Pulse Check #61: What You Need To Know About Marketing Your Health Services With Branding, Patient Relationships, Service Communications

Healthcare Boss,

I hope you’ve had an amazing week as you strive to meet your entrepreneurial goals. I would like to take this time to share with you some valuable insights that can boost your business.

I was once where you are now . . . just starting out a brand new business and wondering what I should do to build it up from scratch the right way. I, unfortunately, did not have someone guiding me, so I had to do things the hard way: by trial and error.

But you don’t have to! Right now, I want to teach you the fundamental way you can start your business up from scratch without all the second-guessing and questions I had.

Back in September, I had board-certified pediatrician and owner of Progressive Pediatrics, Noha Polack, as a guest on The Healthcare Entrepreneur Academy Podcast (Episode #275). She was able to go from working for a bankrupt business to building up her own. Her story is real proof of how you can start any business from the ground up with the right outlook and a good strategy.

One of the most common mistakes I see healthcare entrepreneurs make is not having a marketing plan. The foundation of growing your healthcare business is marketing your health services. Frankly, a lack of marketing could be your downfall.

The purpose of marketing your health services is to get patients in your door. Your marketing plan should promote your health services to entice potential patients and convince them to contact you.

The key to gaining new patients is awareness. If people don’t know about your business and the services you offer, they won’t be walking through your door.

Now I know it may seem like a daunting task to market your business, but once you have an understanding of what resources you need and the right mindset you could find great success!

Here are some marketing techniques to help you grow your business and gain new patients:

1. Use your brand to grow your audience

Branding is crucial for any business as it’s the most important asset for your marketing. The first focus any business should have when starting is to build a brand. This is because the entirety of your marketing plan is designed around your business brand. I elaborated on this and discussed the importance of brand-making on Episode #275.

What exactly do I mean by building a brand? It simply comes down to how you want your business to be seen and recognized. Your business brand not only includes your logo and color scheme, but it’s your mission statement and purpose.

A mission statement often answers questions the public may have when first discovering your business. Why are you offering your services? How do you want to affect the community with your business? Share the answers to these questions while you market to your potential patients.

Let’s look at these mission statements for some examples:

Healthcare Entrepreneur Academy: Educating, motivating, and inspiring healthcare entrepreneurs along their journey to freedom
Progressive Pediatrics: The well-being of our pediatric patients is always our number one priority

As you can see, a mission statement shows your business’s purpose in one statement that is short, sweet, and impactful. The public will know who you are and what you’re all about when they read your mission statement.

While you market your health services, you should be spreading your brand across platforms. As you bring people aware of your brand, you are growing an audience to market to. This audience provides tremendous opportunities for you to convert them into new patients.

And remember, when it comes to branding consistency is key.

2. Develop a relationship with potential and current patients

Marketing helps people get to know you and your business, which establishes a virtual relationship. You can turn people scrolling through social media or scanning through the internet into future patients.

By marketing your health services, you are putting your business on people’s radars. They can become familiar with you, which entices them to become one of your patients.

But it doesn’t stop there. Yes, you want to build a relationship with potential patients and social media is an excellent platform in order to do so. However, you can’t just rely on social media to grow a business. Your marketing also needs to move offline by strengthening the relationships with your patients that are already coming in your door.

A costly mistake I’ve seen made time and time again is forgetting about marketing to current patients. Marketing to new patients is important to increase your revenue, but so is marketing to the patients you already have. The essence of marketing is to encourage patients to contact you and make them excited to return.

Marketing is more than just advertising your services; it’s about developing an endurable relationship with your patients. One of the key points in Episode #275 of my podcast was to go above and beyond when serving your patients. This not only gives them a good experience, but it aids in your marketing as well.

By having a strong relationship with your current patients, you are encouraging new patients to come in through word-of-mouth marketing. If you give your current patients a positive experience, they are more than likely to tell their friends and family about it. This will potentially lead to referrals that could become new patients!

3. Inform the public about your services

Marketing is more than making sales; marketing is spreading information about your services to gain new patients. This, in turn, will boost your revenue. But what information is important to share?

The answer is benefits. Your marketing should highlight the benefits of your services and what patients can look forward to.

The information about your services should help your business stand apart from the competition. In your marketing, you should show how your services are unique. Are your services something they can’t get anywhere else? If so, let them know how and what that is to turn potential patients into new patients.

4. Excite people to convert them into patients

How do you know if your marketing is successful? That question can be answered by determining if your potential patients are getting excited about your health services.

Are they intrigued about what your business offers? Do they feel motivated to improve their health with your services? If the answer is yes, then you’re doing something right.

Overall, all of these marketing tactics will help influence people to contact your business. Whether or not they are ready to redeem your services, having them express their interest gets you closer to gaining a new patient.

Want to learn more about how you can market your health services? Check out these training programs to increase your healthcare business education: