Savvy Nurse Practitioners will do well to pay attention to marketing.
But what is it? Marketing is a term that is thrown about rather easily, yet not well understood. Many of us think of marketing as advertising. In truth, advertising is only one vehicle of the marketing pie. Some people use the term marketing to mean the message that you are trying to convey.
The broader definition however, is that marketing is a system that includes various things that you would do to market your business. In other words marketing is a way for you to get the message out about your product or service to those who are your potential and/or current clients. It is EVERYTHING you do to bring potential patients and clients into your business.
A marketing system needs to have several components to it.
You need to first and foremost identify who is your ideal client or patient. Who is it that you want to see in your practice more than anybody else? For example, a women’s healthcare NP will likely say that women are her ideal clients. It’s a good start, but it’s not specific enough. So when you think of your ideal client you need to get a picture of them in your head. You need to know where they hang out and most of all, what is their most pressing concern.
With marketing, you need to be aware of your goal. Is it just to bring in more patients? Are you looking for a particular patient? Are you running a particular campaign, for example, back-to-school vaccinations? Knowing your goal will allow you to tailor your campaign to match.
Your marketing needs to include several vehicles in order to get your word out. For so long many of us have relied merely on the phone book. Indeed, marketing vehicles will include things such as:
- Advertising: websites, phone book ads, newspapers, brochures, and more
- Public-relations: this will include things that you do to help patients understand your practice. This can include articles and columns that you may write for the local paper, magazine, or even TV. You can also include in this particular category, listings of nurse practitioners on say insurance websites. They are letting their clients know who the providers are that are available to them.
- Publicity: this can be good or bad and including mentions in the press and even word of mouth comments and testimonials.
Marketing is something that we cannot do you just once a week when we get around to it or when we don’t have enough people coming through our door. Marketing is something that needs to be engaged in on a daily basis. This is how you keep your funnel full and patients walking through your doors.
Of course, marketing is so much more involved than can be explained in this one tip. Future tips will explore information on how do you pick an ideal client or patient, have a right an ad for the phone book, and what information you should include on your website.
NPBO™ Action Step:
- Write down how you are currently marketing your business?
- Where are the holes in your plan?
- Which of the vehicles stimulated an idea for you?
- How and when will you implement it?
(c) 2009-10 Barbara C. Phillips, NP
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