The Future of Mobile Marketing For Medical Practices

A few months ago, I went to see Jay Chow concert in Taiwan.  When I bought our tickets, I could also purchase and download their latest album, which I did. I also signed up for text alerts to get up-to-date information on new albums and upcoming concerts.  I had a moment of surprise when I checked my phone recently after receiving a text to see that I had a message from Jay Chow.  It was a marketing announcement of their next world tour beginning soon.  I started thinking about the application of Mobile Marketing for my business and for the doctors. Cell phones are everywhere today. Only physicians seem to keep beepers anymore and they are trading them in for smart phones.  They are less of a burden and more of a tool; a way to keep in touch and express oneself.  The future of mobile marketing looks to be bright. Very bright.

Now, more than ever before, people are connected with their network wherever they are. We send and receive messages as a regular part of our day.  Savvy marketers have latched onto the wave and are now communicating with consumers via texts and making sure that their websites are mobile browser friendly.  This is a trend that successful physicians are adapting as part of their marketing plan.  Bon Jovi is texting out upcoming events and so can you.  Are you buying new equipment, offering new medical services?  When patients fill out their new patient intake form, add a box to check to sign-up for texts by providing their cell number. 

Medical professionals can follow this example and set-up a Mobile Marketing plan specifically tailored to their specialty, their practice, and meeting their patients’ needs by providing information via their preferred method of communication.

For more enquiries, please call us at 852-25801058 for more information.

www.medicalmarketing.com.hk

Great Customer Service in Ten Seconds... Or Less

One of the great myths of customer service is that providing great - or even good - service requires a "program" or a "policy." The program or policy can be so grand that in larger enterprises there may even be a person whose sole function is the maintenance of a customer service program.

That memorable patient experience most often depends not only on what is said to a patient but how it is said. Delivering that to your patients takes less than ten seconds per visit.

Using the preceding patient experience as a guide, here are the basic steps toward creating a memorable patient experience.

• Start with your telephones. Most phones are answered in a rush, which sends the wrong initial signal to your patient. Slow down, the difference between speaking your phone greeting rapidly and speaking it calmly is about 1.5 seconds. The difference in patient perception is timeless.
• Acknowledge your patient. At check-in, look the patient in the eye and welcome her to your facility. Ask about the weather, whether the office was easy to find, or about any plans for the weekend.
• Describe the visit step-by-step. Everyone who comes in contact with your patient should tell her who they are, what they do and how long it will take.
• Respect their time. If you are running more than 15 minutes late, tell your patients at check-in. If the backup starts while they are waiting, go into the waiting room and tell each patient personally what happened. Even better, phone the patients who have not yet arrived and tell them of the delay.
• Finish strong. At discharge, tell your patient what happens next, whether it is the need for another appointment or how long it will be before test results are back. Don't wait for her to ask you. Make sure that the last person seeing the patient says, "Thank you for coming in today."

For more enquiries, please call us at 852-25801058 for more information.

www.medicalmarketing.com.hk

How do I use YouTube to promote my medical practice?

You hear a lot about Google being the largest search engine yet rarely do you hear who is in second place.  Did Yahoo Search come to mind?  YouTube is the second largest search engine. The Youtube has 2 billion views a day.  Some of which are delivered through Google searches ever since Google integrated video hits into their search results page.  The average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube and often finds themselves itching to share what they have found with others.  YouTube has integrated with social channels and currently has over 3 million people who auto-share to at least one social network.  An auto-share tweet on twitter usually results in an average of 7 new visitors to the youtube.com website.

Most practices interact with their patients primarily on a face-to-face basis and by telephone.  They will remember your face and associate the physical appearance of your office, your voice and your staff with your practice’s brand.  YouTube allows you to share all this information about your practice before they step foot into your consultation room. It allows a potential patient to know what to expect and gives them comfort before booking an appointment.  Creating a video that introduces someone to your practice helps build a positive practice image. The video can provide a tour of your office, introduce your staff, answer commonly asked questions and perhaps show a particular procedure. 

Another advantage to YouTube is that there is a way to insert or embed the video into another page.  This would allow you to make a video, upload it to YouTube (where it would be a part of your practice’s YouTube channel), and then embed it into your practice website.  The YouTube video player has been embedded into millions of websites.  All of these videos leading back to youtube.com help for YouTube’s search ranking. Subsequently, your practice web site’s search ranking is often easier to get on the first page of Google for highly competitive keywords with the use of video than with regular optimization alone.  Lastly, a user will tend to spend 5 times as much time on your web site initially if you have a video than without, before determining if you have relevant information.

For more enquiries, please call us at 852-25801058 for more information.

www.medicalmarketing.com.hk

How can medical marketing tastefully market without hurting reputation?

The answer: It's all in how you do it.

It is no secret that many doctors and healthcare organizations remain "marketing-shy". Many doctors still feel uncomfortable because they are worried about coming across as "needy, cheesy or greedy."

If that sounds like you, we certainly understand your concern. After all, your most precious asset is your reputation, and you certainly wouldn't want to jeopardize it through distasteful or unethical marketing.

What's important to remember, however, is that the way you market your practice or business — and therefore the reputation you build — is completely up to you. Think of it this way:

Hong Kong Medical Marketing is an important channel for positive influence in shaping how others think of you. You're telling patients, prospective patients, colleagues and others what you do, and reminding them when, how and why to think of you and your organization. The message that's received depends entirely on the message that you send, so you want to control and direct this process.

Medical marketing—done professionally and using the right strategies and tactics — will produce professional results in measurable growth, and actually enhance your reputation in positive ways. (And, of course, the reverse would also be true.)

The starting point for marketing is like a blank canvas: people who don't know you are completely unaware of what you do and have no image of you at all. The professional marketing messages of your practice communicate your credible, impressive, ethical and highly professional image and reputation.

Medical marketing is a positive tool to inform and influence people toward a better quality of health and life.

Unfortunately, like most tools, marketing can deliver a disastrous outcome if you don't know what you are doing or understand how to use it properly and effectively. So, you'll want to do proper homework and then seek out expert guidance prior to embarking upon a new marketing program.

For more enquiries, please call us at 852-25801058 for more information.

www.medicalmarketing.com.hk

What kinds of problems can medical marketing help us solve?

The answer: Plenty...let's list just a few. The bottom-line objective in healthcare marketing is usually—but not exclusively—to grow the practice. Often this means attracting more patients, but a well-rounded marketing plan will achieve much more for the provider. Effective and ethical marketing opens the door to benefits for providers to: Attract cases that the doctors either enjoy or have special expertise for; Protect and grow share of voice (SOV) of patients; Build the professional reputation of the provider with the community and peers. These high-level objectives also translate into answers for challenges and opportunities such as: Attracting better paying or more profitable cases; Reaching "ideal patents," directly and cost-effectively; Changing the mix of patients or types of cases; Winning more professional referrals; Supporting a new location, provider or technology (or all of these); Transitioning to a "all-referral" practice; Standing out from the crowd in positive ways; Answering competitive challenges; Finding more personal time and greater professional enjoyment; and Tastefully building and extending your reputation.

For more enquiries, please call us at 852-25801058 for more information.

www.medicalmarketing.com.hk

Think about Twitter as a place to build relationships - Adapted from best practice of “twitter”

Instead of approaching Twitter as a place to broadcast information about your company, think of it as a place to build relationships. Put into practice, that means you could do things like:

Include in your Bio and/or custom background the names (or @usernames) of the people twittering from your company account. It’s also a good idea to include additional contact info, like email addresses.

Listen regularly for comments about your medical products—and be prepared to address concerns, offer customer service or thank people for praise.

Tip: In addition to keeping an eye on your @messages, you can use our Saved Searches feature to easily track mentions of your medical services, etc. From your Twitter home page, simply run a search, and then at the top of your results page, click “Save this search.” A link with your search term will appear on the right side of your page, and whenever you click it, you’ll get real-time results for that query. To delete a search, just head to the top of your results and click “Remove this search.”

Use a casual, friendly tone in your messages.

While you shouldn’t feel compelled to follow everyone who follows you, do respond to some questions or comments addressed to you.

Post links to articles and sites you think folks would find interesting—even if they’re not your sites or about your company.

Make sure your tweets provide some real value. You know better than we do what is valuable, but here are few examples to spark ideas:

• Offer Twitter exclusive coupons or deals
• Take people behind the scenes of your company
• Post pictures from your offices, stores, warehouses, etc.
• Share sneak peeks of projects or events in development

Don’t spam people. Twitter’s following model means that you have to respect the interests and desires of other people here or they’ll unfollow you.

For more enquiries, please call us at 852-25801058 for more information.

www.medicalmarketing.com.hk