Playing With the Big Boys

Once your current marketing strategies translate into new patients and referrals, you may want to think abut expanding your efforts into more commercial advertising such as newspapers, radio, or even television.

Again, there are several commercial agencies that will provide you with these services.  The price tag is often hefty, however, and you may find that the message you wish to convey is not adequately understood.
There are a few simple tips that can help you produce your advertisements in house, saving you additional costs and assuring that your practice message reaches your target audience.

Begin with a small quarter page newspaper ad.  What message do you want to convey?  What types of patients do you want to attract?   Don't waste your time and money paying for a newspaper ad that simply shows your name, address, phone number and specialty.  Save that information for your practice brochure and marketing handouts.  Your ads should be designed to grab the patient's attention, have relevance to their symptoms and convey the message that your are present to deal effectively with the particular complaint.

Building a practice web-site also gives you the opportunity to display your beautiful office and highlight the most recent medical trends that your office is following and offering to your community.  You may want to include sections specifically devoted to patient information along with an FAQ page to answer what your office finds to be the most commonly asked questions.  Some web-sites provide on-line appointments or live chats at specific periods of time.  Today's patients are more informed than those of years ago, and appreciate an office where their specific concerns are immediately addressed.  Your web-site can allow your front office more time to concentrate on the money aspect of the practice and less time answering the same patient questions over and over again.

Use creativity when planning your site and target your advertising to a savvy patient base that is computer literate and represent the consumer population at large.  Produce attention grabbing advertisements, especially if you are going to present radio commercials or television spots.