The secret to success for a hearing practice is not a secret at all—you need loyal patients who love your practice. You know that you provide exceptional care and run a great office. However, in order for your practice to grow and thrive, you need other people to know that, too.
That’s where marketing comes in. To help your practice grow—no matter how big or small you are right now—we have the top 10 marketing ideas for audiologists:
- Referral Offers
One of your practice’s greatest assets is your patients! Word of mouth is a great way to bring new patients to your practice. So, why not give your existing patients (who already love your practice) an incentive to spread the good news?
A referral offer is a discount you offer to existing patients who refer a new patient to your office. In some cases, you give the new patient a discount as well; the details are up to you.
2. Reward Positive Reviews
In addition to word of mouth referrals, positive reviews are an excellent way to showcase how much your patients love your practice. When potential new patients research your office online, they will be able to see those positive reviews, which could influence them to choose your practice as their new audiologist.
Consider offering a reward to existing patients who submit a positive review. This could be a discount on their next appointment or a gift card to a favorite local restaurant. Submitting a review is very easy and takes little time on their part, especially if you use ReviewMe.
3. SEO and Local SEO
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is critical to the success of any practice. SEO is what enables potential new patients to find your practice online. Local SEO is especially important for location-based businesses like audiology practices.
VisibilityBooster is a powerful tool for improving your website’s online presence and gaining valuable SEO traffic. With this tool, more people will find your practice, your website will rank higher in search engine results, and you will also be notified of new online reviews.
4. Fun Content
As an audiologist, content related to everything-audiology is probably of great interest. However, to put it frankly, audiology isn’t fascinating to everyone. That’s why it’s important to feature some fun content on your website, too.
One way to bring some fun to your website content is to make use of your blog. A blog allows you to add more personalized content that you can tailor to topics that are relevant at the time. Of course, you can still create blog posts about audiology-related topics, but they don’t all need to be about audiology. Consider creating blog posts about fun topics like office birthdays and celebrations, local events, practice milestones, and even your staff’s favorite recipes.
5. Video Tutorials
If you’ve been on Facebook lately, you might have noticed that more and more people are posting videos instead of written content. That’s because so many people prefer watching videos to reading lengthy posts.
Use that to your advantage! Create simple, easy-to-follow video tutorials for tasks that patients frequently inquire about. This may include how to insert a hearing aid battery, how to clean a hearing aid, etc.
6. Telehealth
In this day and age, having an alternative to in-person appointments is crucial. For many patients, telehealth virtual appointments are more cost-effective and use less of their time than driving to and from appointments at the office. Telehealth is also essential during times when health risks are high, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Telehealth services like myVirtualClinic allow you to provide personalized, quality care to your patients, no matter where they are. As long as they can connect with you via their computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can serve them.
7. Create Customer Campaigns
You already know that not all of your patients are the same. You have patients of different ages and genders, not to mention family demographics, financial backgrounds, and more. Because your patients are so unique, you should have customer campaigns that target these different “types” of patients.
For example, maybe you have certain marketing materials that are targeted towards seniors. These will differ from the marketing tactics you use to target the parents of deaf or hard-of-hearing children. You can also use different marketing platforms to reach varying audiences. Be sure to consider email, direct mail, social media, PPC, and other types of advertising.
8. PPC
Pay-per-click advertising is just what it sounds like: you pay each time someone clicks on your online ad. This can be a cost-effective way to advertise, as you won’t pay for any ads that are not clicked on.
If you want to get your biggest bang for your buck when it comes to PPC, try PPC+. This program is designed to get your business listed at the top of Google results, to keep your practice on people’s minds, and to ultimately draw new, high-value patients to your office.
9. Request Customer Feedback
Even happy patients might have ideas about how you can improve your practice. You won’t know unless you ask them! Don’t be afraid to ask your patients for feedback about their experience at your office. This feedback can be a valuable way to improve your services and enhance your patients’ experiences.
If you do happen to get an unhappy patient, ask them for their feedback, too. This could give you important insight into what could be changed so you have fewer unhappy patients.
10. Have a complete, fresh, branded, and modern website
One rule of marketing in the twenty-first century is that if you don’t have a website, you are missing out on a huge portion of patients. For some people, if you aren’t online, you might as well not exist!
It’s important to not only have a website, but also to have one that’s complete, fresh, branded, and modern. You never want potential patients to become frustrated with your website because they cannot find the information they need or it’s too difficult to navigate; frustrated website visitors typically leave your site and rarely become patients. If your website needs a refresh (or you need a website, period), check out our exceptional, modern website services.
With these 10 tips, you’re well on your way to growing your practice. If you would like more information about how to market your practice online and how we can help, please contact us at AudiologyPlus.
