In order to function at best capacity, specialty healthcare practices require a full spread of specialized focuses and factors, from education to attention to detail, staff, equipment and, of course, patients.
They also require specialized marketing strategies.
But that last element is a skillset that probably isn’t included in your otherwise impressive resume. Chances are unfortunately high that all your education-bound years in college, medical school and beyond didn’t teach you a single thing about marketing.
And why should they have? Marketing strategies, specialized or not, don’t teach you to identify the issues your specialty healthcare practice handles. They don’t train you to properly diagnose and treat the patients who come through your doors.
Isn’t that what you should be focusing on?
It is. Unequivocally.
However, the number of patients you see will be limited without the power of marketing on your side. As such, you and your new specialty healthcare practice have an array of advertising strategies to choose from.
You could:
- Take up golf. After all, other healthcare professionals love the game, including those who run family practices full of potential patients in need of your specialist skills. The same goes for surgeons who operate out of busy ER wards, making the back nine a face-to-face networking hotspot.
- Advertise your specialty services through more traditional marketing means. This includes taking ads out in the paper, buying spots on radio programs, renting billboard space and other such options.
- Hire a physician’s liaison or practice representative. Marketing might not be your specialty, but that’s specifically what these professionals are trained to do. They announce your presence to the local relevant medical community, talking you and your specialty healthcare practice up in glowing terms that bring patients through your doors.
Each of the three advertising strategies above certainly have their positive capabilities. But they also have their definite downsides. For instance:
- Taking up golf might not be on your natural inclinations list. spending so much time at the office already; your family deserves some attention too.Besides, few successful referrals are actually made on the green. Contrary to some ways of thinking, most people who pick up a golf club do so to swing said golf club, not to network.
- Advertising your specialty services through more traditional marketing means is a risky bet. Maybe your specific kind of patients still read traditional newspapers, but that number is dwindling by the day. Online marketing is oversaturated, and billboards are expensive.Plus, like the back nine, most specialty practices don’t get the bulk of their business from what other industries might consider “standard” marketing practices. You’re not most industries. You’re a specialty healthcare practice – and that’s an important advertising distinction to take into consideration.
- Hiring a physician’s liaison or practice representative means you’re also paying that person benefits on top of a salary. That can be costly, as you already know from your current payroll.It also takes time for physician’s liaisons and practice representatives to build up and then make profitable, professional use of the contacts he or she collects. And when it comes to running a business, marketing time really is money.That’s not something you want to lose if you don’t have to.
Fortunately, you don’t.
The #1 Way to Build a Quality Specialty Healthcare Practice
Doctor Referral Institute is already well-established and well-respected in its field. That means we already have the trusted name-brand recognition you’re looking for, which is half the battle.
As for the other half, DRI has that covered as well. We take our solid reputation right to your area for sit-down, face-to-face meetings with referring physicians.
This detail is crucial considering how those referring physicians don’t want to pass their patients on to just anyone. They need to know they can trust you and your specialty practice first. In which case, a mere phone call or email will not do.
That kind of genuine, knowledgeable, in-person touch – that’s the #1 way to build a quality specialty healthcare practice.
Here at DRI, we know our business of acquiring patient referrals – and we know it well. Thoroughly. Inside and out. As such, we’re already very familiar with numerous specialty healthcare practices and what they involve. Chances are, this includes yours.
Don’t turn your marketing strategy into a game – not even a great game of golf – with haphazard advertising outlets. Give your up-and-coming specialty healthcare practice the specialized care it needs.
That way, you’re free to give your own brand of specialized care to your new and continuing patients.