It often seems that general practice hasn’t embraced marketing. Either ignored or stuck in corner shop mode it’s time its value was realised.
I suspect most practices don’t have a marketing plan. Maybe because few possess the skills needed but it’s still possible to have a joined-up plan that’s proactive, focused, linked to goals and delivers real value.
First decide what you want to achieve, and the activities needed to do this. The goal is not to do some marketing but that your marketing helps achieve your goals. Think in terms of what message you need to convey and the best way to communicate it.
Next decide when to do it. It should be at a time to ensure the greatest success e.g. flu campaigns are best in winter. Now build a manageable number of campaigns spread over the year to create a marketing calendar.
Before you begin, decide how you will measure success and at the end of your campaign do this to find out the impact it’s had.
A final thought, objectives are similar for most practices, so in the same way practices are collaboratively delivering services, why not do marketing together? Shared campaigns provide an opportunity for greater cost effectiveness and an impact over a larger population.
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