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Seven Rules For Successful Brochure Marketing

4/27/2010

Print brochures are made with marketing in mind. They are not just print collateral which graphic designers use to exhibit their expertise. Your brochure aims to attract the attention of your target audience so you can increase the profits of your practice.

Here are some suggestions so you can create a design for your brochures to better engage your target audience with your message:

1. Create a design that talks

Do not just make your print brochures visual displays of your services. Use your graphics and text to communicate to your target audience your message. Mix and match these two elements so you can provide more effective marketing collateral for your practice. Make sure that your text supports the graphics in your brochure, and vice versa. The end goal is to have it easy for your readers to understand your message.

2. Be unique

Offer your readers something distinctly yours. Capitalize on what you have to build your brand value. By providing your present and prospective patients your unique benefits, you’ll have more chances of getting them interested in your services.

3. Always keep it sweet and simple

This is not just a basic rule for nothing. It is what draws the line between an effective marketing tool and a failed one. By keeping it simple and brief, you will make it easier for your target audience to understand your message right away so they can make a wise decision regarding your services.

4. Determine your font size

A font size that is larger than the standard size can get you attention. Not only that, but it makes your text readable, which in turn can help your target audience understand what you want to say to them.

5. Create sections in your brochure

Dividing your brochure into sections can again help your target audience to better understand your message. Do not overwhelm them with too much information. Instead, break your data into bite-size chunks so they can go straight to the topic they need.

6. Always offer quality

It should not mean that although you have a relatively inexpensive brochure, that it should also look cheap. There are ways and means to look professional without having to break your budget. Ask BAC Medical Marketing for suggestions on how you can save on your costs without sacrificing the quality of your marketing collateral.

7. Lastly, represent your brand image in your brochures.

Always remember that your marketing collateral represents who you are and what you can do for your target audience. So make sure that your print brochures embody everything that is you, which makes you distinct from the rest of the competition.

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Add Meaning Into Your Marketing

2/1/2010

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Do you often market according to a method or system which is well thought out and well planned? Do you market based on real data gathered methodically and systematically? Do you concentrate on results that you can measure and quantify? Or you often fall prey to marketing gimmicks that are made on impulse just because you feel the slowdown in practice performance?

Many practices often find themselves having marketing campaigns such as pamphlet printing or brochure printing that focus on getting instant results. They tend to concentrate on putting more emphasis on attracting their target audience and not on a lasting relationship with this audience. This then makes you very frustrated when your patients only come see you once and never go back for another visit. So you go back on relying on marketing gimmicks to attract the attention of other potential patients.

Sure, you can attract new patients every time with your fashionable and trendy marketing campaigns. But the thing is, you will not be able to have repeat patients that would mean a steady stream of income for your practice. Instead of capitalizing on your benefits to build and encourage stronger relationships with your patients, you lose them because you stop after just the attraction part – you do not work on making your offer stronger so as to keep these first time patients in your practice.

The key is to make your marketing campaigns more meaningful such as your pamphlets and brochures. Give them more value; not just instant magnets that carry your message. Striving for business growth by keeping your patients in your fold is better than having to try to attract new patients every time.

Here is how:

Do not contradict your own campaign. Make sure that everything works according to the game plan. From your in-office displays to the staff who answers your calls – all these should be able to carry the brand value you want for your practice. Do not let your limited budget make you look unprofessional and unappealing. Think and plan carefully to the minutest detail. Not only should your marketing collateral carry your brand image, it should be apparent in everything you have for your practice – from the moment your patients read your message in your pamphlets or brochures, to the time that they actually use your services.

Build relationships with your marketing campaigns. Stop making your campaigns as mere tactics to make a sale. Instead, aim to build relationships with your audience. Engage your target audience with your marketing collateral. Look for ways to have the trendy media aids help you build lasting bonds to ensure that your practice will be at the top of your field.

Do not get tied with the newest trend. Although they may work right now, trends usually dwindle away when newer ones come out. So do not become fashion rejects. Invest in marketing aids that can promote longer.

Finally, always bear in mind that marketing is never-ending work. It needs to evolve along with your practice. Be sure to keep your marketing campaigns up to date. Revitalize your data and goals every time with the objective of engaging your patients in growing your practice.

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Marketing Without The Frustration

1/25/2010

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Do you often get frustrated with the outcome of your marketing efforts? Most of the time, do you get lackluster results rather than what you expect? Even with a marketing campaign supported by real data gathered methodically and conscientiously, do you most often than not fall prey to promotional aids that are created on a whim? Instead of planning carefully and strategically, is your impulse to run promotions based on the latest media trend? If you answered yes to any or all of the above, you are not alone!

This is especially true nowadays when you are working on a limited budget for your marketing campaigns. Just because business is slow, you tend to go for media trends that may be offering a great rate or even those that are fashionable, hoping that these media aids will help get their practice out of the doldrums.

However, although these marketing activities can help you gain attention from your target audience, they lack what it takes to build brand value. Instead of focusing on giving more meaning to your marketing efforts, you tend to go for something that would give you instant attention for quick repair of your situation. It is like applying first-aid for temporary relief. Your pain would be taken care of for now, but it will not last very long.

So rather than go for instant marketing aids to attract attention, why not make your marketing campaigns more meaningful? Instead of putting more weight on instant sales, you have to work on creating stable relationships with your target audience.

Marketing campaigns such as pamphlets and brochures may mean immediate results that can increase your sales, but it should not stop there. Instead, aim on encouraging more repeat business from your patients so you can help your practice survive in your chosen field. You have to capitalize on what you have to offer and make sure that you build brand value from these benefits.

How do you do this then? By focusing your efforts on defining clearly your target market and the right message to give them. Your marketing campaign definitely would have more meaning to your target audience if the message you give them is what they are looking for. Having the right message for the right target audience goes a long way in having a meaningful and effective marketing strategy that would bring in a huge difference between having a successful practice and a failed one. By providing your target audience with the right message, you are able to help your patients make a wise decision whenever they engage your services.

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Marketing - What Is It, Really?

12/17/2009

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Marketing has the objective of trying to create attention to your business. Nevertheless, the marketing process has more than one purpose.

In addition to gaining the interest of your target clients, marketing also has the capacity to increase the sales and profits. Through effective marketing, any business owner can communicate and inform the target clients of what they have to offer, and convince them to finally purchase. This then results to an increase in sales and profits to the company.

However, marketing does not just stop there. It is not just about market research and getting to know your target clients, getting their attention, making a sale, or even successfully launching your promotional campaign such as your brochure printing. Again, it does not stop there. It is a long-term process that you have to nurture and maintain consistently.

What do I mean by this? Let us think of it as a personal relationship with a loved one. In order for us to maintain a good relationship, we need to work on it. We have to constantly communicate with the other person so that we do not lose touch. Communication simply makes it easy for us to be right on track and to remain connected with the other person. When we do not give proper attention to the relationship, we simply drift apart. Hence, the relationship may not be as meaningful as before.

It is the same with marketing. In order for you to remain connected with your target market, you need to be constantly in touch with them. You become responsible in managing and maintaining your campaigns to make sure that everything is on track. Without these things, your efforts would remain useless, no matter how outstanding or excellent your campaigns such as your print brochures. You simply become disconnected, leaving your clients and prospects indifferent to your efforts.

Furthermore, you need to be well prepared to implement each of the marketing strategies you have. It is great if all the strategies we launch would make our target clients less suspicious of the motives. We all know that an ad would always have an underlying motive, and that is to sell. Hence, all consumers will be expecting to find a marketing campaign to offer something that they need and value.

They would want anything they are going to purchase to be worth what they paid for. It is therefore very important that we reflect that in our marketing campaigns. Your brochure prints for example should be able to show a business that is valuable to the target audience. As a result, sales would increase and profits will definitely go upwards.

Being viable therefore rests on the marketing strategy we have. Being effective means that you are able to provide your target clients with whatever product or service they are looking for. Marketing is not just about letting them know who you are, what you can do, why you are doing it and what you have for them. It is also about letting them know that we are building a relationship with them to last for a long time.

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Three Lessons In Good Medical Practice Marketing

10/16/2009

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This posting may be short on content, but it's long on marketing strategy!

1. Patients do not buy your services-they buy solutions to their problems. This old adage never fails: promote the sizzle, not the bacon. Your patients are looking for what the nose job, breast augmentation, chin augmentation, etc. will do for them. They are looking for the best (highest quality, safest, least expensive) way to get that sense or feeling they desire. Focus on that.

2. How your staff feels is eventually how your patients will feel. No matter how much you try, the bottom line is your patient will have more contact with your staff than with you. How your employees feel about their situation at work will ultimately be translated into how your patients perceive your practice. Fill your practice with happy, positive and motivated people and you will increase the opportunities for your patients to have a positive experience.

3. If you are an underdog, only compete in market segments where you have or can develop strengths, avoid head-to-head competition with dominant competitors, emphasize profits rather than volume, and focus on specialization rather than diversification.

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Marketing Strategies For Your Medical Practice

9/29/2009

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Physicians that put out their shingle in the sixties and seventies have been through a lot. They enjoyed the golden years of private practice, endured the painful intrusion of managed care and have survived the somewhat tumultuous aftermath. They are strong, but some are dismayed and disenchanted with their current position. Many have reached a time when they expected to take it easy, yet they find themselves working harder than ever. Others are concerned about a continued decline in their patient base. With all their experience and still eager to work, the practice is shrinking and they don’t know what to do. Here are a few suggestions to help you jumpstart your practice.

First, take a look at the reasons you might be experiencing a dwindling practice. There are likely to be a number of reasons. Often the referral base you depend on today is the same one of 30 years ago, but not all of those physicians are still around, some have relocated and others have retired. At the same time, word of mouth referrals decline as your own patients age. You will lose some due to death and others move out of the area for various reasons. Add to this the patients that have switched to managed care plans you don’t belong to and the shrinkage becomes obvious. Solo practices are particularly vulnerable, as some managed care plans will only contract with group practices.

Once you look at the factors involved in the practice decline, you can explore various remedies.

Begin by developing relationships with young physicians that are entering your community. They need seasoned physicians to break into the medical community and to support them in the community at large. New primary care physicians want to know which specialists to send their patients to. They will gain confidence in your ability to treat their patients from both a personal and a clinical point of view once you open the lines of communication and strengthen the relationship. Younger specialists need to know as much as they can about the primary care physicians that serve the community, especially those that have been in practice for an extended period of time. They will appreciate your knowledge of the community and the politics of medicine.

Look to the medical staff office at your hospital for a roster of new staff members. Develop an approach to become familiar with the new doctors in town. If there are only a few, your job will be simple. If there are many, you will need to set a goal on how many you want to contact each month and what criteria you will use to prioritize the list.

Meet personally with each physician you have targeted, whether it be the specialty group or the primary care physicians. Invite them for a business lunch or perhaps to join you at a local Medical Society meeting to introduce them to other members of the medical community. Explore his or her personal and professional interests and begin to develop a profile on each physician.

For those that have a sports interest you share, invite them for a round of golf or to attend a sporting event of interest. For those with similar family interests, you may want to ask them to join you for a community picnic or annual event.

Your spouse may be helpful in nurturing relationships, as well. For example, both spouses may be interested in community service work, or education, or have their own private businesses. Whatever the commonality, be sure to make that connection active by introducing them and encouraging the relationship.

Stay actively involved in hospital activities and committee work, and use this as a source to work in tandem with some of the newer physicians. Hospital Grand Rounds and committee involvement can pay off big dividends in connecting with newer doctors.

It is also very effective to tap into the media. Contact the health and medicine editor of your local newspaper. Inquire about a possible by-line and invite the editors to call you for an interview whenever a hot health care topic is ready to hit the news.

It is also a good idea to develop a practice business portfolio. It should include a black and white press photo, your curriculum vitae, a copy of any recent by-line articles and a list of areas you have specialized expertise and knowledge in. You might also include a list of lectures you are willing to conduct for community groups. Such a portfolio is good for contacting both the media and community organizations.

The business portfolio is helpful in opening doors to get on a radio talk show, as well. We tend to think that they won’t be interested, but our experience proves they are most likely to welcome physicians who have something to say. It’s important to be prepared before you make the contact. Decide on a couple of relevant current health care issues you can speak about. Then set up an appointment or a telephone conference to discuss this. If it is a telephone conference, you should send your business portfolio in advance. If it is a meeting, bring it with you. Remember to be as personable as possible.

Use these tried and true tips and you will begin to see your practice reap the benefits. It can also help to encourage your office manager to be active in community organizations. Pay her fees to join a local service group as your representative and to volunteer you as a program speaker. Also encourage your office manager to become active in local chapters of practice management organizations such as the Professional Association of Health Care Office Managers (PAHCOM) or Medical Group Management Association (MGMA). If there aren’t chapters of the organizations in your community, by all means encourage your practice manager to establish one. Contact with other office managers is vital to keeping your practice alive.

If you need help into these ideas into action or exploring other ways to jump start your practice, call BAC Medical Marketing. We will make it a top priority and help you obtain the results you want.

The most important asset in your practice is the people. This includes you and your staff, as well as the patients. Be sure your service is superior and that you and everyone working for you are committed to making the patients feel important.

Do everything you can to take care of and attract patients of varying age ranges. Above all, be personable. That’s what patients really want and that’s what they will talk about among their friends and colleagues. It’s your practice; make the most of it!

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