Marketing tends to be an ongoing process. I have always felt like marketing is my white whale. I feel like I make some amazing progress researching how to best go about tackling the projects and then all of a sudden things changed and I need to go back to the drawing board. For me, I do understand how vital marketing is to the long term success of my practice and thus why even when I fall down after many attempts I rest and then go back at it.
In today’s blog, I want to share with you my personal beliefs and bumps and bruises I have experienced along my journey. Not to say I am the queen of marketing or because it didn’t work for me it could work for you, I am a believer of any information in this process can be helpful
Mailers vs Emails
Who doesn’t love getting things in the mail?! I sure do, well let me be more specific. I love getting hand written letters, not all that junk stuff. When I get some junk flyer I don’t even look at the images the paper automaticlly goes into the recyler.I always want you to think about how you interact with marketing material because that is probably how your potential client will interact with it. I learned this the very hard and expensive way. When I started I thought if I mailed out these amazing letters to all the local doctors and got them to know just a bit about me, that is how I would definitely get new clients… WRONG! I spent way too much money for zero client referrals.
On the other hand, each time I meet a new doctor, therapist, or someone in my community I will ask if they would like to be added to our newsletter list. In this email list, we build a relationship through FREE information. Our community builds and people get to know what it is really like to work with us. I can’t tell you how many people have said how they have loved the newsletters or just knowing all the fun things going on with us.
What works for us
Hainv an email list that we engage with regually to build up our community has help us to foster great connections with other professionals. I reccomend start building up your email list and nutriring it weekly!
Social Meda The Truth
One of the things I love about social media is that fact that it’s free. And, yes, it won’t cost you anything to claim your business’ social media profiles, post on a regularly and interact with other professionals. The problem is that, even though you won’t necessarily have to spend money to fund your strategy, you will spend lots of time, which is so costly. It takes hours to build your profiles, and several hours a week to even maintain basic activity. Add up those hours, and suddenly the amount of time that social media marketing does “cost”!
I do believe you need to be on social media and have a voice for your company and engage with the public professionally while providing education. The bottom line for social media is understanding your total ROI or return on investment. Imagine that it takes you 15 minutes to write a post and make a great image in Canva, and you submit it to your 15 followers. Now, imagine you create the same post, but for 15,000 followers. Which one do you think will have a higher return for your investment (assuming those followers are all genuinely interested in you)? It takes a long time for social media to start paying off.
There’s a lot of regret in the social media world, especially in the beginning. You’ll end up making typos or mistakes, or maybe that was just me, but more often you’ll kick yourself for what you didn’t do. You might miss a good opportunity for a post, a hashtag or an engagement. You might see a competitor’s post and wish you’d thought of it first. In any case, your strategy won’t be perfect, and you will just have to keep in mind we all start exactly where you are starting!
What works for us
I did all the social media when I started out, shoot I did everything else too. I really do love social media and can see the benefits and time suck. Not till recently have we become very clear and direct with our social media plan. And when I say recently like 2017! We also hired an amazing virtual assistant to help us build up the social media sites of our practice. I recommend start with your practice, and set up strict time of when you will post and engage and try to slow build out a plan of what you will post.
BE YOU!
We can spend tons of time talking about how to attract new business and how to talk to other practitioners, and I feel one of the biggest things a lot of practices forget it to be you with your clients and be a good person! What I mean by that is how would you act when you had an important guest over to your house? Would you make them wait? I hope not! Keep this in mind when working with clients. How would you treat an important guest- kindness, hospitality (the good southern lady in me), respect and appreciation?
Imagine how that would feel if you were greeted at your doctor’s office with bottle water or hot tea and had free snack available. Or picture getting a hand-written card in the mail from your dentist after your initial visit welcoming them to the office and how their team is there to support you! I would be shocked and pretty sure I would tell ALL my friends then NEED to see this provider! Nothing is more powerful than a friend referral, NOTHING!
Adrien Paczosa is a Business Strategist for Private Practice Owners and Dietitians and helps them grow and scale their practices to six and seven figures. She is the founder of Fearless Practitioners, the division of her business that offers business training and coaching to private practitioners, dietitians and wellness professionals.
Adrien is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian, owner of iLiveWell Nutrition, her private practice with two locations in Austin, Texas and the surrounding counties.
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