More Marketing Tips

What Is The Most Effective Way Of Getting New Patients Or Clients?

In my daily reading, I saw a couple of articles, one in Rueters called, US small business sentiment stays gloomy in March, and one from an Orlando Florida newspaper entitled, SBA help not getting through to businesses that both indicated that small businesses are not experiencing any positive effects from all the stimulus plans recently passed.

As I've said in many of our blogs, we, as small business owners, need to make sure we aren't waiting around in some state of "hope" for anyone to take care of us. That is why I've been writing many recent blogs about marketing in a health care practice.

I'm often asked, "what's the most successful means of marketing for new patients in a private practice?" It’s not the yellow pages, it’s not direct mail or advertising. Yes, these methods can and do work, especially if proper surveys and good promotional pieces are created. But these are expensive forms of marketing.

The most effective marketing, in terms of cost and results, is referrals from your existing patients and clients. Referrals are so valuable because word of mouth is both free and extremely effective. Your patients or clients speaking positively about your practice to people they interact with is a sure-fire way to increase the number of people walking through your doors.

The real problem with getting referrals is training your staff to successfully speak to patients or clients in order to get them to refer your practice to their friends and family.

There is a right way to do this and a very wrong way.

A very important thing to be aware of, when asking patients or clients to refer your practice to their friends and family, is that people actually like to contribute to the expansion and growth of things that they like. I’m sure you know examples of this. If a nice mall is built in a community, people tell other people to go there and other businesses and people move into the area. If a great new restaurant opens in an area, people go to it and recommend that others try it out. Those people in turn will recommend it to THEIR friends. The point being, if your patients or clients like your practice, they will be willing to contribute to its growth and expansion and, therefore, you shouldn’t be shy about asking them to refer.

At the same time, it is important to know that the MAIN reason people don’t refer their friends and family is that they are never asked to so they rarely think about it. The solution, then, is to simply ask the patients/clients who truly like your practice to recommend you to friends and family.

An example of the proper way to ask a patient or client for a referral can be as simple as the following:

“Hello Sue, how was your service? Great. Did you know that we are expanding? In fact we have hired new staff so that we can help better service our patients. We are also taking on more patients and if you have any friends or family who you think could be helped by [your medical field] care, have them come in for a consultation. Here are a couple of our business cards for you.”

Communicating it in this manner gives the patient or client the feeling that you are growing and puts the idea in their mind that they should recommend the practice. In addition, it avoids making the patient feel put on the spot or uncomfortable about having to give you names and numbers. Of course you will have to adjust this to your specific circumstances.

The above is just one example. Obviously, if you haven’t hired new staff you wouldn’t say this, but you could and should easily come up with honest reasons why it would be good for patients to refer.

On the other side of the coin, here is an improper way to ask a patient/client for a
referral:

“Hello Sue. Hey do you have anyone you know that needs [your medical field] care? We really would like them to come in if you do. Do you think you could ask them? Or just give me their name and I’ll call them?” This puts the patient or client on the spot and would make most people feel uncomfortable. You should have your staff practice correctly asking for referrals with one of your other staff or with you until they can do it easily and comfortably.

After that it is a matter of ensuring they do it and you should increase your new patients in no time! We have numerous other methods of internal marketing, but the above ideas are a good starting point.

If you wish to know more, just contact us at: info@silkinmanagementgroup.com and we’d be happy to help, or visit our Discussion Form on the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

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