Let's carry these thoughts forward into a discussion of marketing. Marketing strategies in the new normal. Again, I have no financial relationships to disclose. And let's start with a polling question. My organization has to define marketing strategy. In regards to marketing, social media is now really more important than it's ever been. Does your organization have a brand? In regards to healthcare marketing, do you really know who your customer is? So it's more often people are confused with advertising with marketing. Marketing is a more controlled and wider reaching process while advertising is really specific to a brand. And of course, in these changing times, we realize that back in the day, physicians relied really on word of mouth. And we know today's word of mouth sources from a lot more mouths. Patient check-in online reviews before they really decide to make an appointment. And for some reasons that we may never know, they want a specific position for many different reasons. Does your facility have a website? If you do, you want to look at your website, see what's on there. See what will catch the eye of people going and passing along your website and making them want to come to your facility or your office. Prior to COVID-19, patient adoption of smartphone-based technology was really largely generational and perceived as growing very slowly. With the advent of COVID-19, the transition was really instantaneously. In regards to telemedicine, who was even doing telemedicine in GI five to six years ago? Remember when we thought telemedicine wouldn't be accepted by the patients for GI concerns? Now, it really may never go away. Do we need an office visit for medication refills or other minimal or no medical decision-making? Not really. Patient appointment notification, some via text messaging or web applications. Are you able to keep your appointment? Do you need to reschedule? Recent contact history, any new symptoms? From my experience, more patients prefer this overall app or text. So these applications in terms of marketing really make the patient's experience so much more better. Appointment check-ins, are you able to keep your appointment? Do you need to reschedule your appointment? Here is where a patient getting a text message, it might be the same day or the day before they decide they want to reschedule. It allows them to avoid making a phone call to the office, the doctor's office or the center. And then they get upset because sometimes they can't get through to notify the center that you're going to be canceling or rescheduling your appointment. Any recent contact history again or symptoms? Any changes to their medication list? When you arrive to your location, you click on the link to start your registration, which people seem to love that. They don't have to worry about waiting, perhaps in a waiting area. They can click that they're arrived and wait for instructions on when to come into the facility or the office. So if this is your marketing and patient experience platform, what is your next logical step? You want to facilitate online reviews from your patients. How well did we do? If you receive poor scores, you want to ask if they want to be contacted for a solution. If you receive a good score, you want to ask if you can cross post that to social media. This provides opportunity for physician level satisfaction scores. As we know, these will be 100% real patients given the reviews on their experience. And it provides opportunity to increase positive media scores. So in regards to negative reviews or poor experiences, you want to try to really look, if you can, as to who worked with them. And you want to try to fix it. You want to try to make that a better experience for the next time. Do you have a brand? Not many have a logo. But let's look at the rules of tying a brand to a logo. Don't diminish your own logo. You don't want to overuse it. And you don't want to provide low quality. Be very careful of how you use your logo. So you don't want to fall into the trap of clothing with logos. You need to know who's wearing it and where they're wearing it. I've been seeing a lot of organizations creating face masks for a lot of their staff members, which I personally think is great. And really sabotaging your facility. But you just want to be careful on what type of clothing you create and who is wearing it. Don't use the logo slang. You don't want to really use abbreviations. You don't want someone to confuse abbreviations for something else with your facility or your office. You want to protect your logo. If you have a brand, you want to make sure it's guarded. In marketing, a rising tide does not lift all boats. Are you spending money to send your patients to your competition? Oftentimes, their referral from a brand is not a good idea. Oftentimes, their referral from a referring position comes from the nurse in your practice. Do you know who in the referring practice makes the referral? As you know, primary care practices are extremely, extremely busy. So majority of the time, it's the nurse that usually makes the referral. Does that particular person know your brand? To whom are you marketing your brand to? Often, a referral begins with a statement. I need a GI consult. What happens next decides to whom the referral is sent. If your statement is send the patient to Dr. Salmonso, then your marketing efforts are working. If not, then the referral hierarchy of needs kicks in. Appointment access. How much staff time does your referring position's office need to spend to send you a $1,000 referral? Your brand awareness. Does the actual person making the referral know your brand? Is it differentiated from others? Practice satisfaction. You want good access, brand awareness, but how do you treat the position and practice staff? A free lunch can't overcome ill treatment. So you really want to treat your referring position staff like they're important because they truly and really are important. And you want to provide feedback to the provider. Prop notifications and a thank you. I know that most facilities, they use a referral letter thanking them for their referral of the patient, which is a very nice gesture. Most referring doctors do like that. Okay, in the commodity market, quality is assumed. The question is, how do we differentiate in quality? In today's market, balance, in today's market, balance access and quality. Be aware of the quality trap. Referring positions may understand value more easily than quality. Once you have established your brands, market your access and your value. All right, some practice pearls. In today's healthcare environment, marketing is a requirement of survival. The adoption of electronic solutions due to COVID-19 can create a pathway to social media. Sites like Top Doctors, identified by rating sites, often really have very few actual reviews. A lot of the times, it can be just a few reviews. Often really have very few actual reviews. A lot of the times, it could be two or three reviews on these sites. And if they're all negative, then of course, it's going to bring your reviews down. You want to establish and protect a brand. It's the key to making marketing better. Are your marketing efforts targeting the right people? You really want to know who at your referring positions office is making your referrals. The end point of all marketing efforts is a referral. Do your marketing efforts support the healthcare referral hierarchy of needs? We are no longer in the quality environment where if you build it, they will come. You have to have really high quality, ease of access, and you treat your staff, your referring staff, like they matter, because they really do. Thank you.

marketing strategies

social media

telemedicine

patient experience

healthcare referral hierarchy of needs