Importance of Healthcare Marketing

The first thing that often gets ‘cut’ from a budget is marketing. To us marketing is one of those imperative things that you must be undertaking.

WHY?

Times are changing in the healthcare industry, insurance premiums are rising, Medicare rebates are becoming stagnant, running expenses are on the rise, patients are trying to seek less care as they can’t afford it and there is always competition!

For your practice to grow you must have an effective marketing strategy in place to attract new patients, retain the patients that you already have, maintain relationships with other referrers and retain good staff. And all whilst running an efficient practice.

Healthcare marketing is just not creating a fancy website, sending out flyers and putting on a breakfast. It is also about understanding your target market, building good relationships, patient or referrer service/satisfaction, service offering (diversification) and ensuring the correct marketing mix for your business:

You need to make sure that if you do conduct marketing activities (e.g. SMS reminders, website, e-newsletters) you measure the success based upon a strong return on investment (ROI). If you are not getting the desired result, change what you are doing.

It is also important that practices have a marketing plan in place. The marketing plan commits to writing the marketing objectives, strategies and tactics; it service as an invaluable business tool.