on CNBC.com, almost three quarters of internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones by 2025! If you already have a practice website but it’s not mobile friendly or has an outdated appearance, it might be time to consider an upgrade!

What DoctorsManagement Can Do to Market Your Practice:

Branding & Collateral

Branding is important for every practice. It’s all about building awareness of your practice and the services that you offer. The more people are aware of your business, the more likely they will choose you as their go-to for their needs.

DoctorsManagement can help you build a brand identity that includes a professional, custom logo and practice marketing materials to help you attract your target audience.

Website Design

We believe that every medical and dental practice should have an online presence and that begins with having a professional website. Your practice website will serve multiple purposes. First and foremost, it’s a great marketing tool. When a patient searches for terms related to the services you offer, you’ll want them to find you online. Without a website, that’s not really possible. So, it’s important to have one. Your website can be listed on social media pages, various provider directories, Google My Business and more.

In addition to being a valuable marketing tool, a practice website is also very helpful in reducing the administrative burden on your staff. By providing information on your website such as frequently asked questions, forms, driving directions, list of insurance plans accepted, etc. you’ll decrease the amount of time your staff has to spend on the phone and increase patient satisfaction. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Pay-per-click advertising

Pay-per-click advertising is an effective way to help your business appear high in the search engine results pages of websites like Google. You can bid on search terms that are relevant to your business in a specific geographic area (i.e. 15 miles around your office address), based on a schedule with a budget that makes sense for you.

For example, if you are an ophthalmologist you may want to bid on terms such as “eye doctor near me” or “ophthalmologist that takes blue cross”, etc. When a use enters search terms like these, your ads could appear. When the person clicks on your ad this is when you are charged for the click, hence the term “pay-per-click” advertising. Since Google doesn’t require a minimum daily budget or a long-term contract, it makes it very easy for practices of any size to participate.

Social Media Advertising & Account Management

According to a recent study, 72% of the population uses some type of social media. Participating in social media is a great way to develop brand recognition of your practice and stay in front of your target audience. We recommend that medical and dental practices have a Facebook page, at a minimum, since it is currently the nations most popular social media platform.

With so many of the nations eyes on social media, it’s a great place for your practice to be discovered.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is necessary to give your website a fighting chance to be seen on the first page results of the nations largest search engines. Without proper SEO, your website could fall so far behind in the results pages that it is not likely to ever be seen.

There are a couple of things to consider when it comes to SEO. The first is what’s referred to as on-page SEO. This process includes making sure that your website pages are optimized with keywords that are important to your practice, tags and descriptions are in place, site load time is minimal and you will also want to be certain that you have a website that is mobile-friendly. According to a recent study, Over 48% of all website visits occur on a mobile device and this is only expected to increase. Now is the time to make sure you have a website that can be viewed on all devices. If you need to speak with someone at DoctorsManagement about a new website or a website overhaul, give us a call for a free consultation.

In addition to optimizing your website, you’ll also want to consider off-page SEO. This involves driving traffic to your website from other sources, from directory listings to social media profiles. Both on-page and off-page SEO are needed to increase your overall visibility online.

Referral Development

If you are a specialist, then you are pretty dependent on referrals from other providers. At DoctorsManagement, we can help you reach providers that have the ability to refer patients to you through customized, introductory packages sent by mail. We’ll start by helping you to design practice marketing materials and prepare a professionally written letter to introduce yourself to these potential referral sources. We’ll collect names and addresses of the providers in your targeted area and mail the introductory letter and marketing materials to providers for you.

Reputation Management

Now, more than ever, reputation is everything online. Patients have the ability to research a provider online and read reviews from other patients. Often, these reviews can be the deciding factor in their decision to choose a particular provider.

While some providers choose to “leave it to chance”, we believe a pro-active approach to collecting reviews is necessary to build your online reputation. Ask us today about automated software to help you automate the process of soliciting patient reviews and posting them to websites and social media sites.

Don’t wait for your first negative review to be the motivating factor to take action. Be pro-active and get started today!

Mass Mailings

Mass mailings are a great supplement to your online marketing efforts. At DoctorsManagement, we can design professional marketing pieces and have them mailed to your target audience. We can even provide mailing pieces with peel off magnets to extend the life of your marketing piece.

Event Planning & Management

Planning an open house or booth at a local health fair? Whatever your event, we can help you plan and execute! At DoctorsManagement, we have plenty of experience with helping our providers plan for these types of events. We’ll handle everything, including: invitation design and distribution, design and printing of marketing materials, promotional give-aways, booth decor & design, advertising the event and more.

Physician Retreats & Meetings

Just need a quick update or evaluation of your own medical marketing for the practice? We can fit an effective training session into a short time-frame for your physician or group meeting.

Outdoor Advertising

Outdoor advertising can be an effective way to reach your target audience, especially in high traffic areas. Digital billboards are becoming more affordable to small busines owners by “sharing space” with other advertisers on the same board. At DoctorsManagement, we can help you build brand recognition with your target audience through outdoor advertising.

Staff Training

Your support staff has an enormous on whether or not patients will leave good or bad reviews for you online, return to see you again, refer other patients to you or choose to buy additional products or services from you.

At DoctorsManagement, we believe that your staff should be trained in general customer service skills, have a very thorough understanding of the services and products that you offer and be able to speak about them intelligently with patients. In addition to teaching general customer service etiquette, we can teach your staff how to “upsell” or “cross-sell” services and help them feel comfortable answering questions from patients.

No “cookie-cutter” marketing approaches here.

We recognize that every practice, every dentist, every physician is different. What works in one region of the country may not work in another. What works for one specialty may not make sense for another. Are you a provider starting a new practice? Do you have an existing practice and are adding a new provider that you need to market? Did you recently purchase a new piece of equipment or begin offering a new service that you need to promote?

Wherever you are in the lifecycle of your practice, we can develop a customized marketing plan that is custom designed for you and attracts the patients you want to your practice.