Building Better Relationship With Your Clients With Social Media

How do you go about building trust and reputation with your clients that are predominantly present in the online world? Connecting with them in person gives a perceivable understanding of their expressions, needs and feelings. But what about gauging their perception and building an equally strong reputation online? Surely as a successful digital marketer, you don’t want to lose that human feel when you engage with your clients online or in the social media space.

Social Media is a staple in the digital platform leveraged by all marketers to drive business, branding and reputation. There is no dispute that given the indicative number of users across various social media channels (as stated below), this very powerful medium needs careful planning and execution to  enhance your business’ reputation, improve customer loyalty and drive sales.

So here are a few key takeaways that will not only help you attract new client to your business but also build trust and reputation with the help of social media:

• Identify your client’s needs- One of the most basic principles of social media is to focus on your client’s needs in advance and offer quality services/information they would be looking for. According to Steve Jobs, it is important to guess what your customers require in advance as they themselves are most unaware of what they actually require.
• Effective and quick response-This is just as important as posted valuable content, responding within the quick TAT (turnaround time), not only makes them feel heard but also helps in resolving customer issues in real-time. Be confident to address negative comments and grievances promptly, it leads to positive customer experience following better revenue.
• Maintain brand consistency- The tone of your brand message should be uniform across the different channels of communication. This can refer to the use of content, logo, layout and style of communication material, your response to your clients should all uniformly present your brand image across social media channels.
• Reward your customers- One of the easiest and best ways to gain your customer’s trust and confidence is to reward them for their loyalty. This creates a sense of feeling loved and special. A simple monthly completion run on Facebook or Instagram can be one of the ways to keep them engaged and showing them that you care with enticing rewards.
• Share Testimonials from happy clients- After a job/ service is delivered, encourage your clients to share their testimonials on your social media pages. This is one of the smartest ways to leverage your client’s positive experience and building a positive brand reputation and image.

The above simple ways when implemented will ensure trust; credibility and a lifetime of loyal customers that will get your brand thrive. Use the power of social media to help your business stand out from the rest and give you an edge over the competition.

A Positive Patient Experience Will Improve Your Practice

The concept of patient experience is an extremely important measurement of your practice’s success. Patient satisfaction aspects from scheduling appointments on time, minimizing waiting hours, patient education and follow up care are critical, but if improved and worked upon can not only contribute to better clinical outcomes but also reduce costs. Communication is especially important when it comes to patient caring. Having an open line of communication leads to better engagement, reduces risk exposure and gives a greater feeling of trust and satisfaction among patients.

Apart from the use of intelligent data and analytics can ensure patient satisfaction scores, here are 5 key steps you can take to make that change in your practice:

1. Treat Patients with Care and Attention- Patients often get an impression that medical practitioners are impolite and straight forward in their interactions making them feel unimportant. The result of this approach has negative consequences to your practice’s growth. Everyone likes to be acknowledged, so do patients. Personal connections, care and courtesy from providers go a long way in building healthy doctor-patient relationships.
2. Make your website patient friendly and engaging- Today’s information savvy patients judge you even before they meet you. Employing an online appointment scheduling system, specifically through patient portals can have financial benefits for the organization while making the experience more patient-friendly. A well designed website that is interactive with patient engagement tools, like appointment links, chat box and informative articles creates a positive impression about your practice.
3. Clear, effective and Timely Communication- Honing your and your staff’s communication skills from introduction to post consultation stage makes them feel re-assured, comfortable and confident. Accurate communication that leaves no ambiguity or room for doubt,maximizes your practice’s performance and patient results.
4. Commit to Timeliness- Create a system that promptly answers and returns phone calls and emails on time.  Communication within established time frames reinforces accountability and is an important measure to track performance. Avoid long waiting hours by establishing a system that tracks patient’s check-in. By doing so you demonstrate hospitality, positive attitude and respect for your patients.
5. Customize Patient Experience- There is no one approach that fits all. Your patients belong to different age groups, culture and interests. While some will flock on to technology to access information, others may prefer a face-to-face interaction. Personalize your communication to all levels of your patient interactions to ensure your uniformity in communication and patient satisfaction.

Go the extra mile to make your patients feel as comfortable as possible — that can really have a huge positive effect on your practice.

Creating A Winner Marketing Plan For Your Prospective Patients

 

There was time when patients sought out to doctors, but given the increasing number of medical practitioners, it is the doctors who are battling to attract patients, new and returning in order to maintain a healthy and profitable relationship among them. With advances in technology, patients now have access to quality healthcare and detailed information in going about choosing the right medical practitioner.This evidently calls for a result driven, easy to implement marketing plan that will pay off in the competitive years and drive their profession to new heights. The focus of the marketing plan should be to ensure that the treatments and services offered best meet the patient’s need. 

Marketing Plan that focuses on Patient Acquisition to Patient Engagement
 

A flexible marketing strategy that responds to changing market situations is the key to improving patient acquisition and managing long term business sustenance. As a medical practitioner you need to know where you are heading to go in order to plan how to get there. It is then, that you can target the right patient with the right message at the right time.

 These are a few steps outlined to help you devise a Medical Marketing Strategy that will help you grow your business efficiently:

• Identify who you are and where you want to go: Begin your marketing strategy with a SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities & threats) analysis. This will help you discover your key potential that differentiates you from the rest and give you a clear idea as to which type of patients you would want to attract and promote your practice accordingly.
• Design your sales funnel and marketing plan: When you know who your potential patients are, design your marketing plans and channels they are most likely to access. For example the age group of your patients will help you decide the ratio of online and offline marketing mix that is ideal for your business.
• Targeted online advertising for Patient Acquisition: Your patient acquisition process should meet the evolving needs and surroundings of your patients. An effective advertising campaign should entail a selected target audience and deploy strategies to optimize your business position and bring a call to action (call for an appointment).
• Patient Retention & Engagement Strategies: Patient engagement strategies should help attract new patients as well as builds long term relationships. Just like other staff, patients also need to be made to feel special. Automated E-mail marketing campaigns that will send notifications,updates, newsletters and routine check up reminders for example, are excellent engagement tools that ensure optimum patient relationship and repeat business.

The Bottom Line 

A famous quote by Zig Ziglar says: “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

A good marketing strategy is not just the application of the 5P’s (Product, Price, Place, Promotion and People) to meet your requirements in driving your medical practice but also that which drives your reputation and branding. The key to a thriving medical practice is about maintaining a perfect balance of the medical marketing techniques that focuses on “staying in touch with patients”, “understanding their evolving needs” and “delivering results through a tactical plan”.

Why it's time for doctors to say bye to old school marketing techniques?

Keeping up with tips and tricks of Online Marketing Strategies for doctors is as imperative as for any other internet savvy start up you may find these days. It is that age when most patients will consider doctors that can boast of a good online reputation in an unravelling competitive market.  Leveraging the online presence for doctors means getting noticed, establishing a brand name, building loyalty and finally amounting to an increased patient base and improved satisfaction.

A Google Think study that doctor's should reckon on-

This soaring percentage of patients going online for medical information's suggests that the well informed and net savvy patient is not only taking responsibility of their own health but that doctors also have no option but to embrace the digital age.

Although it could be a bit overwhelming platform for doctors, who once thrived on the patient's reference and word of mouth to accept the paradigm shift, it is a good idea to be there and tap the power of internet.

4 Online marketing ideas for doctors that will pay off

A few "must have" online marketing strategies that most doctor's should implement are:

•  Differentiation - Before drawing out what internet strategy will work best for you, it is first important to be cognizant of what distinguishes you and your practice from others. Do you offer patient- centric care? Are you well facilitated in terms of equipments and machines? or that you are the Best Specialist in town? This singular factor can be the key to a successful marketing campaign.
   
• Online Exposure- Exploiting the web exposure is the first step to connect to your patients and market your practice to the Health Care Industry. An attractive SEO friendly website that not only stands away from competition, but also allows easy navigation and a good user experience will go a long way in optimizing your visitors base. Be versatile in updating news, blogs and social networking links. Unleashing the power of social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn& Twitter can hardly be undermined as an effective patient engagement tool. The more you are talked about, the better the recall.Google My Business is a one-stop listing which allows not only  your local business to appear on search, maps and Google+ but also climb higher in rankings. Bring into play all the online practices and create successful stories!
   
• Get Mobile Friendly - Mobile is not the future, it is Now!. Ever since smartphones and tablets have replaced the traditional devices, it would be oblivious to ignore the mobile web traffic. Making your website responsive to  electronic gadgets like smartphones and tablets is the smartest way to unleash your internet traffic.
   
• Campaign Development-  Creating a publication schedule that will keep your patients awareness in sync with your developments and research will help educate them and differentiate you as  a medical provider. Crafting a physician campaign engages a relevant audience and helps you go that extra mile in building credibility.