Sustainable growth is the lifeblood of your medical practice, but increasing patient volume and driving consistent growth is harder than ever in a crowded, competitive field. And unlike years past, growth today isn’t dictated by word-of-mouth referrals — medical practices need to have the digital tools and strategies in place to attract an audience that increasingly lives online.
Is it time for your practice to rethink its growth strategies? Keep reading to learn seven modern strategies you can employ to grow your medical practice and patient base.
1. Maintain Consistent Marketing Outreach
Your practice can’t grow without consistent marketing outreach that puts your brand name and services in front of your desired audience. There are multiple modes of marketing you can employ to drive brand awareness, establish credibility, attract more traffic to your website, and engage with prospective and existing patients. A comprehensive marketing plan might include email marketing, content marketing (blogs, videos, infographics, brochures), social media marketing, paid digital advertising, print advertising (adverts, direct mail marketing), and TV advertising.
Most health care practices don’t have the manpower to develop, implement, and drive full-scale marketing campaigns. Consider hiring a performance-driven agency like NewGen Marketing to help you meet your goals for sustainable business growth.
2. Make Your Practice More Accessible
We live in a technology-driven, digitally connected world, and expectations for more digital connections have already spread into the health care field. Patients want their health care services to be easily accessible through multiple digital channels. Making your practice easily accessible through email services, chat bots, online scheduling, text messaging, telehealth, and patient portals encourages more potential patients to engage with your brand and schedule appointments right away. Your brand can benefit from removing obstacles that require patients to take multiple steps to connect with you.
3. Devote Time to Reputation Management
Your online reputation matters. Not only are consumers doing online research about products and services, but they’re reading reviews, testimonials, and ratings about your practice before choosing a health care provider. Research supports a direct correlation between online reviews and the growth of medical practices as more patients turn to reviews to help them select a provider. One study found that 59.9% of patients have chosen a doctor based on positive reviews, and nearly the same percentage reported avoiding a doctor based on negative reviews.
One way your practice can attract new patients is to cultivate a presence on online review sites, Google My Business, and social media platforms. Ask happy patients to write reviews or give a patient testimonial that you can share online. Positive reviews improve your credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of potential new patients doing provider research.
4. Invest in a Call Center
What better way to grow your practice than investing in trained staff whose sole focus is patient acquisition? Trained call center agents can handle incoming calls and prospective patient needs for your facility, freeing up doctors and administrative staff to continue providing care to existing patients. Having a medical call center ensures that all prospective patients receive dedicated, personalized attention — a key differentiator that improves acquiring, retaining, and satisfying patients.
5. Stay Up-to-Date on the Latest Medical Technology
Health care advances at lightning speeds year-over-year. Make sure your practice remains competitive in the field by having the most current technologies and tools, whether that’s updated imaging equipment, the latest minimally invasive surgical tools and techniques, wearables and trackables, telehealth services, or digital services like online medical record viewing.
Your practice can set itself apart from the competition and attract new patients by offering more advanced options for care.
6. Expand Your Service Offerings
Where can your brand expand to offer more services to a wider patient base? Expansion could mean adding a new physician with a different area of speciality to your practice, bringing in PAs to handle routine cases and screenings, offering more payment plans to patients, or providing free screening or consultation services to select demographics.
Take the time to find out what kinds of services your local community needs, then rise up to fill the gaps and bring more patients into your practice.
7. Get Involved in the Community
We’re willing to bet that your core patient base is local. Engaging with your community is an excellent way to meet potential new patients and grow positive awareness around your brand. Do some research to figure out how you can get more involved around town. Sponsor a fundraiser, set up a booth at a local event, host an open house at your clinic, give a seminar at a local community center, or sponsor students through a scholarship program.
When your brand positions itself as a leader that cares for the well-being of the community it serves, you’ll earn the trust and loyalty of patients within your service area.
Partner With NewGen Marketing to Grow Your Medical Practice
The NewGen Marketing team has years of experience driving sales and business growth for industry-leading health care brands. We recognize the value of integrating multi-channel marketing campaigns with a proven acquisition and nurturing process that leads to patient conversions and treatments.
We provide broad-spectrum marketing services, including strategy and investment, analytics, paid media, social media, remarketing, content marketing, and acquisition and call centers. When you’re ready to hire a marketing agency who can drive more to your bottom line, contact NewGen Marketing for a free consultation.