Vestibular Therapy Marketing Strategies - part 3 (wrap up)

In our previous two posts we reviewed vestibular therapy marketing strategies that have been key for North 49 in consistently seeing well over 100 new vestibular patients a month. The two key strategies include educating ourselves as well as educating other health care providers.

In this post we will conclude this series by covering the steps we have taken to educate the general public regarding our services, along with two X factors.

Marketing 101

Before we get too far, when it comes to vestibular therapy marketing can you relate to any of the following:

• Feeling like you would rather not market your services as you do want to come across as being “salesy”?
• Promoting what you do feels awkward.
• As health care professionals people should know what services we offer anyways. Right?

Well, sorry to say this, but the general public probably has a poor understanding of what you do. They also likely do not understand how you are different from other medical professionals.

And, if we truly believe in what we do it should never come across as salesy. This is because we have a solution to a problem that can improves someone’s quality of life.

Marketing, promoting, or advertising is simply making people aware that we have a solution to a particular problem or set of problems. With vestibular therapy we can provide solutions to address dizziness and unsteadiness so that those affected by it can get back to playing with their kids, work without feeling exhausted, or whatever is important to them. When it comes to dizziness and unsteadiness the pubic is also often unaware that their problem can be addressed.

Strategies to Educate the Public

With promoting our services at North 49, here is a list of a few of the strategies that we have used (in order of effectiveness):

• Social media ads.
• “Ask the expert” portions of local new casts.
• Social media posts.
• Community newsletter ads.
• YouTube videos.
• Billboard ads.
• Fall prevention workshops at seniors home.

The best strategy of all is actually not listed above, but is simply “word of mouth”. Now, word of mouth can be good or bad, depending on the customer experience.

Creating Great Customer Service

To ensure great customer experience it is vital to consistently do the basics well. What are the basics you might ask? Well, the basics are remembering that as health care professionals we are in the service industry. With being in the service industry we need to:

1. First of all ensure that we have a great product which we talked about in the first blog in this series. In review, we need to educate ourselves so we are knowledgeable in this field and can consistently provide a solution to a problem in an efficient manner.
2. Educate the public (refer to above) that we have a solution to a particular problem, in this case being dizziness and balance issues.
3. Make it easy for customers or patients to book an appointment.
4. Have great team dynamics.

Make it Easy to Book an Appointment

There are so many things that can get in the way of booking an initial appointment with you so we need to minimize these barriers. With this in mind here are some of the things that have helped us that you may want to consider:

• How easy is it to find you on the web so they can get the information they need to book an appointment. If you are not sure how to maximize our SEO (search engine optimization) or even know what this is, there are many free resources out there on platforms such as Youtube. Or, if you prefer, you can get professional help.
• Your clinic hours and location.
• 24/7 online booking that allows patients the ability to book an appointment at their convenience, even when your clinic is closed.
• Offer in-person and online options.
• Having someone actually answer the phone during clinic hours when a patient calls.
• Ensure that patients can see you rapidly. If patients have to wait they may  go to the clinic down the street and all of your marketing has helped that clinic.

To help understand what you need to do, just think of how you felt when you attempted to contact a particular health care provider or local business personally. How easy was to work with them?

Team Dynamics

Along with making it easy to book an appointment at your clinic, something to help with the customer experience is to consider your clinic team dynamics. For example:

• What is your team culture?
• What is the level of training of your therapists? (Not sure which vestibular therapy course you or a team member should take next? Take this quiz to get some direction).
• What is the level of training for your front desk team? Can they reassure patients by answering common questions about their condition and what they can expect with their appointment at your clinic? Having a strong front desk team is key, as besides your website, they are the first impression and contact with your clinic.
• What is your team retention like? Having a constant turnover in staff will effect all of the above points. Your team is your greatest asset, so hiring the right people and serving them well is key.

With all of this it comes down to customer experience and did we make an impact on their quality of life. If we can do these two things consistency well we are going in the right direction with vestibular therapy marketing, but there are two more things to consider.

X-factor 1: Time

Great things do not happen overnight, but take time, persistence, trial & error, and patience.

X-factor 2: Working in Your Sweet Spot

Over the years there have been other clinics in our community see our growth and attempt to replicate it, but for some reason never see the same results. The reason for this may be that they are not working in their “sweet spot”.

If you are in a leadership position or are simply looking for personal development, a great book to read is Good to Great. This book reviews how highly successful individuals and groups are different than their competitors. The reason for this is that they are simply using what he calls the “hedgehog concept” to work in their “sweet spot”. So many business and people want to do everything in the attempt to be successful, but really become a “jack of all trades, master on none”.

Rather, with the hedgehog concept if one does something they are passionate about, can be the best in their field at, and they can make money doing it, they are in their sweet spot and will experience growth.

Back to clinics around North 49, if they are only wanting to get into the field of vestibular therapy to try to capture a market share and are not passionate about it or are not highly trained in this field, they are not working in their sweet spot and will not experience the growth we have. We, therefore, encourage you to make sure that you are well trained and have a passion for working in this field.

Summary

This concludes our 3 part vestibular therapy marketing series where we reviewed the need to:

• Educate ourselves.
• Educate our potential customers.
• Serve our customers.
• The factor of time.
• And embracing the Hedge Concept.

We hope that this information will provide you the success it has for us at North 49. Not only that but that you can actually attain it in a shorter period of time and experience even more success than we have.

Imagine what effect an additional 20 new patients a month would have on your physiotherapy clinic? How about 50, 75, 100, or thinking big how about over 100?

To dig a little deeper in vestibular therapy marketing, feel free to check out our webinar through Embodia.

If you would like some one-on-one coaching you can also feel free to contact us. It would be an honour to walk with you through your journey.

All the best!