Notice the persistent  drop in practice incomes over the past 10 years.  

  Marketing Your Medical Practice Today 

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Decision Map   What's Your impetus for thinking about marketing your medical practice? 1. Government's increasing restrictions on your medical practice fees causing you increased work for less pay? 2. No end in sight for the great majority of states ever putting a cap on malpractice awards thus increasing your premiums and reducing your net income? 3. Overcoming the mediocre practice income you settled for because you never knew how to make it any better? 4. You became aware of the national surveys showing an 7% decrease in physician's incomes across the board over the last 10 years, and the trend doesn't seem to be changing direction soon? 5. You discovered how much plastic surgeon's incomes have skyrocketed since they implemented marketing into their practices and forgot to tell all the other doctors about how and why it works so well? Your best defense against all of the externally forced compromises you have had to make in your practice just to keep going is to do exactly what all small businesses do to survive.................. they market their business aggressively.  You definitely don't want to make the same dumb practice mistakes this medical doctor made when he was in practice a while back!  Your marketing tools can easily be found, used, and profited from without ever being blasted with overwhelming costs, lost practice time, and hired commercial marketing guns who don't truly understand physician mindsets...................And you can simply scale the marketing strategies to your own practice style...... even do it all yourself if you choose.   What medical practice marketing won't do: No, you don't have to be a medical practice marketing genius to make the marketing strategies work. No, you don't have to throw out thousands of hard earned money to hire someone to do practice marketing for you, but it can be beneficial and faster. No, you don't have to worry about spending huge amounts of time out of your practice to enable efficient marketing of your practice. No, you don't have to do any marketing of your medical practice.  You can just let the other doctors WHIP PAST you leaving you in their medical practice marketing dust. This is a NO B.S. website for physicians -----like no other!      Permit me to enlighten you about a few observations concerning what's happening in the healthcare marketing world today. But first, please let me clear up the misconceptions about the difference between advertising and marketing.        Advertising is telling or showing someone about something that's available and to know about in the hopes they will buy it.      Marketing is the total process of moving from an idea of something to sell, to the time a customer buys it and doesn't return it.       As a medical doctor you see it as, I want to "sell"  patients that I deliver excellent medical care and can make their lives healthier and happier.  At the same time, they are buying into trusting me, permitting me to treat them, and having the confidence in me to accept what I advise.  HELLO!  You are a salesman.      Marketing strategy includes research, design, manufacturing, packaging, promotion, distribution, target marketing, selling, and making a profit as well as expanding the  business.  Advertising is the wart on a marketing finger.      The basic principles of marketing are adaptable to any kind of business, and medicine is no different.  The same strategies and tactics apply.  The principles are a lot easier to learn and use than memorizing the anatomy of the human body.  A real physician's practice marketing story:      Let me tell you a story of a new OBG doctor who arrived in our community of 100,000 people and started out practice with an established OBG doctor.  This was a community overflowing with OBG physicians--fire off a gun and you'd hit 2 of them without even aiming.  All of us OBG doctors were very pessimistic about his chances of developing a good practice load.       He trained in an excellent medical school, had a great personality, and practiced top notch medicine.  Within two years he had his own office and a rapidly increasing bolus of patients in spite of the OBG practice competition.  We had already seen many doctors set up practice, fail, and leave the area.  Within the next two years he had one of the top practices in the whole area.      The amazing thing about his skyrocketing practice was the speed with which he had accomplished it all, because the rest of us had spent 5 to 10 years to reach the peak of our practices.  It was a time I call B.C. (before computers and the Internet).      Most doctors I know and have met are very tight lipped about what they're doing in their practices to build income and patient loads.  Behind the scenes this doctor had hired a public relations (actually did marketing) expert early on to guide his practice.  It cost him a bundle, which most of us starting out in practice can't afford.  But, it did show all of us local doctors what astonishing results marketing could do for our personal practices.  It was a wake-up call for me and too late.       That was in the 1980s.  What has changed in the world of marketing and is so important to doctors starting their practices as well as those who have quietly drifted into the 21st century in a state of inertia, is the Internet......not to mention personal computers.  You now have the opportunity as a marketing physician to: Interact with patients with e-mail, podcasts, webinars, ebooks, articles, reports, and more....all in a digital format from your computer while sitting there in your shorts sipping on a cool one.   Take advantage of the level playing field provided by the Internet by having the same ability to market your practice to exactly the same patients as the $30,000 a year Medical Marketing Businesses you pay to do it for you. And that is a no B.S. fact you need to let sink in.   Use every marketing strategy and tactic the big boys use.   Morph these marketing strategies and tactics into your practice at your own speed and timing.   Access every database and information source the non-physician marketers learn from.   Access your patients on handheld computers anywhere, anytime, and even while on the cruise ship.   Learn how to do your own medical practice marketing by knowing where to start and what resources are available to physicians.  Your marketing education is considerably less expensive than you may believe. Do what other doctors are not doing!        In order to tickle your curiosity a bit about what you might decide to do to market your medical practice, think about how you might begin using some simple marketing strategies like these: Educate your patients---tell them what you think and believe.  Start a newsletter to them, or handouts you personally create on special medical topics.  Most doctor's won't take the time to do it--one hour per week to do.   Create a website---with the templates and graphics available a website can be constructed and on the Internet in one day.  Old patients use it to learn.  New patients use it to find out who you are.  Over 3 million people are surfing the Internet daily, so if you're there, you will get new patients.   Write articles, reports, and ebooks---have them published on the Internet for free and on your website, and let your patients know that.  It gives you great credibility and makes you an expert in their perception.   Social interaction---offer to speak at community functions, be part of a charity event, be out where people (potential patients) can see you like coaching kids soccer games or going to church functions.    Be active in hospital affairs---serve on committees, attend hospital supported events and parties, give your opinions on solutions to problems, and be humble while you do it all.   Postcard marketing---Do you have any idea how powerful it is for a patient of yours to receive a card from you, signed by you, on their birthday? But, there always must be an offer for something they need on that card.        Crowded into each of these marketing factors, and many others not mentioned, are incredible amounts of value to your practice.  Some are obvious and some not.  Each of these creates an explosive elevation of your position among doctors, nurses, and other doctor's patients.  Consequences include increased referrals, prestige, and income well beyond the norm. Start here if you prefer: (My recommendations) 1. Take a short marketing course on your computer sitting at home for an outrageously low price but an outstanding value that I find nowhere else that's comparable.  It's not one of those sites where cheap cost equals lousy value. Click here to check it out:   http://www.newbiesschool.com/                   and   http://www.newbiesstarterkit.com/  Ian Traynor owns top spots on Google pages with 56,000 links to his sites.  His newsletter is a marketing gold mine.                             2.  If you prefer going directly to the top gun in marketing, I suggest joining Dan Kennedy's Inner Circle and newsletter.  Read his marketing books -----available at his bookstore and on Amazon.com.       Click here to start--FREE:  http://www.freegiftfrom.com/drgraham Marketing medical practice is not difficult nor costly in your hands. Medical practice marketing is the ultimate tool for increasing medical practice income. Personal note: If you prefer to work one on one with another M.D. who has the marketing knowledge and medical practice insight to propel your practice and income far beyond your practice competitors, then contact me.  It's what I do and love it.  It's my opportunity to give back to my profession and friends.  What have you got to lose? Check me out here:  http://www.MarketingAMedicalPractice.com  + free newsletter. http://www.healthcare-toolbox.com  Contact me here: cgmdrx@gmail.com  or 702-258-0415   Disclaimers-Policies / Links Page  / Article Archives	"Medical Practice Business and Marketing News" Subscribe Now! Physician marketing expert-- teaching other physicians medical practice business management and medical practice marketing--
Curt Graham, M.D., L & C Internet Enterprises, Inc. 2404 Mason Ave.  Las Vegas, NV 89102 E-mail = cgmdrx(at)gmail.com       © 2004 - 2010 Curtis Graham, M.D., L & C Internet Enterprises, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.