Top 5 Ways to Bring More Patients into Your Practice

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Top 5 Ways to Bring More Patients into Your
Practice
There are dozens if not hundreds of ways to
attract new patients to your medical or dental
practice. This article focuses on the top five
healthcare marketing strategies the 800-pound
gorillas of healthcare marketing, all of which
have been designed and repeatedly proven to
attract new patients consistently if you do them
correctly and monitor your results. Its not
unusual for any healthcare provider to gain 30 or
more new patients every month. Thats about one
new patient every day, year- round, and it helps
to ensure long-term success and steady growth for
your practice. To achieve that number or higher,
you need the right patient engagement
strategies. 1, Build and Nurture Great
Relationships with Your Current Patients This is
hands down the best way to attract new patients,
and it wont cost you a penny. This sort of
word-of-mouth advertising simply requires
providing excellent care and making your current
patients so happy that they tell their family,
friends, and co-workers about you. They become
your unpaid ambassadors, singing your praises on
social media, referring new patients directly to
you, and writing great reviews about your
practice online. Its easy to become focused on
attracting new patients while neglecting the ones
you already have. Treat current patients like
gold. Focus your efforts on ensuring that they
are getting what they want and need from your
practice. Look to improve the patient experience
at every turn. Every time a patient gives you or
a staff member positive feedback about their
experience, ask them to leave a review while they
are still in your
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• office. You can also email or text health tips,
  interesting news items, and updates about your
  practice. Instead of waiting for patients to
  request regular or follow-up appointments, be
  proactive. Set new appointment times for them up
  front, then send email or text reminders about
  scheduled visits.
• How can you build better relationships with your
  patients?
• Show them that you really care about them by
  emailing, texting, or calling them as often as
  possible. Call or text them after a surgery or
  procedure to see how they are doing. This small
  gesture means a lot to a patient because it
  demonstrates that you truly care about their
  health.
• Provide Customer Service Training for Your Staff
• Every healthcare practice needs a team of
  friendly, knowledgeable, helpful professionals
  who are dedicated to delivering high-quality
  patient service. Good customer service skills
  dont always come naturally to front desk staff
  or billers. Remember that nothing turns off a
  patient faster than a disrespectful assistant or
  a receptionist who cant or wont answer their
  questions. At least some of your team members
  would benefit greatly from professional training.
• When every member of your team is helpful, knows
  how to treat patients respectfully, and has the
  knowledge to answer their questions, your patient
  satisfaction levels will go way up, especially if
  you are giving those patients high-quality care.
  Those satisfied patients will give you positive
  word-of-mouth and refer others to your practice.
  According to one recent survey, satisfied
  patients will share their positive experiences
  with five others on average. Thats five
  potential new patients!
• Establish an Active Web Presence

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Eight out of ten consumers will turn to a search
engine for answers to their health questions.
Many will see your website listed, ideally on the
first page of their search results. Make sure
that your website is well designed, easy to use,
functional, responsive, and informative about why
your practice is the consumers best choice. Make
sure your website works well on all devices,
especially smart phones. Over 60 of searches
come from mobile devices, so a mobile-responsive
website will help you stand out from
competitors. Your website is your digital
business card and your practices home on the
web. A good website should be a great referral
source. Its an excellent place to publish
reviews and testimonials from your patients. It
can also provide a home base for your blog.
Having a regular blog will help you rank higher
on search engines, giving your practice more
visibility to potential new patients. How do
you establish an active web presence? Social
media engagement, getting your practice listed in
local directories, and expanding your services
with targeted demographics research are excellent
strategies for strengthening your web presence.
Make sure that your site is fully optimized for
search engines, too. Search engine optimization
(SEO) is an evolving science, so make sure you
have an SEO expert in place to help you get it
right. 4. Ask for Referrals and Reviews Another
simple but often overlooked method of bringing
more patients to your practice is asking happy
patients for referrals or online reviews. This
costs you nothing except a moment of your time
and it works like a charm. Make sure that every
member of your practice team gets into the habit
of asking for either a referral or a review (or
both) every time a patient
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expresses unsolicited positive feedback about
your care. Your response can be as simple as, I
really appreciate hearing that, Mrs. Smith. Do
you know anyone else we can help like we helped
you?. You can also ask them to write an online
review while they are still in your office, then
provide a tablet or notepad on which to write
their review. Some practices send thank you
emails after patient visits and include links to
where they can leave their reviews online. 5.
Take Full Advantage of Social Media As you
develop your marketing plan, be sure to include a
social media strategy. Social media has become an
all-encompassing ommunications medium for
consumers of all ages. Its where many of your
current and potential future patients spend their
free time and share ideas with friends and
family. Posting on social media is also the kind
of healthcare marketing for patients that can be
especially effective if its done well and
consistently. Social media can also be a great
marketing tool. If you remain active on your
social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, etc.), you will
give current and potential new patients the
option to like and share your content. When their
social circles see this, theyll create more
traffic to your site. Those potential leads can
easily turn into patients. Remember to share
information that is relevant to health consumers
and regularly monitor your online presence,
particularly your online reviews. Obviously, you
want as many positive reviews as possible. If you
receive a negative review, dont freak out. Try
to make the best of it. Analyze the negative
review to identify the reason for the complaint
and try to resolve it for that reviewer. Its
advisable to respond to both positive and
negative reviews to show that you care. If the
review alerted you to a significant issue, then
follow up by providing information about the
steps you took/are taking to resolve the issue.
Never respond emotionally, even if a review
upsets you.
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The power and effectiveness of social media makes
it a must for inclusion in virtually every
healthcare marketing plan, and one of the best
strategies for bringing more of the patients you
want into your practice.