Three Simple steps to Increase your Patient Volume by Narrowing Your Focus
Wait a minute you say, I thought the more people who see my message, the more response I am going to get, right? Nope. Not anymore. That kind of marketing went out with Wonder Bread.
Welcome to the information age, where we are exposed to more marketing messages before breakfast than we used to get in a whole day.
It takes a lot these days to grab our short, over extended attention span…
Read on and I will tell you how to bring your ideal clients right to your door and make your practice stand out as the best possible choice for your ideal clients.
Now more than ever, we need to have a few brilliant tricks up our sleeve to attract patients to our office, as opposed to the guy down the street from us; who we know is a lousy doctor, but he is crazy busy because he is a great marketer. So how do we get our message heard and attract our ideal client to our office? The answer lies in specializing, narrowing your audience, and defining your niche.
Have you noticed that in healthcare, the more specialized the practice is, the longer it takes to get an appointment? That’s in large part because people want to see the specialist who knows and specializes in their exact problem. I know I do. I want to see the Doctor who knows all about my frozen shoulder problem and who deals with it all day long. I have more confidence that they will be able to help me and have the solution to my problem. So instead of sending out the great big net to catch the patients you do and possibly (probably) do not want; why not establish your niche, and start attracting those people who you really enjoy seeing; you can help the most, AND you have the most success with?
So how do you do that?
First, decide the patients or conditions that you really like seeing.
Whatever it is, make that area your Niche. Of course you can still see other types of patients, but by narrowing your focus, you are really increasing you ability to effectively market to your group. Don’t worry that there are not enough people out there with that condition. With the state of health our country is in, chances are, they are out there and they are looking for you.
Second, find the words that are going to get this ideal client’s attention.
- Listen carefully to what your ideal patient is telling you in your consultation with them.
- What is their pain around this issue, and what do they say about it?
- Remember the EXACT words they say to you about their pain. How it makes them feel, what it prevents them from doing, how it affects their life.
These phrases will be the questions you use to grab your ideal client’s attention, the people you can help the most. It works because your marketing headlines come from the exact thing this client is thinking. You have gotten inside their head, and they pay attention to your message because they know you understand their problem.
One of my Mentors, Lisa Cherney of Juicy Marketing taught me how to do this. If you get a chance to learn from her, she is brilliant at this.
Third, put these headlines to work to attract your ideal client to your office.
You want them to hear or see your message and say “Yes, I have done that“, or “Wow, she really understands me, that’s exactly how I feel! “
- Write an article or two on your niche, and get them published wherever you can.
- Feature lectures in your office about this condition, etc.
- Start a support group/exercise group for it and get the word out that you understand this condition!
- Brainstorm, figure out where this client hangs out, shops, goes for fun, etc. Make sure your message is there too!
Now don’t get me wrong, you can still continue to see those patients who are a complete pain in the butt, who show up with the most incredible assortment of symptoms that they “never even had” before they started seeing you; or you can establish your niche, target your ideal patient, and watch your appointment book fill up with the kind of clients you like to see, and help you remember why you became a doctor in the first place.
