Getting a stable and consistent influx of new patients remains one of the biggest challenges for most medical and dental practices. The next major challenge your practice may experience is keeping the patients you already have and ensuring they return for years to come.
Simple marketing techniques, when done correctly, can help with both.
Planned, budgeted and consistent campaigns can reach both new and returning patients. Of the endless supply of tactics, here are 3 simple aspects to focus on. Each is important, but what’s even more important, is that they’re executed with consistency.
1. Always Have a Solid Website
Patients have more options, and more access to information, than ever before. These days, everything starts with your website. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Dentist, Chiropractor, Acupuncturist or some other specialty.
The foundation of any serious business, whether it’s healthcare or something else, is the website. It’s the first representation of your practice that any potential client, customer or patient will be exposed to. Patients will search around, gather information and short-list providers before they pick up the phone and make a call to any office. Your clinic website needs to be professional, informative and easy to navigate with consistent branding throughout every page.
The next step, once you have a perfect website, is making sure potential patients are able to discover it. Social media is free to use and an easy way to push would-be patients towards your website. Digital Pay Per Click campaigns may come with an additional expense but it’s more effective than any other form of paid advertising.
2. Send Marketing Emails
Sending emails is free and easy. You already have basic information about your patient database, make use of it. Sending marketing emails brings recipients back to your website and back into your clinic.
There are a few different ways you can do this:
- eCards can be sent for patient birthdays, major holidays
- Invitations to special events or notifications of limited pricing, products or services
- Newsletters sent out weekly, monthly or quarterly can inform, educate or entertain your audience of patients.
These types of marketing emails will keep your audience engaged, raise awareness and keep you top-of-mind with a consistent foothold in the recipient’s inbox.
3. Answer Every Single Phone Call
Nothing hurts more than unrealized potential, and that’s what each missed call represents. In this day and age of immediately accessible information, your next patient isn’t going to wait for regular operating hours to get that first question answered. They’ll simply move on to the next provider.
A live answer phone service captures all of that missed potential, gains that first visit, and continues to earn the trust of a long-term, dedicated patient. With a live answer phone service like Midwest Answer, you have the power to toggle between your front-desk staff and a professionally trained Midwest Answer team member.
Midwest Answer can help you grow the success of your clinic by supporting you with a professional live answering service that provides:
- 24/7/365 live customer support
- Medical / Dental (HIPPA compliant) telephone communications
- Simple month-to-month pricing without contracts or hidden fees
- Customized options for specialized needs without a minimum call volume
- Calls are recorded for quality assurance
From after hours, to overflow to just taking a break from the phone.
Call us, and let’s start talking about how Midwest Answer can become a part of your consistently successful marketing plan that includes a 24/7/365, HIPAA-compliant phone answering service.
Midwest Answer provides telephone answering and virtual receptionist services. For nearly 50 years we’ve handled calls for a variety of business sectors, 24/7/365. From call volumes of just a few per week to thousands per day. And entirely within US-based call centers. With simple, flat-rate monthly pricing that doesn’t include contracts or hidden fees.
