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Marketing to younger patients is very different than marketing to Baby Boomers and their parents. Generation X, born from 1965 through 1979, has already embraced technology although not to the extent that Generation Y has. Generation X-ers will still respond to traditional media but less so than even their older siblings. They are not going to the yellow pages, they’re going to Google. They are not responding as much to print ads, direct mail or broadcast media like television and radio. They are scouring the web for information to make educated decisions on the products and services they buy.
They’re also on Facebook, sharing information with their friends and others in their social network. Generation Y is even more difficult to reach in that they utilize multiple forms of social media, including Twitter.
It’s important not only to have a presence on the web to reach both generations, but also to have proper search engine optimization and even use Pay-Per-Click so that these generations will actually get to your website. And once they do, you’re going to need a professional, comprehensive and interactive website that will satisfy their thirst for information.
Generation X-ers have embraced social media although they may not be spending as much time on Facebook and Twitter as Generation Y. Social media should definitely be part of your marketing strategy for reaching Generation X.
Generation Y
Generation Y includes those born in 1980 and later. The front end of Generation Y is already in their early thirties, they have families, they’re making health care decisions, and they certainly get their information differently than their parents and their grandparents did. Reaching them is not as easy as simply having a website and driving traffic to your website through proper search engine optimization and Pay-Per-Click.
It’s more about interacting with them through social media, which includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn (mainly used for professionals), and blogs. Social media is like word of mouth media taken online. Years ago, one of our parents may have been at a party or social gathering and talked to a friend or neighbor who recommended a doctor or a dentist. Social media is really the same conversation, but taken online. People trust who they know for advice on who to go to. So, you need more than just a website, you need a complete online strategy that includes SEO and social media.
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
The “Baby Boomer” generation is the next generation after the “Greatest Generation” we discussed in my previous blog. This is a very large generation as they represent babies born after the world wars from 1946 to 1964. Although this is considered one generation, those at the front end of the baby boomer generation tend to be marketed to like you would “The Greatest Generation” because they grew up using traditional media. Towards the back end of the baby boomers, you find the first group to embrace today’s technology in a big way.
While someone born in the late 1940’s may not be using email very frequently, or on Google searching for products and services, a boomer born in 1960 very likely would. So, the key to marketing to baby boomers is not to have all your eggs in one basket. Spread your marketing budget across multiple media. Baby boomers still read the newspaper, they still respond to direct mail, they watch TV and listen to radio. Even within these media you should spread your budget across 2 or more. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. In addition, Boomers also surf the web and communicate by email. Consider all these as viable options to reach boomers, and more.
Baby Boomers have also embraced social media. As one striking example, consider that the fastest growing demographic segment among Facebook users is women over the age of 55.
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
All of us are used to getting our information in different ways. Each of us may have different preferred methods of communication as well. In large part this is determined by our age. Our parents and grandparents grew up in a time where the technology that’s available today was not an option. So, it stands to reason that our parents and grandparents usually won’t be emailing as much as we do, or spending as much time on Google surfing the web for information on various products and services.
It’s important for your practice to communicate with your patients in ways that they prefer and are used to. Examining the ways different generations tend to get their information will help you determine the best way to communicate with patients of different ages.
The Greatest Generation, the title of a book by Tom Brokaw, refers to the generation that grew up in the first and second world wars. These are today’s seniors. Seniors tend to want to get information through traditional media. They still go to the yellow pages. They still read the newspaper. The Direct Marketing Association still reports that older generations will provide higher response rates to direct mail.
So, if your target audience tends to be seniors, as it often will be for audiologists who dispense hearing instruments or cardiologists for example, then you shouldn’t ignore these traditional media: yellow pages, print ads, and direct mail. By the way, they still watch television and listen to the radio, so keep these in mind as well.
If this generation represents the bulk of your patients, then although it’s still important for every practice to have a professional, comprehensive, and interactive website, it’s not as important to market online. It’s not as important to drive traffic to your website for these older generations as it would be for younger generations that will primarily use Google and the top search engines to look for the kinds of services you provide.
I would certainly suggest that you capture the email addresses of your senior patients and email them regularly as a marketing tool. Seniors are using email to communicate with friends and family. How else could they get pictures of their grandkids these days?
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
I get asked very often “should I have a suggestion box in my office for patients to provide me feedback?” I usually answer that I’m a big fan of having Patient Satisfaction Surveys because they can be great marketing tools. Yes, marketing tools! Most patients will gladly complete a Patient Satisfaction Survey. Most of the feedback is positive but some may prefer to provide this information to you anonymously. This is more commonly the case with patients who are basically satisfied and don’t want to damage their relationship with you, but have a couple of constructive criticisms they’d like you to address.
The suggestion box can be an ideal place for patients to provide additional feedback along with their completed satisfaction surveys. Encourage them to provide the feedback and provide their name so you can respond directly to any concerns they may have. But if they are apprehensive at all about it and want to do it anonymously, then they can drop it in the suggestion box on their way out.
There are several benefits of doing surveys. You can find out the constructive criticisms that you may be able to use to improve your practice. This can be very helpful, especially if you’re really willing to make changes and the changes are feasible. Some changes may not be practical, so you can explain to your patient why and turn a perceived problem into a benefit.
Yet even more importantly, the real power of Patient Satisfaction Surveys is to capture all of the positive feedback and determine who your raving fans really are. Remember, most of the feedback that you’ll get will be positive. When you’ve identified satisfied patients, and sometimes even raving fans, this enables you to use them for testimonials in your marketing. Plus, you’ll know exactly who to ask for referrals. Especially if you word the last question like this: “Is your overall satisfaction with our practice high enough to be willing to refer friends and family to us”?
Testimonials can be used on your website, in print ads, direct mail pieces, and case studies. So, don’t be afraid to ask for suggestions. Don’t be afraid of what you’re going to hear. You should hear it. Most of it is not going to be negative. It’ll be positive and actually provide you with additional marketing benefits.
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
Internal marketing to current patients is very cost-effective. It’s “low hanging fruit” because your patients already know you and trust you. Most practices have a huge opportunity to generate more revenue from existing patients. Here are a few examples.
Your patients can self-refer themselves back to your practice for additional services beyond the ones you’ve already performed for them. You can do this using direct mail, email, posters, video, and simply using your collateral materials in your office to discuss additional services with them. You also have a huge opportunity with these satisfied patients, many of whom are raving fans, to get referrals.
Here’s a tip that generates huge referrals: Any time a patient gives you (or a staff member) a compliment or provides you with positive feedback about the service they’ve received, that’s the perfect time to ask for a referral. Here’s what you should say: “Thank you Mrs. Jones! I’m so happy to have been able to help you and it’s been a pleasure having you as my patient. I’d love to have more patients like you. Let me give you something”. Then, hand your patient a “pass-along certificate”.
A pass-along certificate is a fold-over certificate that is given to a patient to pass along to someone else they know to generate a referral. It typically has an offer such as a free consultation or discussion. Tell them that they should give it to someone they know: perhaps a friend, family member, co-worker or neighbor that may be in need of the services that you provide. Be sure to tell your patients that if they know any other people who might like these certificates as well, that you’ll be happy to provide them with more. This tip not only makes it easier to ask for referrals, but it also puts a valuable tool in their hands to actually generate a referral.
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
Another important way to communicate with your patients is electronically. I encourage all of my clients to capture patients’ email addresses at the time they set appointments. You certainly want to get it, at the last resort, on the patient intake form when they come in. But when you capture the email address when they set the appointment, you can send your electronic version of the New Patient Kit to that patient right away.
Now your “Welcome to the Practice” letter can be in email form and you can also send an electronic version of your brochure, your “e-brochure”, with that initial email. E-brochures are very high-tech marketing tools that have become increasingly popular over the last two years. They reinforce the perception that you’re a cutting edge practice and provide patients with information about your practice.
This reinforces that they’ve made the right decision in choosing you. They just called your office and haven’t met you yet, but there they sit looking at your e-brochure in their living room on their computer screen! You can either send your eBrochure as an attachment to your email or as a link to a page where they can download it themselves. Once it’s up on their screen they can easily flip through the pages.
If your practice has an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system you want your “Welcome to the Practice” email letter to send patients directly to your website to complete their New Patient Intake Forms online.
New Patient Intake Forms can easily be converted into interactive forms on your website and linked directly and securely so they’re completely HIPAA-compliant. So once they submit their forms, that information will go directly into your system. Easy for them, no need to re-enter their data for you…
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
In my last blog, I talked about the value of sending new patients a welcome letter. I suggested you send them a “Welcome to the Practice” letter, giving them a summary understanding of what they can expect to be a new patient at your practice and reinforce that they made the right choice to come to you.
Along with this letter, I also recommend that you send a “New Patient Kit” to every new patient. This kit has repeatedly proven to reduce the number of no shows. It also provides another important marketing benefit with your new patients.
Your welcome letter may include your expertise, your commitment to providing the best patient experience, your dedicated, caring and compassionate staff… Whatever is unique about your practice should be reinforced in this letter.
In addition to the welcome letter, you should send a copy of your brochure. Every practice should have a comprehensive brochure outlining all their services and also reinforcing the elements that make them unique. You also want to explain why the patient made the right choice in choosing you in the first place.
You should also include a copy of your marketing resume which I like to call “a CV on steroids”. This lists your education, experience and training, plus creates an emotional connection between you and your patient before they’ve even met you. The marketing resume is addressed in greater detail in previous blogs on this site. Adding these important collateral materials to your new patient kit will send your new patient the important message that you’re professional and the “go-to” practice that they intended to see. This connection with your new patients is important to decrease no-shows and get the patient excited about their appointment.
Also include copies of your new patient intake forms so they can complete them prior to coming into your office. This will save time and staff hours and allow patients to fill out these forms in the privacy and comfort of their homes.
Send this “New Patient Kit” whenever the new patient’s appointment is scheduled more than three days in advance. When the patient’s appointment is three days or more from the time they make the appointment, the chances of them canceling or becoming a no-show increases significantly. If the appointment is less than three days in advance then don’t mail this kit to them, simply hand it to them when they arrive.
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
When you have a new patient who’s committed to the first appointment you need to make them feel welcome. You want to reinforce that they’ve made a wise decision and chosen the right practice. You also want to make sure that they actually show up for their first appointment. For some practices no-shows are a significant problem.
No-shows may occur for reasons other than inconvenience for the patient. In fact, when most people find their appointment becomes inconvenient they’ll usually call in advance to reschedule the appointment at a more convenient time. Inconvenience is usually not the greatest source of no-shows.
Many patients have made an emotional decision to come see you in the first place because they responded to some kind of marketing that you’ve done. They may have seen your website or a print ad or received a direct mail piece. This struck a chord with them and they made an emotional decision to choose your practice. A patient that’s been referred by a friend or another medical professional usually has a higher confidence level in you since they already trust the person that referred them. Not so with patients responding to external advertising.
The more time that passes, the greater the likelihood a new patient may have second thoughts about following through and keeping their appointment, especially if they made the appointment well in advance. They may just not show up for the appointment without taking the time to call you. Even if this is not a problem you experience, make sure that you build a connection between your practice and the patient before they’ve even had a chance to meet you. A well-crafted welcome letter can be a big step in helping to create that initial bond.
Your welcome letter should be friendly and cheerful. It should come across as if you’re excited to meet them and treat them as a patient. The letter should also reinforce your practice’s strengths and what sets you apart from your competition. Include your experience, any special or high-tech equipment you may have, and the promise that you and your staff will provide the care and compassion that they deserve. Your welcome letter should erase any doubts that they have about whether they made the right choice to come to you and in fact, make them excited about their appointment.
In my next blog, I’m going to give even more ways you can develop this crucial connection with your new patients, including what to use with your welcome letter to create an even stronger connection.
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
Google recently introduced its +1 button. They’re promoting it as a tool that will work as your tour guide through the vast world-wide web. It also appears to be their way to compete with Facebook by tapping into our fascination with sharing information with friends and others we know through social media. It may also become a tool for companies’ web sites, including healthcare practices.
Wouldn’t you like a tip from someone you know that will help you find things that you care about? Perhaps you need information on a product or service you want to buy, a news article or a recipe? There are so many options on the web that sometimes you need advice from someone you trust. That’s what Google’s +1 button will do.
It’s similar to Facebook’s “like” button. Google will allow you to “+1” web sites and individual pages and share them with friends. Hitting the +1 button will be like saying “This is cool” or “You should check this out”, so you and your friends can help each other find things you want in Google search. It will make it easier for you to share information that you may not email or post about on Facebook.
To take advantage of +1, you’ll have to be logged into your Google account in order to access it and share your +1’s with those that are associated with you through Google by email or instant messaging. Note that the +1 feature is not available everywhere yet. Initially, it will only be available in search results but Google says it will be elsewhere soon after, such as on an individual web site. Those coming to your practice web site will have the ability to +1 your site and share their recommendation with others. This feature will make it even more important for your practice’s web site to be properly search engine optimized, which is the most common drawback to most medical web sites I see.
If you would like more information on how to make your site better search engine optimized or you need to develop cost-effective marketing systems to build your practice, contact me at 561-477-6348 or Rich@HealthcareMarketingTools.com.
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
In the constant quest to acquire new patients, too many practices lose sight of the tremendous opportunity to market to their existing patients. You already have a relationship with your current patients and many of them are Raving Fans. This is why most internal marketing efforts usually get an extremely high return-on-investment.
Many internal marketing efforts require little effort and low investments. However, it’s critical that you do these things consistently and that your staff is part of the effort.
If you’re specialty focuses on acquiring new patients through referrals from other medical professionals, you should have an ongoing effort to reach out to the medical community to build new relationships and strengthen existing ones. If you market directly to the patient, make sure your marketing plan includes a multi-media effort, since different people get their information in different ways.
Most every practice, however, should have these basic internal marketing systems in place:
- Capture the patient’s email address on their new patient intake form and blast monthly emails to your list to cross-market all of your services and products, as well as ask for referrals
- Use targeted direct mail to specific patients for recalls and reactivations
- Use your reception area and treatment rooms to market to your patients. Have brochures available to read and take with them, design posters to stimulate interest, and develop videos that you can show on a television.
- Ask patients for referrals! You and your staff should do it consistently every time a patient gives positive feedback. Design a “pass-along” certificate that they can take with them to pass-along to someone they know.
- Display any products that you have for sale. If you don’t sell products that compliment your services or your patients overall health, consider adding these to provide additional revenue streams. Examples include:
- Oral hygiene kits for dental practices
- Cosmetic products for OB/GYN’s
- Assisted listening devices for audiologists
- Sports performance products for physical therapists and chiropractors
- Vitamins and health supplements for PCP’s, cardiologists, and other specialists
- Use assessment forms to identify patients that have a need or a desire for additional services and products you provide.
If you would like more information on how to develop cost-effective marketing systems to build your practice, contact me at 561-477-6348 or Rich@HealthcareMarketingTools.com.
Proven strategies for a strong, profitable practice.
Rich Hachenburg
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