Marketing

Social Media and Health Care: Improving the patient experience – digitally!

Leave a Comment / Healthcare, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Sales, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Let’s face it, we live in a digital social world. Brands of all types have made their mark on Social Media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram – but where are the health care providers?

  1. Oh, there are a few out there, but many are adverse to jumping on the social media wagon and here’s why avoidance is a mistake.
    Your patients are there and they WANT to engage. Using platforms such as Twitter or Facebook to brand your practice is a given, but are you posting content that is ABOUT them vs. about you? 80% of your content should have nothing to do with the services you offer. How much can you really write about Breast Exams or Colonoscopies or wait times in the ER? Ask questions! Ask for Feedback! Talk about preventative care, families and lifestyle. Patients also want to see the team from the doctors to the intake folks and everyone in between. Who are they? Why would I as a patient want to engage with them? Trust them with my care – my life? It’s all part of the customer experience.
  2. Improve Patient Communication. We all know that social media is not the place to talk about personal health care issues, but it is the PERFECT place to address broad questions. The key is to have a Social Media Manager and/or Patient Advocate managing social feeds. If indeed a personal health question arises, the Manager can direct the patient to a secure portal or have a health care provider call him/her to discuss concerns. As with any business, there will be Frequently Asked Questions that appear and best practice is to create an FAQ page on your website to direct patients or prospective patients to.
  3. More Satisfied Patients. It really all goes back to communication and transparency. Patients want to feel they are involved in their health care decisions AND they want providers who are willing to help them along the way. There is also the connectivity factor – connecting patients with other patients who share the same illnesses – almost like support groups but online. It’s perfectly OK to have a private MONITORED Facebook page for a variety of topics/groups such as Cancer Survivors, Sports Injuries, Heart Attack Survivors or those currently going through some life changing issue or chronic condition. When the Health Care Provider CARES and is involved, patient satisfaction will naturally rise. You are developing a community that your patients can be a part of.
  4. Education – Teach and Learn. It’s a given that social media is a great venue to educate your patients, and video is by far the #1 channel to do it. Not only is video engaging but it shows the true personalities of the presenters – doctors, PAs, NPs and other providers. Offering educational videos on everything from pre-op to post-op procedures to stretching exercises and healthy menu planning – the sky is the limit! Every physician is an “expert” and has a point of view. Social media allows physicians to easily share that expertise with the world and further engage current patients as well as attract new ones.

In the end, it’s all about putting you and your practice/group/hospital out there and allowing your patients to learn, teach, and engage.

Your patients are begging for this – where are you on the social spectrum?

Social Media and Health Care: Improving the patient experience – digitally! Read More »

Understanding Your Customer\’s Journey

Leave a Comment / Featured, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

Any good marketing whiz will tell you that one of the most important parts of effective targeting is knowing your consumer inside and out. We’re talking more than their household income and gender. Truly knowing your consumer means you’re privy to everything from what their favorite drink at Starbucks may be to what their morning routine looks like. Sound a little nutty? It’s not! As business owners, we must be able to fully place ourselves in our prospective consumer’s shoes in order for our message to resonate with them. Understanding their experiences could be the difference between your prospect walking, or making the sale.

How does your consumer feel about your business now? What would drive your prospects to take action? What’s important to them? What makes them a repeat client or customer, and more importantly, what makes them walk away? Knowing the answers to these questions will keep your business not only maintained but consistently growing. Cracking the code on exactly who your consumer is can seem like a large to-do, but it’s proven to begin with something called “customer journey mapping.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, the good people at Big Door define it as “a framework that enables you to improve your customer experience.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Your customer journey map follows your customer’s experience from their perspective to help your business understand how they are interacting with you. This in turn allows you to improve how your business interacts with them.

You want to start by figuring out how your prospects and current consumers engage with your business. Your customer journey map will pinpoint the steps they use to reach you. This is a process. It’s starts from when your consumer finds you online, to when they engage with your content, down to the moment they are being billed for your product or service. These are all “touchpoints” in their experience with your brand. Each of these touchpoints has the power to impact your consumer’s perception of you and ultimately drives their decision to conduct business with you or not. This isn’t always a linear process and it will vary from business to business.

Let’s dive a little deeper into what this process may actually look like. I’ve listed what the typical stages of customer journey map might be below.

1. Awareness – This when your customer takes notice of your brand for the first time. An email or some other form of an advertising campaign are common first steps for discovery.
2. Consideration – This may be as simple as checking out your website, or social media pages to review your message. Comparison between you and the competition happens at this stage as well. They may pursue customer review platforms.
3. Purchase – Here is where your prospect becomes a customer and makes the decision to buy the product or service you are selling.
4. Experience – Your customer now experiences your product or service for themselves.
5. Advocacy – Customer shares that experience, good or bad – with others.
6. Retention – Your business now has the opportunity to reel the customer back in using different tactics.
7. End of journey – Customer chooses to continue to use your product or service or goes to a competitor to restarts their journey there.

This journey can look very different depending on the nature of your business. There is no wrong or right way to go about accomplishing your end goal. A quick Google image search will show you different customer journey maps organizations have employed. They all look very similar to the steps listed above. Here’s ours visually:

\"customer\"

What the step-by-step list above doesn’t give you is the nitty gritty on what to look for at each stage. This is where you have to do your homework. It boils down to these four words: Action, motivation, questions and roadblocks. Here are some vital questions to ask yourself throughout the entire process.

  • What ACTIONS are your customers doing at each stage. Perhaps more importantly, what actions are they taking to move from one stage to the next?
  • What MOTIVATES them? People buy emotionally and justify those decisions logically. What motivates your customers to contact you, and to continue using your product or service? What motivates them to buy your other services or products? What emotions are they feeling? Remember – people either buy to gain pleasure or to reduce pain.
  • Are there unanswered QUESTIONS? Do your prospects have questions or concerns? When we are speaking to consumers through advertisements or written marketing material, people will have questions they want answered in real time. Are there unknowns that may scare them into perusing alternatives that may be more transparent in these areas?
  • What are the ROADBLOCKS that could prevent your prospect from moving between stages? These could include everything from cost, ease of doing business with you. Things like not so favorable yelp reviews and or lack of availability are common roadblocks that may get in the way.

Once you’ve discovered how exactly your prospects think, feel and react to your business, you’re ready to use this data for bigger and better marketing activities. You should be using your findings to both improve the efficiency of your current strategies and create new ones if needed.

Consider your company’s SWOT analysis for a moment. The term SWOT is commonly used by marketers and business owners. It reveals your brand’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, but this time we want to focus on these sections solely from the perspective of your consumer. For example, a strength from a business standpoint may be securing a well-connected investor to fund HR programs. From the perspective of a consumer however, things like having your brand readily available to them in big-box stores, and being the only brand in your lane to provide live customer service are big strengths. After you’ve established the specific values related to your business within the SWOT analysis, you can then develop a strategic plan.

The four quadrants of your SWOT analysis will inform the information you gather from customer journey mapping. The only way to gather valuable and accurate data is to ASK! Consider using a business consultant at this stage for unbiased feedback. Because we business owners and internal executives can only make educated assumptions about our consumer’s experiences, surveys and focus groups become invaluable at this stage.

Your survey or focus groups will focus on the details that are crucial for truly understanding a customer’s experience. Ask your consumer to map out their journey from their perspective. You’ll find that this road is not often linear. Some consumers skip the consideration phase and jump straight to purchases. Others may spend months researching, discovering new brands and comparing before making their purchase. For them, the costs of doing business with you is an investment worth their time. They want to get it right!

A well-researched customer journey map will unlock countless questions for you in the marketing process. You’ll be able to use it to find which platforms your consumer is listening to you on and how to effectively reach them at the awareness stage.

You’ll discover how your consumers evaluate your business against competitors and what questions you can answer before they make the decision not to buy at the consideration stage.

After the purchase stage, surveys from your customer journey map will inform you how to retain your current customers and what motivates them to share their experience at the advocacy stage.

Ultimately, there is no one size fits all when it comes to a customer journey mapping. The more touchpoints your customers face, the more complicated this map will be. Your company will have to tailor this process. The fundamentals provided above should give you a jump-start!

Done carefully, your organization can take charge over how your consumers engage with you.

Understanding Your Customer\’s Journey Read More »

Understanding Your Customer\’s Journey

Leave a Comment / Featured, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

Any good marketing whiz will tell you that one of the most important parts of effective targeting is knowing your consumer inside and out. We’re talking more than their household income and gender. Truly knowing your consumer means you’re privy to everything from what their favorite drink at Starbucks may be to what their morning routine looks like. Sound a little nutty? It’s not! As business owners, we must be able to fully place ourselves in our prospective consumer’s shoes in order for our message to resonate with them. Understanding their experiences could be the difference between your prospect walking, or making the sale.

How does your consumer feel about your business now? What would drive your prospects to take action? What’s important to them? What makes them a repeat client or customer, and more importantly, what makes them walk away? Knowing the answers to these questions will keep your business not only maintained but consistently growing. Cracking the code on exactly who your consumer is can seem like a large to-do, but it’s proven to begin with something called “customer journey mapping.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, the good people at Big Door define it as “a framework that enables you to improve your customer experience.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Your customer journey map follows your customer’s experience from their perspective to help your business understand how they are interacting with you. This in turn allows you to improve how your business interacts with them.

You want to start by figuring out how your prospects and current consumers engage with your business. Your customer journey map will pinpoint the steps they use to reach you. This is a process. It’s starts from when your consumer finds you online, to when they engage with your content, down to the moment they are being billed for your product or service. These are all “touchpoints” in their experience with your brand. Each of these touchpoints has the power to impact your consumer’s perception of you and ultimately drives their decision to conduct business with you or not. This isn’t always a linear process and it will vary from business to business.

Let’s dive a little deeper into what this process may actually look like. I’ve listed what the typical stages of customer journey map might be below.

1. Awareness – This when your customer takes notice of your brand for the first time. An email or some other form of an advertising campaign are common first steps for discovery.
2. Consideration – This may be as simple as checking out your website, or social media pages to review your message. Comparison between you and the competition happens at this stage as well. They may pursue customer review platforms.
3. Purchase – Here is where your prospect becomes a customer and makes the decision to buy the product or service you are selling.
4. Experience – Your customer now experiences your product or service for themselves.
5. Advocacy – Customer shares that experience, good or bad – with others.
6. Retention – Your business now has the opportunity to reel the customer back in using different tactics.
7. End of journey – Customer chooses to continue to use your product or service or goes to a competitor to restarts their journey there.

This journey can look very different depending on the nature of your business. There is no wrong or right way to go about accomplishing your end goal. A quick Google image search will show you different customer journey maps organizations have employed. They all look very similar to the steps listed above. Here’s ours visually:

\"customer\"

What the step-by-step list above doesn’t give you is the nitty gritty on what to look for at each stage. This is where you have to do your homework. It boils down to these four words: Action, motivation, questions and roadblocks. Here are some vital questions to ask yourself throughout the entire process.

  • What ACTIONS are your customers doing at each stage. Perhaps more importantly, what actions are they taking to move from one stage to the next?
  • What MOTIVATES them? People buy emotionally and justify those decisions logically. What motivates your customers to contact you, and to continue using your product or service? What motivates them to buy your other services or products? What emotions are they feeling? Remember – people either buy to gain pleasure or to reduce pain.
  • Are there unanswered QUESTIONS? Do your prospects have questions or concerns? When we are speaking to consumers through advertisements or written marketing material, people will have questions they want answered in real time. Are there unknowns that may scare them into perusing alternatives that may be more transparent in these areas?
  • What are the ROADBLOCKS that could prevent your prospect from moving between stages? These could include everything from cost, ease of doing business with you. Things like not so favorable yelp reviews and or lack of availability are common roadblocks that may get in the way.

Once you’ve discovered how exactly your prospects think, feel and react to your business, you’re ready to use this data for bigger and better marketing activities. You should be using your findings to both improve the efficiency of your current strategies and create new ones if needed.

Consider your company’s SWOT analysis for a moment. The term SWOT is commonly used by marketers and business owners. It reveals your brand’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, but this time we want to focus on these sections solely from the perspective of your consumer. For example, a strength from a business standpoint may be securing a well-connected investor to fund HR programs. From the perspective of a consumer however, things like having your brand readily available to them in big-box stores, and being the only brand in your lane to provide live customer service are big strengths. After you’ve established the specific values related to your business within the SWOT analysis, you can then develop a strategic plan.

The four quadrants of your SWOT analysis will inform the information you gather from customer journey mapping. The only way to gather valuable and accurate data is to ASK! Consider using a business consultant at this stage for unbiased feedback. Because we business owners and internal executives can only make educated assumptions about our consumer’s experiences, surveys and focus groups become invaluable at this stage.

Your survey or focus groups will focus on the details that are crucial for truly understanding a customer’s experience. Ask your consumer to map out their journey from their perspective. You’ll find that this road is not often linear. Some consumers skip the consideration phase and jump straight to purchases. Others may spend months researching, discovering new brands and comparing before making their purchase. For them, the costs of doing business with you is an investment worth their time. They want to get it right!

A well-researched customer journey map will unlock countless questions for you in the marketing process. You’ll be able to use it to find which platforms your consumer is listening to you on and how to effectively reach them at the awareness stage.

You’ll discover how your consumers evaluate your business against competitors and what questions you can answer before they make the decision not to buy at the consideration stage.

After the purchase stage, surveys from your customer journey map will inform you how to retain your current customers and what motivates them to share their experience at the advocacy stage.

Ultimately, there is no one size fits all when it comes to a customer journey mapping. The more touchpoints your customers face, the more complicated this map will be. Your company will have to tailor this process. The fundamentals provided above should give you a jump-start!

Done carefully, your organization can take charge over how your consumers engage with you.

Understanding Your Customer\’s Journey Read More »

Be an Innovator – please.

Leave a Comment / Fun Stuff, Marketing, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , ,

Well so-and-so is doing this, shouldn’t I? I hear this a lot. Everything from ABC company wrote a blog on this topic to XYZ company’s website has this – shouldn’t we do the same.

Just because someone else – or a bunch of someone else’s (is that even grammatically correct?) is doing something that doesn’t mean it’s working. Plus – do you really want to be like everyone else? Where is your unique value prop if you are just like ABC and/or XYZ company?

Let’s back up.

Every piece of content you put out there should have purpose. Meaning it should serve YOUR purpose. It should serve your WHY (go read Simon Sinek’s book –Start with WHY. Go ahead – buy it now, read it tonight) What may serve someone else’s purpose may not serve yours.

It’s ok to be different, in fact we encourage you to be different. Will some folks in your industry raise an eyebrow and say, “What are they thinking?” – perhaps. But isn’t that what people said about Walt Disney, Einstein and Henry Ford? Yes, the masses thought these three were off their proverbial rockers.

When it comes to marketing – dare to be different. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test your copy, do some market research. We all know some big marketing fails – where people tried to be innovators and it was just a nasty mess. Here’s some epic ones if you want a good chuckle – or perhaps you’ll just cringe and feel bad for the CMO or Marketing firm that got fired. There needs to be some filter – and some testing! Most of these fails weren’t really market tested – well that’s my gut. If they were, the obvious would have slapped them in the face.

Take baby steps. Maybe it’s doing weekly emails vs. monthly. Or diving into Instagram Live or being really transparent about your team and what happens behind the scenes! Innovate! Trust me – marketing is all about getting noticed. Innovators get noticed. Test it out – if it’s working, expand upon it. If it isn’t – pull back.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

How do we know it’s ok to innovate? We kind of live that model here at the Red Barn. We are always trying new stuff. What’s the worst that could happen? We need a do-over? Our goal is to tell our client’s stories, to make them stand out from their competition. We have to innovate or else we can’t accomplish our goal. We may follow some best practices – like having processes and procedures, following what Google wants today – but the rest is always a new idea and a new day!

Hogwash ABC and XYZ company – we’re doing it our way and we won’t end up on the top marketing fails list in the process!

Cheers!
CD

Be an Innovator – please. Read More »

Is Blogging Dead?

Leave a Comment / Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , ,

Um…NO! I’ve gotten a bunch of push back lately from people who are telling me that the days of weekly, daily, or monthly blog posts are over.

Why the questioning? Big reduction in comments on website blogs and the fact that we are inundated with content 24/7 and people just aren’t taking the time to read everything. All true.

So why continue writing weekly blog posts?

Blogs are still very important and people ARE still reading and commenting, but they are doing so via social media and email. Followers may NOT read every blog, but they are reading blogs that are relevant to them at that point in time. Blogs also help SEO on your website – in a huge way.

Here’s the process that I follow:

  • We create an editorial calendar for the year outlining what we are going to talk about based on our marketing/sales/business growth strategies
  • We create content in the form of blogs, whitepapers, articles and emails.
  • We share our blogs via our social channels, site in articles and white papers, and sometimes we share via email.
  • People tend to comment on social channels – especially LinkedIn and Twitter.
  • If we get high engagement – we may consider boosting posts to get further reach and engagement.
  • We watch the analytics to see what’s hot – and consider writing more content or expanding on those topics.

Frequency – why weekly? Because people ARE inundated with tons of content daily and if you miss them one week, you can catch them the next. If you are only pushing out new content every couple of months and you miss them – well, do the math.

Keep writing, keep posting! Trust us, blogs are alive and doing just fine if they are well written and relevant to your audience.

Do you write a blog now? Share it with us – we always love reading great stuff!

Happy writing

Is Blogging Dead? Read More »

Is Google Plus Dead?

Leave a Comment / Fun Stuff, Marketing, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , , ,

Originally launched in 2011 Google Plus (Google +) was set to be the next big thing in social media with the expectation of overshadowing Facebook. We’d seen it happen before when Facebook overtook MySpace in the social media popularity contest so it was possible it could happen again.

My first introduction to social media was MySpace. Whoa…I think I just aged myself a little bit there but I digress. Anyway, MySpace was the place where you could change your background settings and songs and make your page uniquely you anytime you felt like it. You could shuffle around your top 8 friends daily depending on your mood! How could it get any better? Introduce, Facebook.

Since the inception of Facebook in 2004 the platform has undergone huge changes. While some have been skeptical we all know the only thing constant in life is change and Facebook has never shied away from making changes good, bad or otherwise. So how did Facebook overtake MySpace in social media popularity? I’m glad you asked. According to former MySpace CEO Mike Jones, MySpace was just the introduction to social media while Facebook works to perfect the social media world. One of the biggest differences noted was that MySpace didn’t allow users to use their real name but rather a pseudonym while Facebook encouraged users to post their real names to better to connect with others.

When Google Plus was launched, Facebook had already been active for 6 years with millions of users worldwide making them a formidable social media opponent. There were now personal and business pages, sponsored ads and groups to join. So where would Google Plus fall into the mix? Initially Google Plus was designed to integrate all Google services to allow the users to be more transparent with the people they communicated with the most through a variety of ways including Hangouts and Circles which are currently still active. The idea was that you could arrange your circles to communicate with certain people through posts, videos or blogs etc.

Similar to Facebook, with Google Plus you can check into a location and let your followers know where you have been or what you have been up to. One of the most popular uses was Google photo’s which has since been separated from Google Plus and is its own program. So, in a nutshell, why is Google Plus still active and is it worth it to spend time and energy on?

In a word, yes. While Google Plus may not be the most active social media site the hidden perk is SEO. Search Engine Optimization. When you post on Google Plus you increase your SEO on Google and increased SEO is always a good idea. Key words, photos and tags will help direct traffic to your posts which if linked, will direct back to your website or whatever you are posting about. Talk about a win-win. Facebook may be the leader in being social, but Google Plus is the winner for SEO. According to a Stone Temple Consulting study, 90% of users with a Google+ profile have never posted to the network. So you may wonder, how can it work, how is it beneficial if people don’t post to it? From a study conducted by Statistic Brain 70% of brands have a presence on Google Plus proving that for business purposes it is a useful tool.

Is Google Plus Dead? Read More »

Become a Social Media Master in 20 Minutes a Day

Leave a Comment / Marketing, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , , , ,

Are you a social media master? Do you spend hours creating a powerful intro, put together the perfect plan, and then post at exactly the right time? Have you conquered Facebook, brought Twitter to your heel, and gotten LinkedIn under control?

At RBC, we live, breathe, and eat social media (yes, our meals are mostly differing shades of blue logos…) And we know that one thing business owners don’t have much (read “any”) of, is spare time. So, here’s a super simple guide on mastering your social media marketing in less time than it takes to cook a delicious Facebook soufflé.

Plan your social media ahead of time. At the start of the month, you’re going to plan what you’re going to promote on social media. Look, we know it’s more fun to wing it, but trust us on this. Look through all of the content you have — Blog posts, articles, videos, image galleries — All those things you’ve put time, effort and a little love into creating. Decide on the marketing themes for each part of the month, and the main points you want to get across.

Put together a social media calendar. Once you know what you’re going to promote, you need to work out the when and how. That means you need a social media calendar. On each day plan out:

  • What you want to promote.
  • How you’re going to promote it.
  • The channel(s) you want to use.

The trick is to strike a balance between posting enough to build momentum, and not posting so much you’re over saturating. The best way to do this is to post your own stuff and also share other useful articles, links, and content from others. That could be through retweeting, sharing, repinning, etc.

Write your social media posts.This one is key — Write your social media posts ahead of time. You can be much more consistent, use similar language, and get into the right mindset to get all the important information across. Remember to slightly repurpose your posts for the social media network you’re using. Your LinkedIn posts are probably going to be a bit more formal than your Facebook ones. Twitter means you’ll need to limit yourself to 140 characters.

Automate your social media posts. You don’t want to sit at the computer waiting for a specific time to post your content. Use an automation suite like Buffer or Hootsuite to automate your social media for you. Now, you shouldn’t completely rely on automation, so switch it up with some personally curated and posted updates as well. Engage people in conversation, and help others feel involved. Make sure you respond to @mentions properly.

Track your social media results. You’ll want to know where you’re getting the most visibility and traction. This means looking at when visitors are coming to your website and responding to your social media marketing. Use Google Analytics and similar tools to see what’s working for your audience, and tweak your marketing approach.

Get a social media expert to help you out. This probably doesn’t come as a surprise, but here at RBC, we’re experts at this stuff. If you don’t have the time, let us do the hard work for you. We’ll audit all your content, put together the perfect social media calendar, promote the heck out of your products and services, and get lots of lovely visitors over to your website.

Become a Social Media Master in 20 Minutes a Day Read More »

Secrets to building your health care practice…

Leave a Comment / Healthcare, Marketing, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Word of mouth is one of the best ways to organically build your healthcare practice. People are naturally cautious about who they share their medical needs with, and getting recommendations from friends and family helps to build trust.

The problem is, word of mouth has diminishing returns. You can build up a stellar reputation as a health provider, have overwhelmingly positive people who advocate for you, and bring in new patients, but at some point that’s going to tail off. When that happens, you need some other ways to reach out and let others know how awesome you are. Fortunately, we have just the thing…

Here are some tried and tested ways of marketing your healthcare business to bring new patients through the door.

Provide exceptional healthcare advice in a public setting. Some of the medical advice you provide is crucial. It helps potential patients gauge if you’d be the right doctor or healthcare provider for them. Use this to your advantage by providing great advice in a public setting. Attend health fairs and other events, speak at gatherings, and share your knowledge.

This doesn’t just need to be limited to strict medical information — If you have a nutritionist, physical therapist, or other healthcare expert on staff, they can provide advice in related fields and expose you to a whole new audience.

Give 150% when it comes to the customer experience. With so many options today, patients are being quite critical of their patient experience. How can you stand out? Have a comforting and comfortable waiting area with refreshments – it makes a difference! Doctors running late? Ensure you have a way to contact your patients and offer them a reschedule. Busy day of appointments? Make sure your staff doesn’t rush patients through the process but spends time ensuring their questions are answered and their needs are taken care of. Every little touch point matters. Not sure how you are doing – survey your patients and find out! PS – when you have a stellar customer experience it will differentiate you from others – market it as a perk!

Partner with other local businesses. One of the most powerful forms of local marketing is partnering with similar businesses. If you have a local gym, provide a class on exercising safely. If there’s a sports team, get involved with them by giving talks on recovering from sports-related injuries. If your town has large student population, give advice on good nutrition and diet. Involve yourself with retirement communities on medical care in later life.[/cs_text]

Build up a better medical referral network. Healthcare providers thrive on referrals. Network with other medical businesses in your local area and demonstrate your authority and expertise. As your reputation grows, use this to build mutually beneficial relationships with other specialists.

Offer free or low cost physicals, preventative tests, and vaccinations. Prevention is better than cure. Get healthy patients to your practice by providing physicals, preventative tests, flu shots, and other vaccinations for free, or at a significantly discounted rate.

Enhance your online, local SEO marketing. Local search, especially on mobile devices, is one of the main ways people discover your medical practice. Create a great website with useful, practical content. Make sure all of your local search profiles and listings are consolidated and accurate.

Stay on top of your customer reviews. Reviews should be another key part of your marketing strategy. Encourage your patients to review and rate your services, as higher reviewed businesses are better placed in search results.

Use the power of social media Monitor the social media around your brand and business. Interact with people through social media and share genuinely useful information and content. Answer questions to demonstrate your expertise and build trust in your advice and approach.

It’s time to look beyond word of mouth marketing, and here at RBC we’re ideally placed to help you do just that. We understand what healthcare providers need, and we provide awesome marketing and strategy services to help your business thrive.

Secrets to building your health care practice… Read More »

Want to increase your commercial banking sales?

Leave a Comment / Marketing, Sales, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

It’s easy to overlook the humble email. When you’re serving your commercial banking customers, that doesn’t leave much time. So, there it sits, one line in your inbox. In the flurry of new ways of marketing — Social media, viral content, video, interactive entertainment, the email seems like an “also ran.” That’s a shame, as we’re big fans of its simple beauty (and you should be, too).

Used well, email is an elegant way to market to large numbers of people. If you’re providing financial services, it’s also a fantastic method for building trust with your commercial banking customers. Here at RBC, we think the email is something to be celebrated and enjoyed, so let’s explore using it to market your commercial banking operation.

Why the email is more than just something to delete… So, why do we love the email so very, very much? Glad you asked.

It’s a low-impact way to get attention. The email is one of the more innocuous ways to grab attention, and it can be one of the most useful. You only need to craft a great email once (and hey, we can help with that). Then you can land this wondrous creation in people’s inboxes and enjoy the responses it brings. Email is less “in your face” than other types of promotion or advertising, so it’s perfectly suited to commercial banking, with its sensible and sober approach to managing money.

You can share really useful stuff that matters to people. Emails aren’t all about selling. In fact, if you make them too “salesy,” there’s a good chance they’ll get caught in a spam filter or simply deleted. No, the art of the great email is to build trust over time, and you do that by adding real value.

When you’re marketing to commercial banking customers, they need information and support. Give them insights into their industry, provide financial calculators and favorable terms. Share advice on good financial management and business admin. Providing tools and other useful services means they’ll think favorably of your bank. That really helps when it comes to trust and brand recognition.

Emails are great for embedding messages and links. A good email is never “just” an email. It likely contains engaging imagery and links to further useful information. You can make emails interactive and fun, provide access to your commercial banking products and services, share news and online information, and showcase everything your bank does.

They’re really (really) cheap to send. The cost of sending an email is, effectively, zero. This makes them one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. Yes, you’ll need to pay to develop really good email copy, but that’s likely to be much less than the cost of other types of marketing. And once that copy is created, it’s there for you, whenever you want to run your next commercial banking marketing campaign.

You can reach lots of people. When you’ve been building an email list over time (and you are building an email list, right?) you’ll have thousands of people you can contact. With clever mail merging and personalization, you can tailor your email to each individual business recipient, increasing the chance they’ll open and interact with it.

Now, we know the email isn’t perfect. People get far too many emails, so yours needs to stand out, and that means influencing your readers to open your messages. We can help with that — A combination of the right content, delivered at the perfect time, with a compelling subject line can significantly enhance your open rates and help you sell more commercial banking products.

Get in touch with us today, and let us start a quiet revolution in your bank. We’ll change how you think about and use email to spread the word.

Want to increase your commercial banking sales? Read More »