Medical Marketing Services in New York
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The “Generic Practice” and Competing for the Same Patient
Have you wondered why some ultra-specialized practices have patient waiting times of several weeks for an appointment while others are barely seeing enough new patients to keep their doors open?
At HMCOE’s recent medical marketing seminar we had a group of 50 doctors, practice managers, and hospital center of excellence marketers discussing the increasing competitive marketplace and rampant problem of not getting enough new patients to doctors’ practices.
It was evident that we were suffering from the problem of “generic practice” – Every doctor in the crowd was basically the same. Gastroenterologist A’s medical marketing was the same as doctor B’s. It was the same message to the patients “Our doctors are experts at treating ALL GI conditions” … really? Would you choose the same doctor to consult on colon cancer as one that practices bariatric surgery for obesity?
It’s only natural that people have role models and want to be them. But to try to copy their identity and resell as your own is why health care is where it is now. Doctors pick their top competitors and tell their marketers “I want to have a website just like theirs.” Hospitals pick a COE and tell their marketers “we need our center to be better” but when the executive decisions come down the pipeline, the marketers are forced to accept direction to copy the other hospital’s work.
Our cocktail hour was spent on going around the room asking 50 individuals to decide what their top area of expertise was and to put together a plan for Monday morning to go back to work and communicate that patients are not looking for generic practices, but rather the opportunity to connect with experts.
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Medical Marketing in New York
How many doctors in your area are true competitors? - You’ll be very surprised
I recently held a medical marketing seminar in November 2011 for 12 dermatologists in a 10 mile radius. It was arranged by a dermatologist in New York City who was fed up with the high costs of running his practice and wanted to explore banding together to form a community rather than a growing an increasingly competitive marketplace.
I informed the doctor that although I’ll set up the meeting place and the workshop it will be up to him to pick up the phone and speak with them directly. By doing so, all 12 dermatologists showed up for the medical marketing seminar. It turns out they all had difficulty in seeing new patients.
- Step 1: In the first 5 minutes I went around the room asking the doctors what their sub-specialty in dermatology was. Only two of them had the same sub-specialty, but they already work together in the same office. So there were 11 practices completely different from each other to start with.
- Step 2: I asked about the amount of money they spend per year on marketing their practices. The average was about $75,000 Here’s the interesting part: they were spending the money on promoting the entire dermatology specialty, not one was promoting their actual expertise. There was no differentiation between their campaigns. They were all competing for the same patients in a 10 mile radius. For the patients it was confusing as well, and chances are that they would rather travel above a 10 mile radius to see a sub-specialist rather than a general dermatologist.
- Step 3: I ran a 30 minute workshop simply reviewing each doctor’s website and showing how to improve their medical webistes to leverage their subspecialty and arranged office training sessions for each practice.
2 months later, all 11 practices had new patients for their expertise. Medical Marketing and advertising costs went down by 80% and these doctors actually started referring patients to each other for the first time in their careers.
Do you know who are your competitors … and if they actually are competitors? Call us at (646) 648 – 1355 or email info@hmcoe.com to arrange a consultation about your region and specialty. What you learn may change the way you practice medicine.
Simon Sikorski MD - Medical Director for medical marketing seminars
Run a medical marketing seminar at your office!
Our medical marketing workshops include hands-on training for your staff:
- Developing Medical Websites (including site revamp, internet advertising, SEO, SEM)
- Starting up & expanding a practice
- Setting up and running a medical marketing campaign
- Tracking Results, measuring outcomes
- What you need to be recognized for your expertise
- Reputation Management – How to deal with bad reviews.
- Beating the competition in your region and maximizing revenue while focusing on patient care.
- Call (646) 648 – 1355 or Email: info@hmcoe.com
Latest on Medical Marketing in New York City
- You can now run Medical Marketing Workshops at your practice. Call us for details.
- Our New York Medical Marketing practice has been recently acquired by Healthcare Marketing Center of Excellence - learn the latest medical marketing strategies from other doctors, experts, and health care thought leaders.
