See the above?
Although it looks like the most boring game of bingo that you could ever imagine, it may just be the most important tool to help you to develop your clinic’s unique marketing strategy.
Allow me to explain …
A few months ago, I started offering complimentary Strategy Sessions for readers and listeners of The Business of Hearing.
Since then, I’ve spoken to 10+ different clinic owners across North America to understand the challenges that they’re facing and offer my no-obligation advice.
The conversations have varied from start-up clinics with their first few patients through to highly established clinics with large teams and great local reputations.
However, in every single conversation, the same core challenge emerged.
They had no marketing strategy.
Each clinic felt like they had no clear marketing direction, they didn’t know what they should do next, and every marketing related task felt like it was reactive rather than proactive.
What they all desired was a joined-up and intelligent approach to marketing that demystified all the noise and allowed them to understand where to focus their attention, and most importantly, what to ignore.
That’s why, in this article, I’m going to share a step-by-step walkthrough so you can get crystal clear on your marketing strategy so that you can make better decisions and invest your time, effort, and money into the right areas to accelerate growth.
My disclaimer: What I’m sharing is very difficult to explain and formulate – it’s taken me a dedicated career to be able to understand/plan high-impact marketing strategies and my hope is that what I’m about to share makes sense and helps put you on the right path.
It All Starts With The Building Blocks
Let’s be honest, there’s no shortage of marketing related things that you could do, and there’s always rumors circulating about the “new thing” that is supposedly working well right now.
To help simplify this, I’ve mapped out 25 of the most common marketing related things that you could be doing right now.
We’ll call each of these building blocks.
Some clinics try to do all of these … and fail.
Your objective is to understand which of the above building blocks you should use in order to create the most impressive and stable tower.
The only rule is that you must have a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 (too little and your strategy/tower won’t be solid enough, too many and your strategy will be too diverse and the tower will come crumbling down).
The Non-Negotiable Building Blocks
Here’s the good news.
Four of the building blocks are non-negotiable and must be selected.
I’ve marked them below.
Why are they non-negotiable?
- You need a website that shares who you are, why somebody should choose you, and how you can help … it’s the spine of all of your marketing.
- You need to own your brand name across all social media channels to play defense against competitors and for SEO benefits in today’s world
- You need to communicate with your existing patients consistently through an email newsletter to grow relationships and compound all other efforts (full explanation of the importance of an email newsletter is here)
- And you need to give consideration to SEO to ensure you’re being found locally and that all of your efforts are being seen.
These are the non-negotiable building blocks.
How To Select Your Additional Building Blocks
This is where the work begins, as before you can consider which building blocks are relevant to your clinic, you first need to do some homework.
Your job is to answer the following question clearly:
“Why should somebody choose to work with you over all the other options available to them?”
It’s an easy question to ask, but not a simple question to answer.
I want you to consider this and really think about it.
- Is it that you have expertise unlike any of your competitors?
- Is it that you have a trusted reputation?
- Is it that you have served the community for longer than anybody else?
- Is it that you’re the most competitively priced clinic locally?
- Is it that you deliver a VIP treatment for patients unlike anybody else?
- Is it that you’re the #1 tinnitus experts locally?
I’d encourage you to obsess over this, as unless you can be crystal clear on this, then it’s almost impossible to develop the right marketing strategy for your clinic.
If you need help, then you may benefit from first reading an in-depth article that I produced called:
** Don’t progress until you’re super clear on the above **
Okay, so if you’re reading this, then you feel clear on what makes you unique in your marketplace.
Good work, you’re several steps ahead of most clinics already.
With this information, let’s define your marketing strategy.
Your job is to select the 2-4 additional building blocks on top of the four non-negotiable blocks that have already been selected that PROVE you are who you say you are in your value proposition.
Essentially, you need to select the building blocks that are most suited to providing the evidence of what makes you unique.
Let me share some examples…
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Example #1 – Expert Focused
Let’s say that you decide that the thing that makes you unique is that you’re the local hearing healthcare experts and you deliver the highest levels of hearing healthcare in your area.
The question then is: How do you prove this and continually build a big case of evidence that you/your team has an immense amount of expertise?
Choose the relevant building blocks and consider which would help you to build the strongest case of evidence.
As you can see, I’ve circled four additional building blocks in black.
Each of these are circled because they provide evidence toward your value proposition.
- You’ll want to use blogging to prove your expertise by comprehensively answering questions around hearing loss, hearing care, and hearing aids
- You’ll want to use video marketing & YouTube videos to prove your expertise by answering questions/delivering content via video
- And you’ll want to be active on LinkedIn to showcase your expertise among a network of local professionals.
Can see you understand why those were selected?
Although it’s down to my opinion, I believe these are the most complementary building blocks to support core value proposition.
PLUS: If your value proposition is around expertise, then this makes the development of your website, social media, and email newsletter much easier, as their objectives will be focused on further proving expertise.
Example #2 – Relationship Focused
If your value proposition is focused on how well you care for your patients and that you deliver a VIP service that patients LOVE, then you naturally need a very different set of building blocks to the above example.
Once again, you need to consider how you can prove that you’re caring and have strong relationships with your patients.
Let’s look at the building blocks again.
As you can see, I’ve marked three additional building blocks in black.
- You have testimonials, as if you focus so heavily on your relationships with patients, then you need the proof, and testimonials are a great way to prove you are who you say you are.
- You then have referral campaigns, as if you deliver a service that patients love that is heavily focused on your relationships with them, then your core way to attract more patients should be through having existing patients refer new people.
Make sense?
In addition, if your focus is on relationships, then it makes the content of your website, social media, and email newsletter much simpler, as all they should be doing is proving you put people first. Could your email newsletter showcase a patient of the month, could your social media show the smiling faces of your patients, and could your website have a huge case of evidence of 100+ patients saying nice things about you?
Example #3 – Price Focused
If your value proposition is focused on being the most competitively priced clinic in your area and your model focuses on the volume of units, then naturally, you need an entirely different set of blocks.
Let’s look at the blocks again…
Although subjective, I’ve selected the building blocks that I believe best support the value proposition of being the most competitively priced clinic:
- You want email automations in place putting the focus on lead-generation/volume to nurture the many opportunities that come in your direction to weed out the patients that are the wrong fit
- You’ll be using direct mail to drive opportunities/leads with your focus on coupons/pricing
- And you’ll be using paid advertising to drive more people/opportunities toward your clinic.
It’s a very different marketing strategy to the previous one, but hopefully it makes sense?
Your Next Steps
I warned you that this is difficult to articulate and typically requires meetings/conversations and an understanding of core business objectives, but I hope the above gives you a format to work with.
The goal isn’t to do everything – it’s to do the things that complement your core value proposition and help to prove it.
If you want help to define your marketing strategy in more detail, then I encourage you to take advantage of the complimentary strategy sessions I have available.
We’ll be able to discuss your business and help sharpen up your plan!
