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Old 04-03-2017, 07:35 PM
 
Location: Northern Colorado
4,932 posts, read 12,761,515 times
Reputation: 1364

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I work at an audiology office. Currently my boss wants 30 new patients a month. He has two clinics. He, himself, is a hearing aid dispenser and then we have another hearing aid dispenser, an insurance person, two audiologist, and two patient care coordinators.

I am a temp-to-hire patient care coordinator, so I am trying to prove my value to his clinic.

To you other medical businesses out there, does Yelp ads or Facebook ads make a difference? How important is Yelp in generating new patients?

Cost. Our biggest competitors is Costco. How do you beat them?

Referral services? Worth it, not worth it?

In our business, is going out to retirement homes benefecial?

Any advice is welcomed! Thanks!
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Old 04-05-2017, 07:00 AM
 
10,501 posts, read 7,039,478 times
Reputation: 32344
Well, it's not one thing. Rather, it needs to be a multi-pronged effort.

1) B2B -- You need to cultivate a market among physicians, especially those who specialize in the elderly and workman's comp issues. That way, getting referral business is a long-term priority. Lunch and learns, literature, and white papers are good ways to cultivate this market. However, please keep in mind that this is a long-term effort that requires patience. In addition, retirement communities are indeed a good place to consider. I would research your industry and see if there are any best practices in that regard.

2) Brand -- If you see customers going to Costco, that is a brand issue on your part. Chiefly, people are viewing your services strictly as a commodity when it is most decidedly not. Having a brand isn't a color choice or a logo makeover, but rather the continual reinforcement of value to the consumer. It is indispensable in your situation. So you need to have a discussion with your boss on what makes you different and better. I would recommend this book as a good way to learn about brand strategy in a hurry: https://www.amazon.com/22-Immutable-.../dp/0060007737

3) Digital efforts -- How is your website? Is it nicely designed? Does it have good SEO? Is it mobile-friendly? Is there a good bit of content for potential patients to read and evaluate? Does it have a clear path to move your site visitor to an engaged prospect? Only you can answer that. I'd go to Hubspot.com and get a basic, automated evaluation of the site (Warning in advance: They'll spam the hell out of you, so use a throwaway e-mail address) so see what your basic site weaknesses are.

Then find a decent site designer who can do a good job for you. You don't need something that's gold-plated, but you do need a quality design. And by that I do not mean some joker who does it in their basement at nights or on the weekend. There are a million guys out there who claim they can do a quality website for $500. But they are uniformly bad in a host of ways, from the quality of design to the programming to the SEO. In other words, you'll get exactly what you pay for.

4) Facebook, et al -- With your site up, you'll need to steer traffic to it. Otherwise, you've basically built a nice restaurant down a side road in the middle of the desert, hoping that drivers will happen on it. As I mentioned, SEO is important and requires patience. If you are not on the first page in a Google search, then you aren't trying hard enough.

Meanwhile, Facebook is an incredibly cheap way to drive people to your site. Have a business FB page, encourage people to like it, and use it extensively. Don't just use it to sell a bunch of stuff, because people will turn you off. Instead, populate your page with interesting content that is useful to the prospect. In other words, talk about them and their needs, not you and what you're trying to sell.

Finally, create a campaign on Facebook that reaches people in your core demographic. The manufacturers of the devices should have reams of market research data available to help you dial in on your sweet spot in terms of demographics.

5) Traditional advertising. Given the specialized nature of your services, you will need to be highly judicious in this area, choosing a publication or two that really dials in on the needs of your core market. For example, most larger markets have a newspaper centered around the needs of the elderly. Place benefits-driven ads in those publications and evaluate your response. Also, as a quid pro quo for your advertising dollars, see what value-added things they can provide, such as an article, etc.

6) Track everything. Your website should have analytics built in, so you can analyze traffic: Where it comes from, where it goes on your site, what interests them most.

7) Be patient. Getting 30 new patients a month is a good objective. But it's highly unrealistic to expect that to happen overnight. The machinery has to be in place to generate those kinds of leads. You need to create the foundation for finding people and make sure your boss commits to it, in investment of both money and time. Otherwise, you're being given responsibility without simultaneously being given the tools to do the job.

Hope that helps.

Last edited by MinivanDriver; 04-05-2017 at 07:39 AM..
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Old 04-07-2017, 01:41 PM
 
10,501 posts, read 7,039,478 times
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Man. All that good advice, and....bupkis.
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