Marketing will save your business! Do it now with us!
I received a circular the other day, I am a terrible signer up-er, I swear all you need to do is wave a mailing list sign up at me and I am in. Anyway, back to the point, the circular was aimed at hearing healthcare professionals and Practice owners in particular. Basically the premise was, your business is knackered, down the tubes we tell you, but our marketing advice will save your ass!
Marketing alone will not save your ass
I don’t doubt the veracity of the company, nor do I doubt that their advice may lead to a marketing campaign that delivers sales. In fact I believe that marketing, intelligent, strategic marketing will play a part in the ongoing health of your Practice. So what’s the gripe fatty?I hear Miller say. Its simply this, marketing alone is not going to save your ass and I think the belief that it will, hurts a Practice.
I see it many times, a Practice has a slow month, panic ensues and an advert is arranged. Said advert is often rushed, often has some special offer which reduces margin and often brings middling results. That type of marketing is of little use to your Practice and its sustainability. Marketing should be planned out in a twelve month structure. It should be designed to assist the reduction of seasonality in your cash flow. It should assist your bottom line, not hurt it through lower margins during busy times.
Your key focus should be Patient retention and customer referral
The key thing that irritates me though is that everyone tends to focus on marketing. When the key to their survival and sustainability is often overlooked. Marketing is and should be a major concern for every Practice owner, but it should have slightly less focus than Patient retention and customer referral. Your key focus, with every other element being secondary, should be proper Practice management designed to deliver retention and referral.
Designing and implementing strategies that deliver retention and referral will pay off almost immediately. They pay off by ensuring that you take care of your Patients. That makes them happy, in fact if you do it right it will make them damned ecstatic. Ecstatic is what you want in your existing Patients. Because that is what will deliver sustainability to your Practice.
Regards
Geoff