Starting out in private practice can be a balancing act for your finances – growth depends on an investment of time and or money – and right now, you may not have much of either.
Here are three simple marketing tips for the grassroots growth of your private medical practice.
Marketing Tips to Grow Your Medical Practice
Let’s get started!
Brand It
Your brand is much more than just your logo, fonts and colours you choose for your medical practice. Your brand is a reflection of your patients experience and how people perceive your practice, these factors create an emotional connection with your logo and contribute to a patient choosing your practice or the next.
It starts with your marketing, a unique and memorable brand identity will stick in the minds of referring doctors and patients. This should lead to more referrals, more loyalty and more financial stability.
Our advice to private practices is to keep it simple and avoid brand and design trends, which tend to date faster.
Tip: Make sure you consult the marketing guidelines for Australian medical practices.
Create a Website
The world lives on the internet – and the first thing you can expect referring doctors and patients to do when they see your name is to Google you. A few photos of you, your colleagues, the consult rooms, and the fit-out can build a sense of safety and trust in you and your practice.
Use a free tool like Wix, Squarespace or even WordPress to create and host a simple website. Then, apply your unique brand – including your logo, colour scheme and a short biography to tell people about your experience and values as a practitioner.
Use Social Media
Use Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to extend the imprint of your brand to other spaces online. Follow other practitioners in your community and engage with them to increase recognition of your practice and give people a peek at your humanity “behind the curtain”. Moreover, the bigger the imprint your practice makes online, the more your practice will appear organically in search results for specialist practices like yours.
Tip: We know you’re busy, so use a free social media tool like Later or Buffer to schedule posts for your social media accounts several weeks ahead of time.
In summary
Your brand is built to be a true representation of who you are as a business, and how you wish to be perceived. Keep it simple and ask yourself, as a customer is this ‘what I would want to see?’ Make sure your website is easy to navigate and most importantly, your patients can book an appointment or easily get in contact with you. Create social media accounts where your patients are likely to be and post regularly to reach them.
Want to learn more about getting your practice up and running? Check out our New to Private Practice Guide
