Hi,
Does anyone work with any healthcare office? Our station does not work with many of these and I do not have any clients in this category.
I have tried calling various orthos, dentists, etc. and the receptionist blocks my calls. How do you get a hold of the actual doctor who owns the practice?
Just wondering if anyone can give advice on this category.
Thanks
Katie
Greetings from The Cape Cod of the Midwest, Door County, Wisconsin
We've had success by getting the person we want to present to on the radio. We do local business reports that give us a legitimate opportunity to call people in business for something newsworthy about their business.
Actually, USA Today is the perfect model for a newscast with a hard news (like their news section) a lifestyle story, local sports and a local business story in place of the USA Tday Money section.
My first attempt at a contact after a phone call would be a personal letter, then perhaps a letter sent to the home of the decision-maker. Then I would try calling before or after normal business hours. Then a call about commenting on something happening in the news using the person as a source. Then send them a link to your site with their story. If decision-makers listen to our stations and read our web sites they are more receptive.
If that does not work I would find someone in the circle of influence of the decision maker and ask for an introduction. I would also send audio and print versions of testimonials.
IF that does not work send a box of Depends with a note..."Depends are designed to stop leakage...and an effective radio campaign can also stop leakage of health care services to (large community nearby).
This works.
You cannot bore clients into giving you attention.
Suggest your station contacts Monica Wurstle, President of Medical Marketing Agency. (239-537-8377) Her agency handles local medical-related clients, but she also does webinars for radio stations to teach them the ins-and-outs of who to speak with, how to approach them, etc.
Remember that the doc or dentist that owns the practice isn't making any money unless they're seeing patients. And they usually don't handle their own schedule. Many of the them have no training in running a business or marketing -- so they hire someone to handle it for them, like an office or practice manager.
Their business is somewhat like ours from an inventory standpoint - there can be spoilage of product if someone cancels or they have openings. So staying "sold out" is vital to them too.
I have been able to meet with some small succes in this field but it has not been easy. Get in touch with the administrator or office manager. This relationship is probably the biggest key to your success with an office. Doctors and Lawyers feel they have a reputation to protect and do not want to be seen as ambulance chasers or the like. As with many clients, you need to bring ideas to them that will help them avoid "Chasing" but builds their name and reputation. One idea that has worked for me is have a thirty second script for a doctor to read (administrator needs to arrange this) give the doctor time to re-write the script (if he wants) to fit how he talk. Make the script very general like 'walking for health', 'recognizing signs of a stroke', things like this. the last part of the :60 commercial is to promote the office as an entity of it's own. With multiple doctors in most clinics, you have to discover if you are building for a particular doctor in that clinic or are you building for the clinic as a whole. The idea with this is to build the doctor or the clinic as a resource of information on medical health, you are not chasing the business but inviting it. You and I may know its the same thing but the client has been conditioned otherwise. Doctors are not trained in running business they are medical, often administrators are not trained in running the a full business, just the admin part. so for most medical offices the yellow pages beat our media to it and now that yellow pages are on the way out we need to step in fast because the web is calling them and they are just going where they are called to.
Katie,
Honestly, in Atlanta, I don't hear a lot of this type of advertising either. Principally, I see and hear group practices far more than individual doctors. I'm a big believer in beginning the process with an understanding of the general challenges in an industry to help me frame an approach. All these categories you mentioned have business development challenges that either revolve around negative perception or zero perception. Let's say you discovered that due to the Affordable Healthcare Act, some doctors have decided to stop accepting Medicare patients. Better believe that business needs to be made up somehow. So what if you told the receptionist: "I understand that your office no longer accepts Medicare patients and that means new patients will be needed to keep growing the business. I'd like to talk to your marketing manager about some ideas we have on how to help re-build patient count and revenue."
An approach like this is tried and tested, but the caveat is that you'd better have some specific and compelling ideas to offer. Don't pick up the phone if you're not prepared to float a few well thought-out teasers on demand. Earlier in my career, I found out when the principle decision-maker came in and I just camped out in the reception area to see him. After about an hour's wait, I was granted about 7 minutes to make my case. Dr. Yalich gave me an assignment and two weeks later, I had this chiropractor on the air with a 4-week campaign! Today, technology will allow you to work while you wait. Finally, conferring status on the receptionist by sharing a good idea with her can earn you an inside coach who'll tell you the best approach to getting to the person you need to pitch! Good luck!
Medical professionals are a lot like attorneys - they don't feel like they should have to advertise so the thought of it.
I've had success with women's clinics, optometrists, ENT's, vets, and dentists. In most every case, a constant focus on how I could increase their business, and compelling copy.
It is very likely that you will have to battle them on the message. Docs tend to want to focus on science. Patients just want to feel better.
Thank you! My problem is it's very hard when you meet with someone who is not the ultimate decision maker. The administrator or office manager takes my info, then "goes over it with the doctors". Which I rarely see success in this and defanitely not with healthcare practices. Yes our station demo and format is perfect for any healthcare practice that targets adult women or kids because our demo is the mothers making those decisions where their family goes. I know in my town a lot of healthcare companies advertise in the papers or magazines.. it seems impossible (the way I am doing it) to get the doctors on board when I can't meet with them in person..
Thank you for your help Roger, but I am completely lost in what you are trying to say. Can you explain what these local reports are? I am very confused.
I see you say send letter to the home of the decision maker.. do you mean if you speak to the receptionist today, then tomorrow you look up the doctor's home address and send him a letter? Can you please explain further?
I agree sending testimonials are great. It's hard when you do not have access to the final decision maker.
Not sure about your depends idea. Perhaps a letter with a picture of depends would suffice but there is no way I would buy a box of diapers and sending them to a business owner.
Where is her agency located?
Is there a website?
THANK you Tim!
Great points on their inventory! That's a great talking point!
My problem is when the manager / office admin - ultimately makes no final decisions. Instead they are info collectors. (at least from what I notice). I'm assuming that the doctors are so busy so they give the admin about 5 mins to talk about what I had to say. My problem is I have NOO idea what this person is saying to the doctors. - If they can remember what we talked about correctly and share with the Doctor correctly. Who knows what the doctors objections are. When the follow up is made it's "doctors decided to stick with paper but call me back in May" I have done this many times with continued follow up - getting no where.
Thank you for your answer. Do you have any past successful scripts or commercials I could look at?
I've responded above, that my problem is the admin / office manager . they seem like they just are info collectors. and who knows how much time they actually have to speak with the doctor on this info.. who knows what they relay from our meeting. When it's impossible to meet the doctor directly and the DOCTOR makes the decision not the admin.. it seems impossible to move forward. when following up i get, the doctors decided to stick with paper. or the doctors cannot budget this right now.... something like that. objections that are hard to overcome when I am going through the middle man.... do you have any advice on that?
THanks
What do you mean by: negative perception or zero perception.
I like the response to the receptionist. I understand that and can easily get meetings with the office admins or office managers. It's the problem getting that information to the doctors. Who knows how long the office manager actually has to talk about my station to the doctor? 5 min? there is no way he would want to go with us if it's just looking at rate. (regardless if it was expensive or inexpensive).
I know these guys are on print all over town..... so i know they have budgets..
Do you have any ideas that may share with me so I can look of examples of what you mean? I know it's important to have an idea, but sometimes it simply doesn't cut it when you have to call a lot of people.
Thank you for your help.
Many of healthcare professionals and practice advertise like CRAZY in local newspapers and magazines...
My problem: When it's impossible to meet the doctor directly and the DOCTOR makes the decision not the admin.. it seems impossible to move forward. when following up i get, the doctors decided to stick with paper. or the doctors cannot budget this right now.... something like that. objections that are hard to overcome when I am going through the middle man.... do you have any advice on that?
Here's something we've used to fight through the middleman or just get attention. Get your morning team to do a short, personal message (video) for this particular doctor only. You can deliver it to the receptionist via DVD or email and the doctor can watch it. Make it less than 3 minutes. The more fun and personally directed at this client it is the better. Have the on-air team be specific about how you might be able to solve just one problem the doc has.
Here are a couple of scripts that I used for one of the offices that the office manager and the doctor both felt did a good job for them. One point taht I was able to make was that as a family practice, they need to talk to younger parents to get the family to establish this office as 'their' doctors office early and they will be more likely to stay with one doctor. The news paper, being an older demographic became more of a detriment to print for this office. Brining ideas normally ends with better response than proposals, feeding the doctors ego tends to work I have found, but do it in a way that is sound advertising as well.
You might take what they are doing in the news paper and make radio versions of it. If you know roughly how many dollars they are putting into a given ad try this. Figgure out how many ads that equates to on your station. Take in one photo copy of the print ad. Then for every ad that you would have on your airwaves, have another copy of that ad and tape them together accordian style. Let them listen to the radio version, then ask which would you choose, this ad in the paper (hand them the one photocopy, or this ad on the th radio for the same dollar, let the accordian fall from your hand unfurling. This is very old school, but with a little tact this works just as well now. Once they get a physical representation of "the same dollar buys this or that", it helps make radio ads more tangable. Also dont call your commercial a "spot". You dont want them comparing news paper ads to a spot, it sounds like a dirty four letter word, they need to see this as the legitimate advertising option that it is.
very good points Jane K. Ashley
Interesting approach. Have you done that? I don't know if we could do that here because we have such a small team .. will try though! thank you
WOW excellent idea!!!!
So basically one ad would equate to at least 30-40 ads per week on our station. (depending on each situation)
What do you mean tape them accordion style? for radio ads for the newspaper ads? If you mean radio, do you mean just print off a piece of paper and make copies times 30 or 40 and then tape together? If so, what should I print off? station logo?!
I really like this idea of visual representing the ad dollars. It may be "old school" but I think it would be very visual and useful for radio presentations and a way to mix it up.
Great advice on spot. I often times find myself using this word and it should be used, you are correct! Thanks!
Very True! Thank you for your advice!!!! Would you be creating this sample spec spot before your first initial meeting? Perhaps from your own research of the company... OR do you wait until after your first meeting? Do you suggest any particular questions to ask the prospect in healthcare field? Thank you for your help!
Katie,
The idea of working the admin is all about creating an inside coach--someone who will inform you of best times to call or share information about coming initiatives that you can use to craft solutions before evern seeing a doctor. They are not surrogates for you.
When I referred to negative perception, I meant that sometimes consumers have a negative perception about a specific category of business or a specific enterprise. The zero perception is when a company has no brand equity and is virtually invisible to consumers in the market for the services they provide. That means except for a random situation, new business doesn't find its way to their doors.
I'm not a big believer in one-size-fits-all solutions. My ideas are like caramel mocha lattes at Starbucks. Each one is made to order.
Hello Katie, this is what I would do....
Hardly anyone, short of the doctor's wife, is going to be allowed to talk to the doctor. And the doctor probably even has his gatekeeper not only watching the phones, but opening his emails, too. So, how can you get the actual decision makers attention? Use E-mail. And here is how you do it.
The magic is in the subject line. This is what you write in the subject line: "Does your office do root canals?"
Okay, so, you know they're going to at least open up this email, right? They'll reply to you, "Yes, we do root canals." Now, you respond with short paragraph in your email. Once again, the subject line is, "Does your office do root canals?" In this email, you ask them, "How many could you do this week?" So, when the gatekeeper gets this email she either forwards it to the doctors' private email and/or hands it to the doctor. Now, the doctor can't ignore this email. He writes you back and responds and tells you how many root canals he could do this week -- or maybe he even asks you, "Why are you asking me this?"
Okay, so now you write back to the doctors' private email address (that you now have) and "pitch". Your response, "Well, the reason I want to know your capacity is I want to know how many hundreds of clients you can handle this week? I want to make sure that you have capacity."
You get the point. Now, you ask him to make an appointment with you so that you can show him how you're going to do this. Voila!
Keep me posted and tell me how it goes.
Call between 8:00-8:30 and 6-6:30 ... gatekeepers are usually not there and just the doctors. The best hours to call for sure when wanting to reach the decision makers.
Other then that I will do something first that helps out the business itself in terms of profits for them.. Example a simple facebook page. I`ll write an article and do some SEO to make it rank top 10 of google for their search term. Example Dentist Detroit - or Teeth Whitening Detroit.
I let them know when I call that I just did some free advertising for them, to google keyword and it shows with their info. They reciprocate by wanting to know more of what I can do for them.
I talk about how getting leads is very important for any business and set up lead capture pages for them....then let them know they can get advertise this page with our radio station.
Lead with VALUE. You can have anything you want in life if you just help others get what they want - Zig Ziglar
