Building a Practice on a Budget Series: Market Smart
Real-life tips from Pacific College Alumna and Founder/President of Pink Image Breast Thermography Clinic Wendy Sellens, LAc
Welcome back to our Building a Practice on a Budget Series! This week we want to help you market smart. You can spend A LOT of money on advertising, but wouldn’t you rather spend less and be more strategic, so as to get the most bang for your buck? How to inform your community is the challenge, so let us help!
1. Location .
Yes, I mentioned this in the first week of this series, but it really is crucial. At My Pink Image, we chose to spend a little more in rent for location so we wouldn’t have to spend money advertising. Here are some pointers for your location:
· Our clinic doors literally open to a Farmers Market every Sunday. Spend a little more in rent for perks like this to be close to your type of clientele.
· We opened our clinic in 2009, smack dab in the middle of a recession. What to do?! We decided to celebrate our first month of business by offering free acupuncture treatments to show the community what we could offer! This was very successful. We were actually surprised at the results. We more than doubled rent our first month and never looked back.
· Our clinic is located on a boutique street that offers business owners and employees a 10% discount, which we honor. Give locals and/or military a discount as well. Since we keep our overhead low, we pass the savings on to our patients and they keep coming back!
2. Sell products.
We sell everything our patient would need to be healthy. Why have them spend their money at another store? For example, we privately labeled an all organic, petro-chemical free, bath and body product line for the entire family.
3. Referrals.
Referrals are going to be your bread and butter marketing. We have a deal for every patient who refers a friend: they receive one free acupuncture treatment. This is great for patients who love deals. We have a couple patients who haven’t paid for acupuncture in months because they refer so many new patients to us.
Also, remember that getting better sells! We have the reputation of being “honest” physicians. If we decide during the consult that we need to refer out, we won’t charge. If the patient only needs one or two treatments we discharge them. Patients love honesty and saving money, and they WILL refer back to you because they trust you.
4. Pick your patients.
We are a “cash only” business. We do not accept insurance. We believe when people pay cash they make the effort to get better. They expect results with cash and we get them results. Being cash only, we keep our prices affordable and educate our patients on the importance of three treatments a week. When patients pay cash they expect results and with affordable prices coupled with several treatments in a couple weeks they get results! Worker’s comp and insurance patients tend to have a different attitude; since they are not “paying” many patients may not be as invested in their results.
5. Give your patients homework.
We inform them that they can do “homework,” which will increase their health or they can skip their homework and pay us to take care of them. What do you think most choose? We educate all of our patients on their particular health issue and require them to make lifestyle changes. Patients love homework, if it saves them money.
This concludes our Building a Practice on a Budget Series. We hope you gained some helpful tips for your practice! Visit Wendy at www.MyPinkImage.com .
