Healthcare Success Strategies: 3 Best Tips

25 Nov Healthcare Success Strategies: 3 Best Tips

Whether you manage a dental office or veterinary clinic, healthcare success strategies rely on patient engagement, community appeal, and factors that set your practice apart from the competition. For this reason, your marketing strategy needs to keep aware of the needs of your audience, both new and old. Here, we’ve compiled 3 important tips to create a truly successful marketing plan — and revitalize your practice in today’s changing landscape.

1. Get your feedback straight from the source.

Patient engagement encompasses a huge swath of material, especially in today’s era of social media and mobile devices. When you’ve engaged your patients, you’ve met their needs on a base level that surpasses their expectations and makes them feel truly welcomed — like they are a part of your practice. You can’t just create this feeling with a few choice magazines in the waiting room, of course. Instead, healthcare success strategies rely on patient-centric practices that solicit responses and encourage an open line of communication.

How can you create this in your practice? Well, start with the simplest step in healthcare success strategies: Ask your patients what they’re missing from your medical office. Even if your practice is meeting all their physical needs, maybe your patients would appreciate the opportunity to easily charge their phone while they wait — or maybe access to a public WiFi network would make common areas in your practice a lot more enjoyable. Direct feedback is also a great way to get a sense of what patients like from their other healthcare providers; if a patient sees a separate doctor for another service and really enjoys that office’s interior design, for instance, that may be your cue that it’s time to reevaluate the way your office’s aesthetics make patients feel.

Additionally, if your practice isn’t already on social media, get started now. Facebook and Twitter are amazing resources when it comes to directly answering patient’s questions and getting a sense of what your audience wants to know. Facebook tends to be a more popular service for healthcare providers, partially because its layout makes it easier to track comments without a character limit — so, if you’re looking for a place to start, focus your efforts on Facebook first. Your healthcare success strategy can begin with something as easy as starting “FAQ Friday,” or something similar, in which you spend some time during your way posting answers to frequently asked questions, or soliciting comments from your followers.

2. Incorporate your community.

When you mention your practice’s name to people in your neighborhood, do they recognize it immediately? If they don’t, why not? Healthcare success strategies are only truly successful when they encourage patients to align themselves with the unique services and experience your practice offers, and a great way to get there is to give your community an opportunity to form bonds with your practice’s resources. For instance, if you are willing to dedicate time to offering a free class or lecture related to community health, advertise the class and encourage people to visit for free. Provide refreshments, make it a short and sweet experience, and be sure to spend some time mentioning the other offerings that make your medical office a special palace.

The benefits of community engagement are boundless — whether it’s through a class, sponsoring a local team, or participating in citywide events as a representative of your office. You are taking an active role in healthcare success strategies by putting your name out into your neighborhood and associating it with positive, helpful things; this can encourage brand recognition and word-of-mouth marketing, both of which are important parts of making your practice shine among the competition.

3. Stand out among the rest.

People always have a choice about what healthcare provider they choose — which means that your healthcare success strategies need to showcase why your practice is the best. Patient engagement and community participation are just two ways you can better market your brand, but competitor analysis is also an important part of healthcare marketing research. Working with a healthcare marketing firm can illustrate exactly what works for your competitors, and how you can use this information to better suit your practice’s needs.

Interested in learning more? Contact the HealthCare Marketing Group for more information!