Guerrilla Marketing Tactics Will Give You an Edge
When it comes to health care marketing, you might consider making a new year’s resolution to shake things up and adopt new techniques. Tried-and-true approaches that have traditionally worked in the past will face steep competition in 2019 as providers embrace new forms of marketing that didn’t exist a few years ago.
Embracing Technology & Social Media
With competition for new patients fiercer than ever, targeted marketing approaches may represent your best bet at gaining a bigger share of the marketplace. This type of guerrilla marketing takes advantage of the primary tools of 21st-century trade, technology and social media.
Think of it as the Amazon effect. Consumers have become conditioned to receiving whatever they want from online retailing giant Amazon in two days or less, but when they call their health care provider to schedule an appointment and the earliest opening is weeks away, they find that unacceptable. Today’s patient values convenience and accessibility over everything else and if you can’t provide that for them, they’ll find a competitor who will.
Compounding this problem is the lack of loyalty in younger patients. Those on Medicare, for example, are far more willing to stick with their long-term PCP, even if that means waiting a while to be seen, but Millennials have no such deep allegiances and want immediate results instead.
Marketing to this type of consumer requires a fresh approach. Rather than telling them how great your practice is, you need to stress things you can offer the consumer that others cannot. This can be a challenge when working within the confines of a budget while trying to protect your brand image while simultaneously growing your business, but failing to do so will put you on the defense and leave you at a disadvantage.
Your best bet is to take advantage of today’s technology. Two sure-fire strategies: integrate your customer relationship management system into an EHR and utilize social media to target patients and gain valuable feedback. The overall cost is considerably cheaper than some of the more traditional approaches too, so you’ll enjoy a better ROI.
The time for taking a more aggressive marketing approach is now. Be strong and willing to mix things up and you should see success!