Marketing Your Private Medical Practice: Here’s What You Need to Know
Physicians decide to start their medical practice for a variety of reasons, but it’s usually because they want to be their own boss and not have to answer to anyone else. However, managing your own practice means all of the responsibilities fall on your shoulders, but it’s still an exciting step to take if you choose to do so.
You’re also going to want to make sure that your practice is successful— especially since you’ve put a lot of money into it.
All businesses are successful when they have people paying for their products or services, and business owners need to know how to effectively market their business in order for this to happen.
Make Sure You’re Prepared to Open Before You Market
Before you can start marketing your new practice, you first need to make sure that you’ve checked everything off of your list. Opening a business of any kind takes a lot of hard work and time, so it’s important to make sure you have everything covered.
So you’ve decided which type of medical practice you’d like to open (solo practice, group practice, etc.), and you’ve created your business plan and received financing for everything you’re going to need to house and equip your practice:
- Commercial building in a prime location
- Medical equipment and supplies
- Credit card processor
- Medical billing service
- Medical transcription software
- Electronic health record system
- Practice management system
- Furniture for the waiting room
You’ll also need to make sure all of the legal aspects are in order before you open. This includes establishing your practice as a legal entity and obtaining a tax ID and purchasing business insurance (including medical malpractice insurance).
Also Read: How Lawyers and Attorneys Can Benefit From Digital Marketing?
Create a Business Website
Once you’re prepared to open, you’re going to need to let people know that your practice exists. This is where a business website can help you advertise that.
Using SEO (search engine optimization) techniques, your website will rank higher in search engines like Google when people search for doctor’s offices near their location.
When potential patients do come across your website, you’ll want to make sure they get as much information as possible. Of course, the name of your practice should be clearly visible on the homepage.
Next, you’ll want to make sure that there’s an “About” section on your website that tells about your practices and the other physicians working there. You should also include:
- The address of your practice
- The phone number/email to your practice
- Your hours of operation
- A way for patients to make an appointment (online, calling, etc.)
Utilize Social Media
Social media marketing is just as effective as having a website. Having a strong online presence is a great way to market your practice.
All of the most popular social media platforms allow entrepreneurs to create business profiles to help market their business and gain more customers/clients, or in a physician’s case, patients. Consider one or more of the following to create your business profile:
Some physicians even utilize platforms like TikTok and Snapchat to promote their business. The bottom line is to use whichever social media platform that works best for you. However, LinkedIn and Facebook are the best options for medical practices— and for those who aren’t social media savvy.
Also Read: Every Marketer’s Guide to Flyer Marketing
Don’t Forget About Employees
Because you’ve been in the medical field for a while (including your residency), you probably know of a lot of other physicians who may want to work for you. If not, you can always post to job search sites to let professionals know that you are hiring physician assistants, nurses, receptionists, and other employees you’ll need.
You can also benefit even more by hiring a recruitment marketing agency to help you market your practice towards physicians and other healthcare workers.
Also, remember that you’ll need to get workers’ compensation insurance when you hire workers, and establish all procedures and policies you expect your employees to follow. This includes things like interactions with patients, data entry, and billing.
For any business to be successful, you need to know the latest marketing strategies that will help you attract customers/clients/patients and employees. Your business needs both people you provide services to and people to help you provide those services.
By far, digital marketing (marketing that occurs online) is the most effective way for you to market your practice, but traditional marketing strategies (newspaper ads, billboards, local radio/TV ads, etc.) can also be effective since your target audience is right in your local community. You can even try a combination of digital and traditional marketing.
