"What's the best way to market our practice?" This is one of the most common questions I get from practice owners who are <$1.5mm annual revenue. There's a perception of dichotomy. Do I do paid marketing, or community outreach?
Pay-per-click, or direct mail? Do I invest in a stunning website and SEO, or focus on generating a lot of reviews?
The answer to all of the above?...Yes! Imagine for a second you're making a lasagna. Would you just use meat?
Would cheese alone be enough? Of course not. A delicious lasagna is layer upon layer of ingredients. The same is true for an effective practice marketing plan. To really grow, you can't rely on any one thing. You need to stack your attractive brand messages and offers in multiple mediums so that you're in many places, all the time.
The #1 Missing Ingredient
One thing's for sure...you can't make lasagna without pasta. But the problem is, MANY practices (even the bigger ones) are missing the pasta! This is the piece that you've already invested a ton of time and resources to build, but still neglect because it's too tedious, or requires too much effort and management. You work hard to get people into your database - your current patients, tested-not-treated folks, and even your cancellations and no-shows.
Patients spend only a small part of their year in your practice. What’s your plan to stay connected between visits?
Nailing your database marketing in a way that feels personalized and non-salesy, while also creating engagement and action results in consistent, calm growth. It's the pasta. It's layered in with all of the rest of your marketing, and without it you just have a big, gooey (but, admittedly, probably still pretty tasty!) pile of ingredients.
And if you can build the systems to put it on autopilot, you can make that outreach more consistent without relying on someone to remember each message.
