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Archives : Marketing
Vantage Forums: Email Marketing Frequency for Healthcare Providers
Email marketing by healthcare providers is a great way to stay “on the radar screen” with patients/clients that don’t visit the office on a regular basis. And while visits to the office may be irregular, this segment of your practice can be quite sizable, warranting special marketing attention to prevent patient switching to other providers who may have aggressive marketing fronts.
Email marketing is a fantastic way to stay in front of your clients, and in a way that is helpful, inexpensive,…and not annoying. To find the fine line between helpful and annoying however, requires relevant content in bite-sized chunks, and at a frequency that is palatable.
So how often should you be sending email to your patients/clients? As with most things, there is no single answer, but the article below from Small Business Branding does a nice job of outlining the process for determining a frequency that works for you…and most importantly, your patients and clients.
via Vantage Forums: Email Marketing Frequency.
Vantage Forums: iPhone App Improves Patient Satsfaction
A new iPhone application improves patient satisfaction and reduces wait times at a Central Connecticut hospital system. Now how’s that for innovative marketing…
http://bit.ly/dwZqg1
via Vantage Forums: iPhone App Improves Patient Satsfaction.
Vantage Forums: Health Insurance Coverage by State
The US Census Bureau has tons of great information that can be used to perform effective market analysis. One area that we didn’t cover in detail during the Market Analysis 101 presentation was the ability to obtain information on the health insured in the US.
This page (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/ … index.html) of the US Census website provides links to historical health insurance tables which break down the insured and uninsured by state, age, historical year, type of insurance, and more. It’s a great resource.
via Vantage Forums: Health Insurance Coverage by State.
Vantage Forums: County Health Rankings Website
During a recent Market Analysis presentation at CSM 2010, I mentioned a website link that was referenced in a recent email by the APTA. The website is called “County Health Rankings” and the url is www.countyhealthrankings.org. This is an excellent resource for market health data at the county level and provides a number of data categories as well as an explanation of the data collection methodology and relevance for each. Really a great resource and I recommend you bookmark it…remember, data is EVERYWHERE!
via Vantage Forums: County Health Rankings Website.
Social media in healthcare – it has to be used correctly
Social media is great for healthcare practices – it’s free (at least it can be), it’s easy (once you know what you’re doing), and it’s fun. The thing is…social media also has to be effective in order for it to make sense for a healthcare practice, and this isn’t always the case.
Check out an article from HealthLeadersMedia.com (below) which discusses how – at least in the hospital environment – social media lacks the traction that many healthcare marketers hope for.
Nine in 10 hospitals use social media to some degree, but most of them say they’re having little luck attracting new patients with it, and only one in three has a formal social media plan in place, a new study by Greystone.Net shows.
via Few Hospitals Use Social Media Effectively, Says Study.
Health care branding…What to do when your customers don’t like you
I read an interesting blog post today from Turducken, which dealt – rather pointedly – about the frustrating maze of health care insurance brands that each own a piece of his mindshare even though he has (on the face of it) a single insurance provider. The writer goes on to explain that perhaps the confusion, dilution, and integration of a number of brands together when the consumer is dissatisfied with the services provided (as many are with their healthcare insurance companies) – is a good thing.
Branding, as a concept, is enhanced when brands are clear, relevant, and simple – so as to be memorable and perhaps even own a piece of our thoughts as we navigate our purchasing decisions. However, maybe it’s that the insurance companies don’t want to be remembered, and instead prefer to be entangled and intertwined as part of their marketing strategy, thus being able to land their share of the money that flows from member to insurer to provider without falling accountable to the harsh and oft debatable coverage decisions that are made.
You know, in most businesses, brand recognition is considered a highly desirable thing. How else will the customer know to request Acme products? I guess in businesses where your customers hate you, they want to make sure they don’t know your name.
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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO. Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.
Blogging in healthcare: The power of instant communication
Blogging can (and should) be considered a powerful strategy used for marketing, publicity, and even damage control for an organization who’s stakeholders exist online. For small private practices and large healthcare organizations alike, the power of blogging to reach an audience is often underestimated. The article below from Health Leaders Media does a great job of outlining the benefits of a blogging strategy for healthcare providers, as well as some tips on who and how blogging should be performed.
A blog can be a powerful way to get a hospital’s message out to the public, says Mark Whitman, vice president of digital marketing at Ohio-based brand consulting firm Northlich. “A big advantage of blogs is that information can be shared quickly among all stakeholders,” he says. “Quick response and sharing of information can help stop misinformation and rumors that can be very damaging during times of crisis.”
via Hospital Blogs Can Help During Times of Controversy | www.healthleadersmedia.com
Keyword advertising: The new standard in private practice marketing
Do you advertise your practice in the yellow pages?
It’s likely that you do, and for good reason. Your competitors probably advertise there, and historically speaking the yellow pages have come to be recognized as the gold standard for private practice advertising.
Over time, standards change though, and we’d like to bring you up to speed with an effective advertising channel that has become popular over the past several years in private practice – keyword ads.
Keyword ads, also known as “pay-per-click” or “sponsored search” advertising, do exactly as the name implies – they display your ad next to search results for specific keywords online.
So, if you have a physical therapy practice in Denver, CO, then you might want to have your ad show up when people type “physical therapy Denver, CO” into Google.
That same practice might also want to reach people that haven’t even thought of physical therapy after an injury. This could be achieved by sponsoring the keywords “back pain Denver, CO” or “sports injury Denver, CO.”
The beauty of this is threefold.
First, people who Google “physical therapy Denver, CO” are probably looking for one thing – physical therapy in Denver, CO. It’s likely that this is your target market.
Second, you only pay for the ad when somebody clicks on it. And if they look at it and don’t click through to your website? You guessed it – you don’t pay. It’s pay-for-performance at it’s best.
Third, you have full control of your budget. If you want to pay $1.00/day for your ad – go for it. Your ad will be pulled immediately after you hit your daily budget. If you want to pay $5.00/day for the week prior to an upcoming special program or event, you can do that too. You have full control, and can change at any time.
So let’s say you pay $50/mo. for your yellow pages listing. This equates to $1.64/day. You pay that amount whether or not someone ever looks for a physical therapist, and regardless of whether or not they ever give you a call.
That same $1.64/day could be applied only to clicks through to your website, a much more targeted, performance-based, and controlled use of your advertising dollar.
So, if you’re advertising in the yellow pages, make sure the investment is paying off for your practice. There are reasons that the yellow pages still make sense.
But if you’re interested in paying only for clicks through to your website, know that keywords ads exist as an effective alternative to reaching your target market.
As always, we’re here to help, so if you have any questions about your advertising performance, know that we’re just a call or click away.
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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO. Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.
Build your practice using Twitter and Facebook
Odds are, you’ve heard about Twitter and Facebook by now. But did you know these simple social media tools can actually help build your practice?
They can, and actually do for many practices throughout the country. Social media, while possessing mass appeal for the casual online user, has found a niche for both big and small businesses alike…and healthcare is no exception.
From hospitals to healthcare clinics, businesses are using social media to attract and retain new clients. Here are a few examples of healthcare practices that are using social media to effectively reach their markets.
Apex Physical Therapy (via Twitter)
Elmbrook Family Dental (via Facebook)
Detroit Medical Center (via Twitter)
In case you’re wondering…we’re using it too. Check us out below, and feel free to give us a “follow” if you’d like to see how we’re using the technology to help our clients.
Follow Vantage on Twitter
Follow Vantage on Facebook
And don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like to know how you can build your practice with social media. It’s easier than you might think.
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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO. Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.
Choosing a new primary care doctor: What the media is saying
Here’s a great clip from ABC News that discusses a framework for choosing a primary care physician. Knowing what the media is telling patients about how to find providers is an important step toward setting up marketing messages and systems that will help attract and retain a loyal following.
- Ask family and friends who they trust
- Find out where your doctor is affiliated
- Check the doctor’s credentials
- Find out the doctor’s accessibility
- Find out what your doctor will cost
Click here for the ABC News video
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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO. Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.
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