We are living in an attention economy. And most of the time, you get the attention of your future clients through several online platforms. Digitalization has become the front door to every medical professional in reaching the target market and eventually seeing the fruit of your labour, the conversions by getting more and more successful booked appointments and evident increase in your ROI.
That is what iMatrix wants you to have as a medical professional and since it is an ever-changing world, your business should constantly need upgrading, too.
Why Do You Need to Improve Your Medical Practice?
When you welcome the chance to upgrade your medical practice, you give your practice a chance to have more opportunities to serve more patients, have a higher retention rate, and boost your optometry marketing rank online and in an actual scenario.
- Growth. Growth in medical practices may mean new processes that need improvement, possibly standardizing or automating most of how you do things in your facility. It could be uncomfortable to transition, especially if you need to train everyone to adhere to the updated policies.
- Introducing new services. You can expect constant improvement if you have a marketing strategist who can ensure a steady flow of enhancement techniques. It could be about innovations in remote check-ups or lab tests in your home.
- Follow new regulations. Whether it is government or industry modifications, you must review processes so you can comply and move forward with the rest of the medical industry.
- Open a new branch or services. Startups always mean more chances to increase revenue. And this is also a reason to upgrade to introduce patients to a new branch of business.
- Welcome more employees. An upgrade in medical practice may mean you are expanding your staff. You can upgrade when this happens to fix and enhance your job delegation.
- Adapt to new technologies. If your industry has new equipment or tools that will help your medical staff do their job easier and better, then an upgrade is what you need. It could also be that you are changing medical equipment suppliers.
- Acquisitions. If one or two medical branches merge, you can expect that there will be alignments to evade any duplication of process and to eliminate extra work. An expansion is an upgrade to your industry as long as you stay unique to your target market.
- Reduce cost. If your medical practice has gone more extensive and you can afford to lower the cost of some of your services or give out discounts, pat yourself on the back because you now have the capability of supporting your growth financially.
- Expand network. An upgrade could mean hiring two or five more specialists since your clients are also growing in numbers.
- Increase revenue. If your revenue has tripled, you will eventually need to expand and upgrade your branding, hire more medical staff, and change facilities. You are upgrading because you want to change the game plan to increase your sales.
How Do Patients Find Medical Professionals Today?
If you are a dentist, an ophthalmologist, a chiropractor, or other types of professionals working in the medical field? According to Dr Harshal Limaye, there are several stages that each patient goes through just to search for the right medical professional they need. This is called The Patient Journey.
- Awareness. Everyone tries to find the best optometry websites. Searching online for “optometrist near me” or using “how much is an eye care check-up” keywords. They look for procedures or treatments and the cost. They are also doing this to look for the best doctor or any medical practitioner near their location to provide this service. When they see your website, they need to be able to see right away who you are and what you do. You need to be specific about the kind of speciality you offer and ways to solve their medical issues. This is also where branding comes into the picture. You could do this by distributing flyers in your community or building a strong digital presence where your optimized website can lead patients to your information just by using keyword-targeted searches.
- Getting their Interest. This is where they have read about your speciality and the available services that you offer. Now they want to know if you cover their HMO, your operating hours, do you operate until evening, and your location. Patients have many questions because they need someone that they can trust and someone that could offer solutions to their problems.
- Are your services desirable to patients? If they have not left your website at this point, the tendency is, you have captured their attention and you have offered something that triggered their interest. This part is where they attempt to send you an email to ask more questions, send chat messages, call your number on the website or answer your online form. These are your leads. Your responses to them should be unique and easy to digest. They need to see why you are different from the other 10 chiropractors they saw on the search results. This is where you may want to tell them if you have special discounts or packages for the month or perhaps a free consultation for first-time visits.
- Patients have decided to take action. This is the part of their journey where they have made up their mind and are ready to book an appointment or do a walk-in. Your medical staff should know that these first time patients are observing the way you treat them the first time they set their foot in your facility. Are they greeted with a smile? For calls, do they get a return call within the day, the next day or never? You may also discuss with them more information about your services cost and confirm health insurance coverages.
- Patients have already taken action. So it is something they have done. They may have set up an appointment already or are currently waiting in the area for their turn if it is a walk-in visit. This is your opportunity to make them feel you have seen their appointment and you are confirming, setting expectations how long they need to wait, etc. They may also want to know what they need when they come in for an appointment such as laboratory results.
Healthcare professionals can find more ideal patients when you boost your marketing strategies. Get started today with iMatrix!