Let’s face it, marketing a medical practice costs money. It also takes time and experience to do it properly. Depending on the medical practice or facilities specialty, there may not have been a need to market previously. As the medical industry becomes more competitive, practices are realizing the need to develop and implement a marketing strategy that works. Here are some tips to help those in the medical industry get off on the right foot with their marketing initiatives.

Some medical practices elect to manage their marketing efforts in-house. This is great if you have the budget to hire a staff member with medical marketing experience to dedicate 100% of their time to marketing. To save money, however, many practices fail at marketing because unqualified personnel were asked to handle the marketing in addition to their already overwhelming work-load. This is almost undoubtedly a recipe for failure. Many practices do not realize that they may actually spend more money doing this. The reason is because medical practices are constantly receiving calls from businesses who want to help them grow. It can be difficult for a novice to know where to effectively spend their marketing dollars and the wrong choices are made. This has caused the over-spending often found within the industry. Additionally, when you hire an outside marketing company, you are getting the expertise of not only a strategist, but also a graphic designer, copywriter, social media and Internet manager and financial analyst. Medical practices often hire a full time marketing employee and then hire outside people to handle the design and Internet portion of the work. This often ends up costing more money than hiring the right outside agency to handle everything.

The best tip I can give a medical practice is to not spend any money on marketing until they know what their return on investment (ROI) will be. Basically you want to know what you are going to get out of using their service. Anyone who calls the practice soliciting marketing services should be able to provide this information. For example, MindStream Creative provides a satisfaction guarantee to ease the concern of ineffective marketing.

The most effective marketing professionals are constantly updating their skills and learning new tips to help their clients grow. The medical industry in particular has specific rules and laws it has to abide by. Not every marketing professional is aware of these and it is important to choose one that has experience working within the medical arena. I often find medical practices with HIPAA violations on their website and social media sites. Your marketing professional must be able to clearly educate you on what can and can’t be done so violations do not occur.

Marketing is not something that is one size fits all. Depending on the specialty, the region and even the doctors and staff, marketing results will vary. Marketing is an evolutionary process that is fun and can make a huge difference for any business. If you are in need of marketing help, consider MindStream Creative. Call today at 888-324-5559 and receive a complimentary marketing assessment (valued at $150).