Online and print publications give growing medical practices a chance to market to prospective patients while increasing their authority as medical experts. But with thousands of medical publications in print and on the web, how can you tell where to spend your precious marketing budget? Here are 4 proven ways to make publication marketing work for you:
#1: Set specific goals
What outcome do you want to achieve with publication marketing? If your goal is to find new patients, the publication you choose will be very different than if you’re looking to build an expertreputation on a national scale. First determine a specific goal for your marketing campaign, which will help you create a strategic publication marketing strategy.
#2: Mix it up
If your goals including finding new patients and establishing your practice as a leader in your chosen field, you’ll want to appear in a variety of different publications. This might include advertising in well-respected medical journals, giving interviews in local newspapers, and using services like Help A Reporter Out (HARO) to appear in national magazines and other publications.
#3: Choose the right publications
The publications you target should be read by those people you want to market to. If your main goal is to find new patients, there’s no point in pursuing publication marketing with a highly specialized medical journal they’re unlikely to read.
#4: Analyze your ROI
After pursuing publication opportunities in medical journals, trade papers, online magazines and local media, calculate the time and expense in terms of your Return On Investment (ROI). If it took you seven hours to secure an interview with a national newspaper, and the interview resulted in 3 new patients, it’s clear that your practice has made a profit and you should focus on that type of publication marketing on an ongoing basis.
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