Before your medical practice opens for business, it’s important to create a strategic marketing plan that will help you find new patients and put your practice on the map. A marketing plan is a blueprint that outlines all areas of your marketing, from direct mailings and referrals to online marketing and social media. Here are some of the most important elements of a strong medical practice marketing plan:
A clear cut timeline…
- Develop a short and long-term timeline that describes your marketing plans both now and in the future.
- This timeline should include how you plan on reaching out to prospective patients, as well as when and how often.
- A strongly defined target market Your marketing plan should include a clear description of the type of patients you’d like to market to, as well as how you can serve them better than the competition.
Offline marketing tactics…
- Keeping your target market in mind, decide which offline marketing tactics, such as direct mailings, advertisements, referral programs, and press will resonate most strongly with your prospective patients.
Online marketing tactics…
- Be sure to include plans for online marketing as well, including website design, social media, email marketing, and Search Engine Optimization.
Budget Your marketing plan should include a budget breakdown for every area of your marketing. Determine how much you can spend on marketing each month, and set aside time to determine the ROI of each marketing tactic in your plan. Not all marketing tactics are right for all medical practices. In the beginning, trial and error is the best way to see which methods get results, and which methods don’t. The most important thing to remember when creating a marketing plan is that you will need to continually tweak your plan based on patient response.
To learn more about doctor credentialing, insurance, coding, outsourcing, and everything you need to establish a successful healthcare practice, follow all of Sherlock Doc’s adventures on the DoctorsBusinessNetwork.com or Doctors Business Channel on YouTube!.
