The quest for new patients or customers is not indigenous to the medical professions. Every business is looking to find more people to buy their wares or sell their services to. We all know that word-of-mouth is the most effective marketing available.
All of the trillions of dollars spent by Coca-Cola, General Electric, IBM and the myriad other major corporations is only worthwhile due to excellent word-of-mouth created by satisfied customers. If Coke tasted like a typewriter, the company would be in big trouble no matter how much it spent on advertising.
Advertising is really only as effective as the product’s quality. If you have a lousy product, no amount of advertising will keep you alive. There is the oft-cited case of Pets.com. Pets.com unleashed a tremendous advertising campaign utilizing a very recognizable pitchman, the Sock Puppet. But Pets.com didn’t create a valuable, exchangeable product that would garner an excellent word-of-mouth reputation. And away it went into the nether regions of Internet Valhalla.
The point I’m making is simply that there are easy tools available to build an excellent reputation without sacrificing one’s standards or violating professional guidelines.
This quarter’s edition of Solutions will focus a bit on marketing solutions and building that word-of-mouth practice you should have.
You’ve invested too much time and money into your training to allow your lack of knowledge in marketing your practice make you poor.
Ken DeRouchie
Managing Editor
The Practice Solution Magazine