Steps to successful practice strategy
- Gathering information & scanning the environment.
- Conducting marketing research & forecasting demand.
- Creating customer value, satisfaction & loyalty.
- Identifying market segments and target.
- Dealing with competition.
- Creating brand equity. Crafting brand positioning.
- Setting dental services strategy.
- Designing & managing services.
- Developing pricing strategy & programs.
- Designing & managing integrated marketing communications. Mass communication & personal communication.
Clinic promotion tools
Marketing offers various tools to promote your hospital, choose a combination or mix of them which suits your marketing plan. Marketing tools includes:
- Advertising – outdoor and print
- Sales promotion
- Events and experiences
- Public relation, press, publicity campaign including celebrity endorsements.
- Direct marketing
- Interactive marketing
- Word of mouth marketing including buzz and viral marketing.
- Personal selling to professional references/individuals/institutions and corporate.
- Media – Print/electronic/E-campaign/social media/website promotion etc.
- Digital Marketing.
Promote cosmetic procedures
Expand your patient assessment from restorative/health issues to their aesthetic or cosmetic needs. As you do, you will find many patients looking for a non-invasive solution to restore and revitalize their cosmetic aspect. In dentistry, some feel uncomfortable marketing cosmetic dentistry. Marketing is really not a dirty word. When done professionally and ethically, it will inform, educate and motivate patients about how they can benefit from advances in technology. There’s no selling involved. Learn what your patients want to change and then provide your patients with the optimal cosmetic dentistry to have a brighter, more self-confident smile.
For survival and profitable practice
Control Overhead expenditures & unproductive assets and Invest more in patient friendly technology, Continuing patient education, CDE, Practice Marketing and brand development. Overhead expenditure control is very important for running your business with minimum risk and with profitability.
The secrets to success
Get more, keep more, do more, learn more.
Get more new patients
Keep existing Patients
Do little more for patients
And keep yourself up-date on technology
Simple steps to win Patient’s Loyalty
– Create personalized patient notes
– Show appreciation for referrals
– Give patients comfort level
– Courtesy calls
– Acknowledge any unsatisfactory experiences
Always Remember
Your only source of revenue is PATIENTS, everything else is expense. So focus all efforts in patients delight
Patient Retention Tools
– Make sure that the Patients feel comfortable in waiting area.
– Describe treatment plan in mother tongue.
– Interact with patients, build loyalty and reduce anxiety.
– Use Video aid in waiting area and show how easily treatments are done.
– Engage and educate your patients.
– Develop comfort level for your patients. Create comfort level.
– Interact with low literacy level patients in their own local language.
Myth: Selling is a dirty act.
If you won’t sell as you are well respected by patients and Peer group or ego issues, 96 % chances are that your competitor will get this business which actually belong to you. As CEO, it is your topmost task to sell your services in the market to make your business profitable.
People are emotional
People are emotional and they want recognition. Make a list of patients, wish them and their family a perfect smile. If possible offer them a free check-up. Invite them to your clinic in the message. Patient footfall is important.
Doctor’s reference
Make a list of local medical/ dental associations in your area, speak to the doctors of all medical specialties and ask them to refer you their patients for your issues, you also do the same for them. Many diseases have oral manifestation and dentists should refer such patients to the doctors of relevant specialty. This network is very simple but extremely useful in increasing your patient inflow.
Efforts to get corporate business
Local business visit. Make a list of companies within a 10 km radius of your Clinic. Personally deliver a lovely gift pack or a thank you card to the HR department of that company. Introduce yourself and thank the personnel manager. Present a medical benefit plan for the company offering them a special price. Organize free camps in their campus. Remember that HR departments receive little recognition in their daily work. Wonder who they will think of dentist-wise when an individual employee asks or at the company level, if they know a great family dentist?
Pricing of your medical services
Pricing is a deciding factor in making or breaking the commercial health of your clinic or hospital. Before setting up the price consider following factors:
your market segment and patient profile,
competition offering,
brand power of your clinic or hospital,
and the capacity of your target audience to pay.
An Incident
An interesting Marketing experience of my life when I was studying management. One day during a marketing lecture, I asked my guru on marketing about smart pricing. It was a Sunday and he took me to second hand book bazaar on the streets of New Delhi and asked to observe a book seller. This gentleman was selling books. A customer who was a college student visits him and ask price of a book, he says rupees 75. After some time another customer who seems to be from a good financial background goes to him and ask price of the same book, the shopkeeper says Rs 350. So, different customers and different prices and this was the catch. This incident provided me a different definition of pricing which says: PRICING IS THE ABILITY OF THE CUSTOMER TO PAY AND DIFFERENT CUSTOMERS HAVE DIFFERENT ABILITY FOR THE SAME PRODUCT OR SERVICE. I have successfully used this pricing method in various marketing decisions. And its ethical and you can differentiate your services into economy and premium.
Social media in promoting medical services
Social media can be one of the major tool for clinic promotion but depending entirely on it can be bad for your practice. Only use it as one of the tool of your promotional mix and must be utilized in synergy with the other promotional tools. If possible first define strategic role of social media in clinic promotion with a clear cut objective. Be very specific about what you wish to achieve and do some research which social media can be best utilized for optimization of resources.
Focus on Preventive healthcare
That’s the only way to get more and more new patients. Preventive health checkup and camps offers a great market potential as preventive market is more or less untapped.
Expand your Market in economic slow down
A dental example. The addition of sleep medicine to the practice of dentistry can be the most rewarding professional thing that a dental surgeon may include in his practice, it has been a wonderful cushion in a time of economic down-turn. If the absence of pain, bleeding or swelling, cosmetic dentistry, implants , a great deal of dental services are highly discretionary and can be delayed. However, people always need air and those people with sleep-breathing disorders have their air supply greatly reduced during the night as well as their quality of life during the day and their overall health. All they need is the proper information and a therapy that they can tolerate to accept treatment.
Make image of a busy doctor
Patients want to go to physicians who are popular, and popular means rich and famous and their practice must give the sense of being full and busy. Fully occupied and busy means successful, which translates into an outstanding provider giving patients outstanding service in a timely manner. PATIENTS DON’T MIND PAYING YOU PREMIUM IF YOU ARE FAMOUS, SO GO AND BECOME FAMOUS.
Come out of comfort zone
If you are looking ahead for a successful practice, come out of your Comfort Zone and take necessary action even if you do not like it.
Patient Retention
Make a complete updated list of all your existing and past patients, send them personalized greeting card wishing them good health and prove that you care. If possible offer them a free check-up for their loyalty and request them to recommend your services to their circle.
Distinctive Competitive Advantage
Give Patients 1 strong reason to visit your clinic in spite of 50 other clinics in the neighborhood. We call it Distinctive Competitive Advantage. If you do not have competitive advantage, do not compete.
90% verses 10%
Always remember: 90% of the Market share is in the hands of 10 % and rest 10% of market share is in the hands of 90%. Now it’s up to you to decide YOU WISH TO ENTER THE ELITE OF 10% OR WANT TO REMAIN WITH THE 90% MAJORITY.
Make your services visible
People don’t do business with strangers. They do business whom they know and trust. Every time a patient comes to clinic, give him special treatment, know and address him personally. Develop credibility and trust and always remember” JO DIKHTA HAI ,WO BIKTA HAI’. Make your services visible.
4 A’s in Practice Management
1. Access: make your clinic services easily accessible to your patients.
2. Affordability: Make your services affordable to your target audience.
3. Acceptability: Make your services acceptable to your target segment in terms of quality, & safety.
4. Accountability: make yourself and your staff accountable for their actions and patients.
The Five Things You DON’T Need to be Successful
A Big Infrastructure.
A super specialized degree.
Huge financial Investment.
Background
Advice-If you want to climb Mt. Everest, talk to someone who has already done it.
The Five Things You DO Need to be Successful
A Burning Desire & Passion to pursue medicine as number one choice.
A Positive & Winning Attitude.
Aggressive Business Plan including practice promotion Plan.
Innovation & Up-gradation.
A mission to succeed with a clear vision. Make a mission and vision statement for your organization and if possible a quality policy statement too.