Marketing minute
Shoestring Marketing
Promoting your practice doesn’t
require a huge budget. Build your practice
using the fundamentals of good business
and solid relationships.
How can you market your practice if you are
on a shoestring budget? In “Marketing Judo,”
authors John Barnes and Richard Richardson claim that what you
need to be successful is brains, not budget. To begin they
suggest that you not “spend a penny on marketing your
business until you know the basics are working.”
Essentially, you need to have high quality and efficient
services to insure that any marketing you do is successful. As
in any real judo match, they then suggest that you “pick
the right partner.” In health care, your partners may be
mentors and advisers, office support staff, and other doctors
in your practice. Choosing an A-team is essential. Next in the
judo theme is “choosing the right opponent.” In
business, this is akin to identifying companies that have
weaknesses. “Corporate sloths” are the ideal
opponent. Just as in business, in health care it is wise to
evaluate your competition and determine how you can stand out
in the market. We all know doctors who do little to change
their practices—offering no new services, working in old
and dilapidated buildings, and ignoring the need to constantly
improve customer service.
In any match, whether it is judo,
basketball, tennis, or some other sport, it helps to have the
crowd on your side. According to our judo marketing guides,
“Getting the crowd on your side means working hard with
the local communities where your business is.” They
advise, “Work the crowd. Accept the invitations to talk
to local business or community groups. Allow your staff to work
for local charities in return for extra paid leave.” Your
patients are also part of the home crowd. Keep them satisfied
and they’ll cheer for you.
Next, Barnes and Richardson tell us to use
our size to our advantage. If you are in private practice or
part of a small group without a big budget, then marketing is
all about the 3 F’s: Fit, Fast, and Focused. To be
fit, you need to train your staff well. To be fast, you need to
stay ahead of your competition. And finally, stay focused on
what you do best. Once you have accomplished the 3 F’s,
the next step is to “do the unexpected.” The
unexpected gets you noticed. Keep in mind that small things
count with both patients and referral sources. What can you do
that they don’t expect but will appreciate?
The final step in the judo marketing game
plan is to keep your balance. This means that when a crisis
hits, you are prepared. Keeping your balance also means trying
to plan for what might go wrong and avoid unnecessary problems.
Additionally, judo doctors who stay balanced will not let
things happening in the community, including the medical
community and community at large, blindside them. They stay
tuned to upcoming changes and can anticipate how to react.
When I asked Jeanette McMurtry, the author
of “Big Business Marketing for Small Business
Budgets,” what one of the most important things doctors
with a shoestring marketing budget should know, she replied,
“Health care is a relationship buy more than it is an
awareness buy.” McMurtry gave the example of one of her
physician clients who she advised to discontinue his expensive
weekly ads in the local newspaper. Both McMurtry and her client
validated that the ads were doing little to help him when his
practice volume didn’t diminish without the ads. The most
costly forms of advertising—newspaper, radio, and
television ads—don’t help doctors build practices.
“These forms of advertising are very expensive and do not
typically pay off for industries that are driven mostly by
relationships,” says McMurtry. Rather, she says,
“Patients choose health-care providers based upon
referrals from friends, recommendations from influencers such
as hospital administrators, other doctors, nurses, and so on.
They are looking for credible information on which to base a
very important decision. It is hard to achieve credibility in
pure-play advertising programs.” On the other hand, she
does admit that mass media marketing is good for larger
health-care institutions which are already established and
simply need to maintain a presence or preserve a reputation.
McMurtry, the principal of The McMurtry
Group which provides strategic and tactical marketing and
public relations support to large and small businesses, reports
that there are three key “big business marketing”
strategies that doctors can do on a small business budget. They
are:
1. Know your
patients inside and out. McMurtry
suggests that you talk with them and do your homework to
determine what drives their decisions. She wonders, “What
criteria need to be met to win their confidence and
business?” It is also important to know what fears they
have associated with this type of practice or medical
specialty. McMurtry says, “When doctors know this, they
can create compelling messages that appeal to the emotions
behind the decisions and thus communicate with relevance and
meaning.” One surefire and inexpensive way to get to know
more about your patients and what they want is to create a
short list of questions, a survey, that you attach to the
patient history questionnaire that people fill out in your
office.
2. Add value. Many patients want as much information as
possible. You can easily make some “fact sheets” on
different diagnoses, medications, and so on, to hand out in
your office. Free open houses are another inexpensive way to
add value and build credibility.
3. Network. Build a network with other
physicians and allied health-care providers. This not only
helps you build your practice but also provides you with good
referral sources for your patients when they need outside help.
When I asked Jay Levinson, the author of
“Guerrilla Marketing for Free,” what his top three
“free” marketing tactics for physicians would be,
he suggested:
1. Write a
column or an article for your local newspaper. This gives you credibility and offers
people insight about you and your practice. It also helps to
establish you as an expert which is a key “guerrilla
marketing” technique. Keep in mind that you can make
copies of these articles and place them in your office or send
them out to patients and others.
2. Send
postcard reminders of upcoming appointments or appointments
that should be made. This is a
gentle way of reminding patients that you care about them and
their health. In a busy world, many of us need such a reminder
to follow up with our doctors.
3. Train all
office employees in customer service. At every office, there is a certain
“culture” that usually comes from the top. Be sure
that your office culture is one that promotes outstanding
customer service. A good way to monitor this is via anonymous
surveys. Often doctors don’t hear about complaints
because their administrative staff handles them. Still, you
want to know who is complaining about what and how often this
is occurring. It is good to remember that sometimes
administrative staff members will “protect” the
doctors from what is really going on in the office. Of course,
we are too busy to be involved in all the minutiae that
happens, but on the other hand, we don’t want major or
minor (but persistent) problems to continue without us having
the opportunity to intervene.
If your marketing budget is small or
nonexistent, you can still do a lot to build your practice
through tried and true marketing techniques. Although you
don’t need a big budget to market your practice, you do
need to develop a thoughtful and focused approach. Jeanette
McMurtry reminds us, “Referrals are dependent on much
more than skill—it’s the total experience that the
patient goes home with—the information, time waiting,
service, concern and personal attention from the doctor...all
of these are marketing.”
Julie Silver, MD is an assistant professor
at Harvard Medical School and the author of more than a dozen
books including the recently released, After Cancer Treatment:
Heal Faster, Better, Stronger. She is also the
director of the Harvard CME course, “Publishing Books,
Memoirs and Other Creative Nonfiction.”
