6 Best Practices for Physician Referral Marketing

According to a report in the Annals of Family Medicine, 45% of physicians receive new patients through referrals. Like any medical practitioner, you want to make sure that your practice is supported by your referral partners and your community.

We know that you are doing your part in referring patients to other physicians whom you feel are the best. But are they returning the favor of referring their patients to you?

If you’re looking for ways to get more referrals, keep reading. Let’s take a look at some of the best practices your office should maintain to maximize the potential of your patient referral program.

Get out of the office

In a fast-paced hospital setting, it can be especially hard to connect with colleagues. If you want to bolster your referral network and keep your business thriving, then you need to make the decision to get out of the office, even if it’s just once a month.

Meet new physicians and healthcare leaders in your community. Reach out to existing providers who you refer to and who refer to you.

Identify physicians you want to partner with. You’ll want someone who is a good match for your practice, share your values and hold themselves to a high ethical standard.

Build a relationship

The best way to grow your referrals is to build, maintain, and improve your relationships with referring providers.

Professional referrals are based squarely on sound relationships and expertise. Doctors and their staff will only refer their patients to people they trust, like, and feel are competent.

Make a continual effort to show your referring doctors that you value their partnership. You can call them up just to see how they and their families are doing, drop by with a frappuccino for them or take them out for lunch.

In most cases, it is not the doctor, but a key staff person who actually handles the referral mechanics. If you want to grow your referral base, then you should take the initiative to get to know not only the physician but also their staff. Be certain to identify and include the key gatekeepers. Capitalize on those connections and they will be more likely to pass your business card on.

Simplify the referral process

Most doctors would simply advise their patients to book an appointment with a certain doctor.

Unfortunately, 50% of professional referrals never result in a doctor’s visit. The referral process should be quick and simple.

Otherwise, you’ll be missing out on a big slice of the referral pie. Even if the referring physician and their staff adore you, they’re not going to send patients your way if your referral process is frustrating, time-consuming, and just plain clunky.

Simplify the referral process by investing in a secure online referral portal, where they can send you the patient’s information, including contact information, suspected diagnosis, and reason for referral.

Since you already have the necessary information, it will be easier for you to decide the course of action and how quickly the patient needs to be seen. As a result, you’ll be able to serve both the referring physician and the patient better.

Make referring physician look good

When doctors refer their patients to you, it means that they trust you. Your office will serve as an extension of theirs, so they are counting on you to provide patients with excellent service.

Often, patients report back to their primary physicians about their experience. Make a special effort to accommodate the referred patient as soon as possible. Also, make sure that you take good care of the patients and treat them right.

Ensure the referring physician that there will always be room for their patients at your practice.

Be grateful

We grow up learning the importance of good manners, and that usually starts with saying “thank you”.

If a patient is referred to you, take the time to call the referring physician to thank him/her for the trust and confidence. You can also send a hand-written note if that’s your style. Let the referring practice know that you appreciate the referral.

Stay in touch with the referring physician

When a patient is referred to you, it is always vital to follow up. This is a crucial step that many physicians do not do.

One study suggests that 40% of patients that follow through with a referral never went back to their primary physician after the care is initially provided. Always send the patient back to the referring physician. The last thing you want is for the referring doctor to feel that their generous referral has cost them a patient.

Let the referring practice know that the patient has already been scheduled and that you will continue to communicate about what transpires. You want to assure the referring doctor that you’re invested in their patients’ health and that the patient will be receiving the best care possible.

6 Best Practices for Physician Referral Marketing

Lead Generation for Health Care

Today we’re going to be talking about Lead generation. We’ve already discussed Facebook advertising and social media marketing and lead generation ties into this as well as your Patient Journey very closely.

Now as we dive into lead generation, there are some basic components that we are going to discuss. The first is having a clear understanding of what your ideal patient is looking for online, then it includes creating the messaging that’s going to bring this person into the door and get them interested in learning more, followed by the technical aspects of creating a landing page a welcome email and a thank you page. as we discussed these items were going to dive into the hero’s journey and what this means for creating advertising copy that captures the attention, build trust, and books initial consultations with your patients.

Often times we see health clinics run ads that direct people to a page on their website. While this is great for building website traffic we have found that these campaigns lead to nearly zero results and a negative return on investment for health care centers. While you want to make sure that you are helping those in your community, you also need to make sure that you are understanding how the money you spend in your advertising actually relates to an increase in revenue of your bottom line.

Please – if you know that your ads just run to a page on your website, jump into your account and pause them now and don’t hesitate to contact us for a marketing consultation.

Let’s start first with the needs of your ideal patient we’ve been talking about this over the past couple of months. You should already understand your patient Journey. What brings these patients in the door? What makes them look for your services? And how can you position the benefits of coming in to see your doctors so that it answers the key questions that you are prospects have.

Watch Lead Generation Strategy

Listen to the Lead Generation Strategy on our Marketing Podcast

Transcript of Healthcare Marketing Podcast on Medical Lead Generation

00:01 Caitlin McDonald: Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald, the co-founder over here at Social Speak, and today we’re gonna be talking about lead generation for your healthcare practice. So, we’ve already discussed Facebook advertising and social media marketing, and lead generation really ties into these as well as your patient journey which we’ve been discussing all throughout very closely. So, as we dive into lead generation, there’s some basic components that we’re going to discuss. The first is having a clear understanding of what your ideal patient is looking for online. So, then, this dives into creating the messaging that’s going to bring this person into the door and get them interested in learning more. You follow this by the technical aspects of creating a landing page, and a welcome email, and a thank you page.

01:05 CM: And so, as we discuss these items, we’re going to dive into the hero’s journey, and what this means for creating advertising copy that captures the attention, builds trust, and books initial consultations with patients. So, oftentimes, we see healthcare clinics and different clinics run ads that direct people just to a page on their website, and maybe there’s a schedule, your appointment form there. Well, this is great for building traffic to your website, we’ve found that these campaigns really don’t lead to a return on your investment. Yes, you might get a few people booking appointments. However, there’s a much better way to run your lead generation campaigns, so that you have a higher chance of getting people filling out that initial form. And so we’ll be diving into that today.

02:02 CM: So, while you wanna make sure that you’re helping those in your community, you also need to make sure that the money that you’re spending on getting people through a funnel is actually increasing the revenue to your bottom line. So if you know that your ads run to a page of your website on your website, please jump into those accounts, pause them now, pick up your phone, give us call, we are here to help you. Again, this is the number one mistake that we see health care centers and clinics make. So, again, yes, it’s awesome that you’re getting website traffic there, but are they actually been converting into patients for your clinic?

02:51 CM: So, taking a step back, let’s first talk about the needs of your ideal patient. And we’ve been talking about this for the past month or so, maybe two months, and you should already have a sense of your patient journey. So this includes what brings the patients into the door, what makes them look for your services, and how can you position the benefits of coming in to see your doctors so that it answers the key questions, concerns, and fears that your prospects have? So take the time to review your patient journey again. And, again, this can be multiple patient journeys. I just want you to think about one of them. Once you have that patient journey at the forefront of your mind, you can begin to understand how you can position the answers to these common questions and solutions to these common fears as part of the hero’s journey framework.

03:51 CM: So let’s quickly talk about the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey originates from Joseph Campbell, and really can be a framework that we can utilize in our marketing messaging. I’m not gonna go through step-by-step about what Joseph Campbell says, but more about how we can use it in your marketing language. So we actually follow this process when we are writing Facebook ads for our healthcare centers. So, the step one, first step is create an emotion. And this is really getting people involved and getting them to have a connection to the story that you are telling. Then the next thing is to determine a theme. This is an idea of how we should live our lives. Are you finding peace in your life, or are you living a life of greater success? Are you living on your own terms, and things like that? Then you can talk about the hero’s journey. So, what was their life before they started on this journey? What was the background?

05:09 CM: Then, what did you long for, what did this person long for? So, for example, if it’s somebody who has knee pain, their life before is that they could hardly get off of the couch, they couldn’t go out and enjoy the activities that they used to, they longed to dance at their daughter’s wedding and have that first dance, but they were just in pain. So you need to create empathy for the hero in your content. And so you can talk about this individual either in the third person or in the first person. We found for a lot of smaller solo practitioners, health coaches that talking about this in the first person works really well. And for larger health care clinics oftentimes having an individual tell their story works really well.

06:00 CM: So you want to show how misfortune has affected the character as a way to develop that sympathy. And you also want to make the hero likable. You can’t have a villain as that hero especially in these ads. So, the next thing is you need to present an opportunity that this main character, the main hero has faced. And so this can be an event that’s never happened to them before. So they learned a secret. They heard about a specialist in the area, they heard about one of your physicians and the services that you offer. And so the hero then takes action. And, as it transitions into this new situation, what’s at stake? What are those big questions that they have? And now it’s a chance to show how they actually pursued their goal of being able to dance at their daughter’s wedding.

07:10 CM: They took action and they accomplished their goal by coming in to see your specialist. By booking that first appointment, they were able to put their fears aside and to understand how knee replacement surgery has come a long way. And so you want to make sure that you are building up a climax and showing how this hero has taken their pain and found a solution and then actually acted on it. And then here is when you show the transformation. So you’re telling about what life was like after. You start with before, how bad everything was. They find the solution, they take action and then you have the transformation. We’ve been finding that having a testimonial within this transformation piece can work really well to provide social proof that the transformation actually worked. And if you are an expert, you are the specialist that you say you are able to help people, I’m sure you will be able to find one of those testimonials.

08:17 CM: So we really enjoy following this… Enjoy… [chuckle] We found a lot of success following this hero’s journey as we’re putting together the language that we use in the Facebook ad. So then I mentioned rather than sending somebody directly to a website that just is part of your site as a whole, really directing them to a landing page. So we take some of those key benefits that we’re identifying within this Hero’s Journey of all the things that they could accomplish after that transformation and we put those benefits onto the landing page. We can also put a video of the specialist that actually allowed that transformation to happen. And so you can do a quick video of one of your physicians, one of your doctors, or even yourself in there, just to build trust, get people to know, like, and trust your brand and to allow people to come face-to-face with who they would be meeting at your practice.

09:21 CM: From here we have that schedule appointment now. For smaller solopreneurs you could have an e-book or a checklist to grow your email list. We also do recommend that for healthcare centers. But if you really wanna see that immediate return, scheduling the appointments, having this here is a great idea. So, to build your landing page, we utilize a tool, Lead Pages. It’s just leadpages.com, you can sign up for an account there, and we build basically all of our landing pages through here, and they’re just very simple layouts. So, as I mentioned, we take the benefits, we put them on one side, we have a video, and we have the schedule now, and a headline up at the top with maybe your logo.

10:20 CM: And so it’s just very clear and crisp and has one call to action. They don’t then see all of the links at the top of the website, and start clicking around to learn more and forget that they were even there to book an appointment. This is to get people to take action immediately. From here we have lead pages actually send out an initial email to anybody who signs up for the consultation or to download a resource from you. And we have lead pages also host the “Thank You” page. So on the “Thank You” page is where you can provide even more information about the clinic, link to the website, and things like that. Sometimes we even build that “Thank You” page directly onto the website so that they can then start poking around and learning more about your practice.

11:17 CM: And how this works if somebody clicks on the Facebook ad. You’re targeting them based on interests, geographic location. Maybe there are people who have been to your website, and because you have the pixel installed on your website, or in a different landing page, you can re-market to them. Potentially you have an email list, and you can create a lookalike audience for that email list. And so you have this audience, you direct them to the landing page. After that landing page which we build on lead pages, we put the code directly onto your website, so it could be a WordPress website, you just use a plugin, it’s super simple. Other websites, you can take the HTML code from lead pages, plug it into a page on your website for more control and flexibility. Lead Pages does A/B testing, kinda just built in so you can try different designs, you could try having a video, not having a video, changing colors or language, and it will all automatically process for you.

12:25 CM: So they get to the landing page, they fill out the information, they got sent a welcome email as well as redirected to a thank you page where they can learn more about your practice. And the reason why we do this is because we really feel as though if you want to help the folks in your community who are struggling and who need your clinics support and expertise, that you need to create a system and a messaging that’s going to make it as simple as possible for them to move forward and take that next step. We have just found such great success with this process. Typically, you might start out and you might get the messaging wrong, and that’s okay, at least you’re getting the information and the data to then make a new decision in the future.

13:27 CM: So, as I mentioned before, if you are currently running ads and you don’t know how well they’re converting, or you think that they’re just going to a page on your website that may or may not have a little form on the side of the page, please reach out to us. We would love to chat, love to dive into what you do have going on, just for a free consultation where we can tell you the steps that you can take in order to optimize that advertising campaign. Of course we do also work as your external marketing department, and we can help manage those lead funnels as well. So, again, my name is Caitlin McDonald, I am the co-founder of Social Speak Network, you’ve been listening to the Social Speak Network podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in and we will see you next week.

Change is the only permanent thing in life, they say. That’s never been truer in the world of healthcare marketing.

Healthcare marketing is continuously changing. Keeping up to date with the latest digital trends and consumer preference is key to remain competitive and acquire a steady stream of patients.

Keep these trends in mind when planning your healthcare marketing campaign.

Excellent digital experience

Most hospital websites focus on providing information such as the address, business hours, doctor’s bios, specialties offered, etc. As competition in the digital landscape heats up, more and more hospitals and healthcare providers are putting a greater focus on patient experience.

83% of patients visit a hospital’s website before booking an appointment. That means a patient’s experience begins with your website. Their online experience will determine whether or not they will convert from leads to actual patients.

For a better online experience, make sure that your website loads quickly and is easy to navigate. Patients love the idea of convenient scheduling. If you offer online booking or have a customer service chatbot they can communicate with, that would be a plus.

You are bound to see a high ROI if you focus on creating an exemplary online experience for potential patients.

Video Marketing

According to a study that was conducted by Hubspot, 45% of people watch more than one hour of video a day. Out of the 45%, an astounding 81% have been convinced to buy a product or avail a service after watching a branded video.

Incorporating video content into your marketing strategy can help build trust and provide a much deeper understanding of what your healthcare company has to offer. Prospective patients are now researching doctors who specialize in the procedure they’re looking for before scheduling an appointment. This is where video content proves useful.

Through videos, you can verbally and visually explain how the procedure work. This can help ease fears or uncertainty. Plus, it helps prospective patients get to know the doctor before a consultation, so they gain a sense of trust beforehand.

If you haven’t already, we urge you to start creating video content, both for your website and social media accounts, sooner rather than later. 

Search engine optimization

They say the best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google. Why? It’s because 55% of users won’t go past the first three organic results. 

According to studies, 89% of consumers turn to the internet when they’re looking for answers for their healthcare queries. You want your website to show up at the top of Google’s search results. Otherwise, you’ll be losing to your competitors.

With more and more people turning to the internet for medical advice, it is important to capitalize on these searches by making your website as visible as possible. To get on page 1 of the search engine results, you’ll need a strong website and an even stronger SEO strategy.

Online reputation management

Your online reputation will have a significant impact on your practice. Why? It’s because a huge majority of patients turn to the internet to research physicians.

The survey revealed that 84% of patients read online reviews to help them gain insight into healthcare providers. 86% of them will be hesitant to schedule a consultation with you if they read a negative review or comment.

To stay competitive, you need to make a concerted effort to manage your reputation, both online and offline.

Whether you like it or not, patients are going to leave reviews. The sad truth is that dissatisfied customers are more likely to leave feedback than happy customers. With a single review, comment or article, the reputation of any healthcare organization can be tarnished.

You can’t make negative feedback go away, but you can encourage happy patients to speak out for your brand. It is in your best interest to encourage patients to leave reviews.

Mobile healthcare apps

Gloomy faces of ailing patients waiting outside the doctor’s office, long queues, and a dull, monotonous hall – this is the picture one would imagine while waiting at a doctor’s clinic or a hospital about a decade ago.

Millennials are the largest U.S. generation, and they demand convenience. They are switching to providers that offer a much higher level of convenience. This is where mobile healthcare apps come in.

In today’s era of the smartphone, keeping in contact with a healthcare provider has never been easier. Patients can chat with their doctors and ask for advice about a symptom or a condition. They can also book appointments with their doctors, access doctor’s prescriptions, and even purchase medicines through their mobile devices. In addition, patients can easily monitor their health conditions themselves through apps. This helps them stay one step ahead of the disease; hence, reducing the need for invasive treatments.

Healthcare apps are also beneficial for doctors and medical staffs. They can check the patient’s reports and prescribe medicines if required. Doctors can even make referrals through the apps. 

 

 

 

Healthcare is an ever-expanding, ultra-competitive marketplace. It can also be very technical and jargon-heavy, which can be off-putting to most people. To remain competitive in an ever-evolving industry, it is important to employ creative marketing tactics that cut through the clutter. 

Take a look at these 6 successful healthcare marketing campaigns and start pondering how your company can leverage similar tactics.

Johnson & Johnson – Campaign for Nursing’s Future

Nurses are an incredibly dedicated group of professionals who tirelessly lend love and support to their patients. Unfortunately, in 2002, the U.S. faced the most profound shortage of nurses in history.

In response to reports of a dire shortage of nurses, Johnson & Johnson launched the “Campaign for Nursing’s Future”. It is a public awareness campaign that aims to encourage people to become nurses and nurse educators, as well as to retain nurses currently in the system.

The campaign not only helped increase the awareness of the value of the nursing profession, but it also gave nurses an opportunity to share their stories. 15 years after the campaign was launched, Johnson & Johnson profiled some of the nurses who benefited from this campaign. 

Campaign Sources:
https://nursing.jnj.com/
https://www.jnj.com/tag/campaign-for-nursings-future
https://www.facebook.com/CampaignForNursing/

The Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing

Dana-Farber Brigham & Women’s Cancer Center – You Have Us Campaign

A cancer diagnosis can affect much more than the physical body. Dana-Farber Brigham & Women’s Cancer Center created a campaign to help empower patients who are dealing with cancer.

To encourage a more personal approach to cancer treatment, they created the slogan, “Right now you may have cancer. But what your cancer doesn’t know is – You Have Us.”

By sharing confidence-inspiring online videos and words of encouragement, the campaign made a tremendous impact on their audience. 

The “You Have Us” campaign became successful because it built trust between the Cancer Center’s personnel and their target audience.

Campaign Sources:
https://www.youhaveus.org/


https://www.facebook.com/danafarbercancerinstitute

Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center - You Have Us

Arkansas Children’s Hospital – #100DeadliestDays Campaign

Dr. Sam Smith, Surgeon-in-Chief at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, shocked everyone with his claim that kids are more likely to get hurt, injured or die between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

The campaign’s purpose was to raise awareness of the dangerous time period between Memorial Day and Labor Day. They wanted to make sure that parents know the risks their children face during this season.

With the #100DeadliestDays, Arkansas Children’s Hospital provided a tip each day to help increase safety for kids and teens. They also shared some safety facts and other valuable information on their social media channels.   

This campaign has been very successful and has received a lot of attention from the media and the public. It is memorable, worth sharing, and it also had the shock factor.

Campaign Sources:
https://www.archildrens.org/health-and-wellness/happy-and-healthy-blog/100-deadliest-days-for-kids
https://www.facebook.com/ArkansasChildrens
100 Deadliest Days for Kids

UnitedHealthcare – We Dare You Campaign

Many healthcare providers encourage their audience to adopt healthy habits, but UnitedHealthcare took it a step further by adding a social media element to their campaign.

The award-winning UnitedHealthcare Campaign, We Dare You, is a great example of a wellness campaign in action. Each month, there are new fun challenges and quizzes that are aimed at encouraging their followers to take the first step to a healthier lifestyle and then document it on social media.

The We Dare You Campaign is one of the most successful healthcare marketing campaigns, as it won 8 awards – 2 Healthcare Advertising Awards, 2 Hermes Awards, and an Aster Award. 

Campaign Sources:
http://42cdev.com/client/wedareyoutoshare.com/?now=2015-09-01
https://www.facebook.com/UnitedHealthcare/

United Healthcare We Dare you

Carilion Clinic – #YESMAMM Campaign

When clinicians noticed that many women in Roanoke Valley were not getting mammograms, Carilion Clinic decided to launch the campaign, “YES MAMM, Say Yes to Your Annual Mammogram”. They also provided screening location throughout western Virginian.

The goal of this campaign is to raise awareness about breast cancer and the need for early detection. They used #YESMAMM to answer common questions about breast cancer from their audience. It also drove traffic to their website, where they urge women to make an appointment at one of their local labs. 

#YESMAMM is a perfect example of the power of hashtags to start a movement. In fact, it is one of the most successful healthcare marketing campaigns. 8 years after the birth of the Yes Mamm campaign, Carilion Clinic is still getting kudos. 

Campaign Sources:
https://www.carilionclinic.org/
https://www.facebook.com/carilionclinic
#YESMAMM

New York Presbyterian Hospital – Patient Stories

Nothing drives a message home like a well-told story. When they realized that patients wanted an outlet for telling their stories, New York Presbyterian Hospital harnessed the power of social media to share patients’ stories and connect with their target audience. They even created an entire video marketing strategy around this concept, and that’s something of a game-changer.

Patients’ stories and testimonies can trigger emotions of empathy. By showcasing raw stories on how doctors and nurses helped patients, the result is something even more potent than drugs: hope, trust, and peace of mind.

This marketing campaign creates a sensitive tone for patients while shining a positive light on the medical practitioners and the hospital’s reputation. 

Campaign Sources:
https://www.nyp.org/home
https://www.nyp.org/patient-stories
https://www.nyp.org/kids/stories.html
https://www.youtube.com/user/newyorkpresbyterian
https://www.nyp.org/amazingthings/

#NYPSTORIES

If you need help strategizing your next digital marketing campaign please schedule your free 30-minute consultation today! 

Podcast Script Below:

00:02 Amber Irwin: Hello. Welcome to Social Speak Network’s podcast, I am your host, Amber Irwin. Today, we’re gonna be covering six successful healthcare marketing campaigns that may be able to inspire you to create a new marketing campaign for your practice. The first one I wanna talk to you was about, is Johnson & Johnson. Back in 2002, there was actually a shortage of nurses. Nurses are one of the most dedicated professions out there. They work long shifts, they deal with a lot of people, and they always have the ups and downs of everyone else’s lives. So, when there was that shortage, Johnson & Johnson created this campaign for nursing’s future, so they wanted to create a group of professionals who tirelessly lend love and support to their patients and really wanted to give them that support that they needed, that the nurses were giving to everyone else.

01:13 AI: And so it really went public and people started becoming more and more aware of what Johnson & Johnson were doing in this campaign. And so now it’s become… Being able to educate nurses, give them a ton of different donations of where nurses are supporting the community. Really an educational platform, a community, that Johnson & Johnson has built for the nursing profession, to really be able to provide them value. So on here, you’ll see there’s personal stories, different ways that Johnson & Johnson’s caring and giving back to the community, where they’ve come from. And so this is a campaign that’s been on for a long time, 15 years, and which is amazing, for something to last and still going strong 15 years later. This is huge. And really, it’s because of their why. They saw a shortage in something. They saw an area where they can give back and be more than just a product company and really give back to their why, which was nurses and be able to provide a community for them. So that is huge.

02:36 AI: The next one I wanna talk to you guys about is the Dana-Farber/Brigham Women’s Cancer Center. What they have created here is really a slogan about; Right now, you may have cancer, but what your cancer doesn’t know is you have us. So it’s really about talking to the patient as an individual and helping them understand the journey and what they are going to need to overcome what is ahead of them. Cancer, that C word is a very scary thing, regardless of what type of cancer it is. So what they have been able to do is really play off of that relationship and that story and educating their patients on what’s gonna work best for them.

03:36 AI: So it’s to help them empower patients who are dealing with cancer and what does their future look like. So that slogan, right now, you may have cancer, but what your cancer doesn’t know is you have us. That shows the patient like they care about me. You can see on their home page, it’s, you have us. You’re not in this alone. We are here to help you every step of the way. And to me, that gives me the chill bumps, that really connects with, especially as a woman, so this connects with me. And so this campaign that they have created and the slogan, it’s so simple, “you have us” and those three words have gone viral with them, because this is people… They trust them, they’re creating that relationship with them, and so what they’ve been able to do is provide that support. So that’s a huge, just moment of, “Okay I’m not alone, I have this practice behind me, I can do this.” They’re empowering their patients and guiding them through this journey of having cancer. So that is amazing.

04:53 AI: The next one is an interesting blog. So the Arkansas Children’s Hospital wrote this blog, and it is 100 deadliest days for kids. Now this blog was published back in 2014 and the hashtag, #100DeadliestDays, this thing spread like wildfire, because just the title, 100 deadliest days for kids. Oh my goodness, what is it? So this was the doctor writing about. Now, through Labor Day, marks a time when kids are most likely to be injured. Whether that was a broken bone, they were sick, accidents happen, or worst-case scenario, they unfortunately had seen the most children’s deaths within this time frame.

05:48 AI: So, this was written in June of 2014. And this is something that the Arkansas Children’s Hospital has been able to incorporate into their digital marketing and something that they’re constantly sharing and reminding people, it gave a purpose to raise awareness to the dangerous time period of Memorial Day to Labor Day. They wanted to make sure that parents knew the risks and what children were facing within that time. You have to think, that’s obviously the summer, you’re traveling, sports, being outside. This is also, unfortunately, where you see kids being left in cars. This is where Arkansas Children’s Hospital really wanted to bring that information to their audience and let people be more aware of the summer season is a time you really pay attention to these safety tips and make sure that your children are okay.

06:56 AI: So, one thing that they could do each year is they could come in here and they could update this blog post. So it’s always showing new and you’ll see that a lot with… Especially with the digital marketing, Hubspot, CoSchedule, social media today. They’ll write a blog that was a few years old. And then they’ll say updated as of a certain date because this article was such a powerful piece for their digital marketing. I would just take it a step further and update it, make sure that the information is still correct. Maybe if there are stats in here, you wanna make sure that the stats are are still relevant to today’s date, but this campaign for them was a huge success on such a sad, touchy subject. So, education is really important for your digital marketing, and a blog post just like this can become its own digital marketing campaign.

08:00 AI: The next one is going to be United Healthcare, “We Dare You” campaign. And many health care providers encourage their audience to adopt healthy habits, but United Healthcare took it a step further by adding a social media element to their campaign. This was an award-winning campaign by the way. This is an example of wellness campaign in action. Each month, there were new fun challenges, quizzes that were aimed at encouraging their followers to take the first step to a healthier lifestyle and then document it on social media. So, one really cool thing about this campaign is when you tie in your social media and your audience, people love to show off what they’re doing and especially if you challenge them. Challenges are great for social media, especially in the health and wellness industry, because they wanna show you this is what I’m doing, this is how I’ve improved my life, this is my recipe, and this is how I’m staying active.

09:09 AI: And so the fact that they not only gave quizzes and create their own challenges, but then they wanted their audience to share with them. And so this was one of the most successful healthcare marketing campaigns. And it won eight awards, two Healthcare Advertising Awards, and that is just amazing, along with a few other awards, but this is something to really think outside the box. Now, this is a big company, United Healthcare is huge, we know that. But thinking of what your practice can do on a smaller scale. And we always say, it’s not the quantity of likes you have, it’s the quality. So if you have, let’s say 2000 likes, and of those 2000 likes, you’re getting between 600 and 800 people engaging on a monthly basis. That’s your loyal fan base. Take advantage of that loyal fan base and ask them to submit photos. Maybe you do a recipe competition, and you’re looking for the best Paleo recipe, the best Keto recipe, the best gluten-free recipe. Maybe within your practice you’re talking to your patients about these different types of a healthy lifestyle and you can tie in those conversations and those topics into your social media. So it marries the offline and the online together. So this was a great, great campaign. I love being able to see how many people were a part of it, all the awards that United Healthcare won, but it just makes you think, “Okay, let’s think outside the box.”

10:55 AI: The next one is the Caroline Clinic, and this was… They did a campaign that was all about #yesmamm, M-A-M-M. And this was all about their saying “Yes” to mammograms. So they wanted to make sure that women were taking care of their bodies, making sure that they were getting the annual mammograms or every three-year mammograms, based on what their doctor had said. They also provided screenings at that location throughout Western Virginia. So this is again something where they’re saying, “This is what we wanna help you with. Here’s how we’re gonna help you. This is what we believe in. This is what we want.” And so they had a pull-up their Facebook page. This was their campaign was this hashtag #yesmamm, M-A-M-M for mammograms. And the goal of the campaign was just really to raise awareness about breast cancer and the need for early detection, to educate their audience to really just understand how important it is for that preventative, for that checking and making sure that you are doing the right things and how to do the right things, et cetera. So this was a great campaign. I love being able to brand something that is to your target market that they can relate with. So that was huge. And it’s catchy, YesMamm. That’s what people wanna see.

12:43 AI: The last one is the New York Presbyterian Hospital. Their campaign was all about the patients and children’s stories. And nothing can sell a company better than patient testimonials. The stories behind the people that you serve, that you’ve helped. And that storytelling is such a big piece with digital marketing and marketing in general. This is why you see so many testimonials for info commercials. It’s those personal stories. It’s that, “Oh my gosh, I’m not alone. I dealt with that,” or “They’re just like me,” or “I’m not the only one,” whatever that is in our heads that’s playing. Being able to have patient stories is a huge piece of your digital marketing. And so what they’ve done is they’ve created a whole campaign showcasing raw stories on how the doctors and nurses had helped their patients, both adults and children. And the results… Something even more… What the patients were dealing with whether that was drugs, car accidents, sickness, they were able to tell their story, share how their experience was with New York Presbyterian Hospital, how the doctors help them and then what the result was. So because they came here, how was their life changed?

14:23 AI: And that’s the biggest thing, is they wanna know what’s that end goal and this shines such a positive light with their audience. And they actually had patients for adult stories and then also children stories. So they took it a step further to showcase what children are dealing with as well, and how they’ve been able to help them. So they have on their website to share your stories that will… Your experience. They wanna be able to shed that positive light and really be able to help other patients that are struggling with similar things. So, raw stories is just such an important piece and I wish that companies did more of this. And I know it’s something that’s… It’s a hard thing to do. One, you have to orchestrate that are you gonna… Is it gonna be a written testimonials or story? Is it gonna be video? And if it’s gonna be video, do people wanna be on a video? Do people wanna share their story? And so you have to be able to look at who your target market is. What your patients are going through? How has their life changed since they’ve been seeing you and being able to better their life?

15:49 AI: I feel like more and more people now are more willing to share their story to help others because they see the greater good. So as you’re putting together or thinking of these campaigns that you want to put together, think of these six examples. And be able to be able maybe pick and pull from different ones, different ideas that you’ve liked and really be able to look at your practice as a whole. And how are you helping your clients? What are they struggling with? What are their needs? And being able to put a campaign together for your digital marketing, to attract more people into your practice that you could help. Because at the end of the day that’s all why we’re in business because we wanna help more people. We wanna help the greater good. That’s our why, so how do we reach them? And that’s an amazing thing with digital marketing. There are so many different ways that we can do this.

16:45 AI: So, if you need help and you are just struggling with creating a good campaign or wanna run some ideas past us, please head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation. We love to be able to brainstorm ideas and figure out what’s the best route for you and your practice and be able to provide that feedback. Sometimes it’s just nice to have a listening ear on, “This is what our practice is thinking, does it make sense? Do you think it would work?” So again, Social Speak Network, free consultation, and until next time, please subscribe on iTunes or on Podbean. Have a great day.

6 Successful Healthcare Marketing Campaigns You Need to See Pinterest

Facebook Groups for Health and Wellness Practices

Today’s podcast is about Facebook groups and how to utilize Facebook groups to get in front of prospects, to build a community around your services, and really create that brand image where you are sharing valuable information and building conversations with your target market. So Facebook groups really have a few different purposes.

You can view them as a forum on Facebook, you can view them as a way for people to connect with a community around a certain topic or even in a specific location. And we have seen great success for wellness coaches, dietitians, nutritionists, wellness centers, healthcare organizations, creating groups were their own prospects and members as a way to make sure that they have more consistent communication with those individuals.

Listen to the Podcast on Facebook Groups for Health Care

Watch the Video about Facebook Groups in Health and Wellness Marketing

Read the Transcript

00:00 Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Social Speak Network podcast. I’m your host, the sweet Caitlin McDonald, the founder over here at the Social Speak Network, and over the past couple of weeks, and moving forward into the next, maybe even a couple of months, we’re going to be talking about the top 10 things that your wellness practice Health Care Center can do on digital marketing to see a return from their investment. And so today, I’m going to be talking about Facebook groups and how to utilize Facebook groups to get in front of prospects, to build a community around your services, and really create that brand image where you are sharing valuable information and building conversations with your target market. So Facebook groups really have a few different purposes. You can view them as a forum on Facebook, you can view them as a way for people to connect with a community around a certain topic or even in a specific location. And we have seen great success for wellness coaches, dieticians, nutritionists, wellness centers, healthcare organizations, creating groups were their own prospects and members as a way to make sure that they have more consistent communication with those individuals.

01:42 S1: Now, in order to make this happen, you have to really make sure that you’re not making the group about you. The group has to be about fostering a community, fostering conversations, and relationships and making sure that you’re not just talking about your own services and your own business. Yes, it’s a great way to share content that you create, but that content that you create, as we’ve said over and over again, really needs to be educational information that your target market and your prospects can take and run with. So for example, let’s say you are a health coach and you have new programs that are coming out. And so these programs, you really wanna share to your community. Now, you could go ahead and share them to your Facebook group. But rather than doing that, I would recommend creating a behind-the-scenes information that somebody might be able to find more expansive version of within the group, excuse me, within the program itself. However, you’re sharing just enough to get them started on the right path. This allows people to do it themselves if they want to, or to understand your expertise, so that they can turn to you for help with guidance down the road.

03:09 S1: Now you don’t wanna just be in there, posting about the group, excuse me, posting about your services individually, because this turns people away, it’s not interactive. Instead of doing that, post questions, answer questions, hop on Facebook live just in front of your group members and really try to foster that, those conversations. Now, it is important to note that right here, I’m talking about a group that is specifically to build a community around your services, and your practice. However, there are a lot of other more broad groups that already exists on Facebook. So, before you create that next group on diabetes, let’s say, make sure that there aren’t groups already out there that are doing a great job. If you’re trying to recreate something that’s already out there, it’s going to take a lot more time and effort to get people to join your group, because they’re already invested in these other groups. Now, I’m not saying don’t do it [chuckle] Facebook Groups are great thing to create, for your practice, but it does definitely take more time if it’s already existing in your space and in your specialties.

04:33 S1: Now, what you could do, if there is a group already made in your area of expertise, is go ahead and join that group. Offer guidance and ask questions, comment on other people’s posts and really start positioning yourself as an expert in that space, and as someone who is trustworthy or as an organization that’s trustworthy. And doing this helps you get that brand recognition, but again, you can’t talk about your services in somebody else’s group. Typically, there are guidelines about this, and it’s just not very professional behavior. We call this in, I mean in most industries, coaching clients from somebody else. And yes, a lot of times, your clients may have worked with somebody else in the past, but you don’t wanna be too salesy as you are trying to build that trust, and really come across as a figure in the space. Then the next tip about utilizing Facebook groups, and this is going back to creating a group yourself, is to be really specific about the purpose and to recognize that it’s going to be difficult to manage the group by yourself.

05:51 S1: And so in terms of understanding and being specific about the group’s purpose, this really helps set the expectations for your group members as they’re joining the group, what they’re going to see, what type of content they’re going to see, and how they can utilize the group to help further their own knowledge, education, and health. And so you want to, if you have a specific purpose and you’ve written the guidelines for the group, it’s important to actually stick to those. So somebody joins, they see the guidelines, maybe they answer a few questions before being approved, then you have to make sure that you are really sticking to those guidelines and being truthful yourself as well as holding other people accountable. Then the second piece there, was [chuckle] inviting other admins and managers to the group. So, in a group, you can have multiple managers. We recommend not just having one person in charge of the group. This really makes it so that there’s less… What we’ve seen in our experience is that there’s less interactions if there’s only one manager. When there are more managers you can even help foster discussions between one another, and people always can have their questions answered more quickly.

07:13 S1: So you can either divide the management based on your own expertise and what topics you are comfortable talking about. Or you can divide it by day of the week, or even time of day. Depending on how active your group is, you might even need somebody on call over the weekend to make sure that those questions are being answered. If somebody’s posting something in the group, and nobody is commenting back in replying, people are going to stop writing back. Now, having multiple group member, or excuse me group admin also makes it easier to keep new conversations forming in the group. So by this I mean, let’s say it’s been a quiet week and no members are really posting anything. As a manager of the group, you can then go in and post something to start spurring the conversation. Maybe you have the first week of the month, you have a standard question that goes out and you see how it changes over time. Maybe it’s asking people for their favorite exercise routine or their favorite activity of the season with their family. Potentially, it’s posting recipes that have to do with a single ingredient that’s timely or seasonal. So all of these things are things that you can do to help boost that engagement on the group, and because you are managing the group, that helps you prove your own expertise and position within the space.

08:47 S1: One other thing I recommend is having individuals introduce themselves when they join the group, and by doing this, you are getting people one, committed, two, participating in the group. If the first thing they do once they join is they start posting in the group, typically they’ll keep on doing it. If you don’t ask them to introduce themselves, oftentimes, they’re not going to. And then another thing that you can do is make sure that when somebody’s requesting to join you ask them questions prior to joining. So you can ask them what topics they’re most interested in, so that you talk about those topics, and for their email address. Now, this email address, if you have a disclosure there, you can mostly add that to your newsletter as well, or you can check to make sure that they’re already on your newsletter and they have to be part of on your newsletter in order to then join your group. So it’s a great way just to build your email list as well.

09:53 S1: So above all, the biggest takeaway when it comes to Facebook groups is really making sure that you are being considerate of others. You aren’t selling yourself too much and that your really, your main goal is to build that community and those relationships with the members of your group. So again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald. I’m the co-founder over here at the Social Speak Network. And thank you so much for tuning into our podcast on Digital Marketing for Health and Wellness Practices. Next week, Amber is going to be diving into utilizing on some tools for social media. So be sure to stick around there. You can download and subscribe to, our podcast on iTunes as well as Podbean and it’s also over on our website, the socialspeaknetwork.com. Thanks so much, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Facebook Advertising for Healthcare Industry

In this podcast episode we talk about how Facebook Ads work and the top benefits for having a Facebook ad campaign running for your wellness business.

  1. The first benefit is getting in front of new people, new prospects. So you’re actually helping your business see an ROI from the social media efforts that you have.
  2. The second thing is that you are nurturing those relationships of people who have heard about your brand or your practice, but haven’t taken that step to come in and learn more or meet with one of your staff. Running these Facebook ads helps you make sure that you stay top of mind to the people who haven’t yet come in.
  3. Then the third thing that it does, is it helps you re-engage with the patients who have been in to see you and just need a reminder every once in a while, that it’s time to come back in and schedule their next appointment.

Take a listen and read the transcript below!

Facebook Advertising for Healthcare – Digital Marketing Podcast Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald, one of the co-owners over here at Social Speak, and in today’s podcast episode, we are going to be talking about Facebook ads. Facebook ads are really important for health and wellness businesses and for healthcare.

Facebook Ads help you establish brand recognition and brand trust quickly and easily. They also allow you to get in front of the right people at the right time. Managing Facebook Ads for your healthcare business is really to not only build your prospect list, but also to nurture those prospects.

Last week, Amber talked some about creating a social media content calendar and figuring out how many times to post and what topics to post about, and so this is taking your social media presence to really another level.

Types of Facebook Ads for Wellness Center

On Facebook, there are a few different ways that you can advertise your business. There’s organic posting, there’s boosting those organic posts, and then there’s a whole slew of different ads that you can run from the Ads Manager.

In our digital marketing for healthcare we try and focus on the conversion ads. The reason why we do this is because it helps tap into Facebook’s algorithm for figuring out who’s going to be most likely to take that next step, and we’ll get into this in a few weeks, but that next step often is signing up to be a lead on your website.

This is something I’m going be getting into in a few weeks here. However, I did want go through a couple of real life Facebook campaigns that we’ve managed for some of our clients. The reason why I’m bringing­ up real Facebook Ad campaigns for some of our wellness clients is because I want to set the stage about the amount of time and effort is can take to nail down and optimize a Facebook campaign that’s going to work for your unique offerings and your unique target market. So let’s dive in.

The first business that I want to highlight is a Healthcare Education Association. They provide healthcare resources and education to constituents online and through live conferences and events. This group has a tremendous following, however, they are trying to grow and boost their new members. Over the years, just because of some ideological differences between some of the older members and the newer members, they have dropped some of their old membership base. Now they’re trying to really grow with new members that are more aligned with where their organization stands. This healthcare organization had only ever run boosted posts before. Yes, this does boost an organization’s exposure and engagement, but are you really seeing a return from that investment?

This is where the Facebook conversion ads come in that we created.

The Social Speak process with Facebook ads, typically, is having some sort of free resource or free download, even free consultation, that somebody can sign up for when they click on your Facebook ad. We’ve used webinars, e-books, and, in this case, we took articles that the client had previously written and bundled them together in the form of an e-book. Our first ads tested out the interest in this resource, which audiences lead to the most clients and conversions, ad what imagry and text were most effective. In this first go, there were three different audiences, but we did not see anything more than a 1% conversion rate. We spent about $160 in advertising budget spread across our A/B tests and saw one lead come in. Giving these tests a rest, we moved to the next digital project.

When optimizing Facebook ads for your wellness practice you shouldn’t just work on testing how you position your free resource or content upgrade, but also what offer is going to align most closely to the needs of your target market.

At this stage, we moved on to their next resource that we could offer and we did this a few different times, and we came across a quiz that they had. After repackaging the quiz so that it lived directly on their website we were ready to capture the leads directly into their email system rather than going through a third party. With this quiz, we found that through running the leads ads on Facebook rather than sending somebody to a landing page, we’re able to get the cost per lead down to almost $2. Additionally, we tried two different other campaigns, one for a fact sheet, and one for an e-book, focusing on a different topic, a different service that they provide from the first e-book, and each of these were able to get a sub $3 cost per lead as well. We’re still in the process of testing new services to promote new offers to promote, new educational resources to promote for them. We’re building another quiz that has to do with that second topic that we are talking about with them, and through this process, we’re continually able to decrease that cost per lead and get consistent results.

The reason why I shared this one first and kind of that failure story of spending $160 for one lead, is that your whole staff and your whole board needs to have the expectation that optimizing Facebook ads does take time. And so yes, you want to have an end goal of, I want to only spend $10 per lead, $15 per lead, $1 per lead. You need to have that goal, but you need to have the expectation that you’re not going to be there right now. So for this organization, we want that cost per lead to be lower, and we are working to get there. But we are testing out different audiences, different offers, different ad content, as a way to get there. I think in all, we’ve run over 100 or 150 different ads for them, that maybe it’s the same ad text but a different picture, different ad text, same video, or different audience, same audience, merging audiences together. And so it really is a process where you need to let the data speak for itself. And if it doesn’t stick on the first try, try again. So have kind of that budget in mind and that end goal right into the forefront.

The next client I wanted to share is a dietitian and health coach. She has been working with us running ads for over the past year. For any ad campaign, we do recommend giving it at least six months to make sure that with that first example is process that you are giving it time to really figure out if you’re getting results or not. Afterwards you have to then convert the leads into actual folks who are booking appointments with you, coming in, signing up for those paid services, or purchasing a product from you. So with this health coach, this dietitian, she has been running ads long before we even first sat down with her. And for her, our technique is really to focus on each of the different e-books, downloads, free offers that she has. She is very geared towards sharing educational resources, as are most of our clients. And for this client, we’ve had a few home run offers, timely offers, holiday diet tips and back to school tips and things like that, that have worked really well; with landing pages getting 60-70% conversion rates. However, the cost per lead has still been a little bit higher.

In this recent campaign, she had a great idea of grouping all of the resources together and having a complete resource library that folks who enter their name and email would gain access to. We created a new conversion campaign for this and a new landing page. And rather than creating individual ads for each of the different items that we want to test, we used Facebook’s, it’s not new, but newer feature where you can actually test multiple headlines, bodies and calls to action in each of the ads that you’re running and images or videos. And then Facebook will automatically pair and match and test the different items for you. So it takes a lot of the guess work out of creating those 100 or 200 different ads to make sure that you’re testing all of the different combinations. So for her this new campaign, we’ve been able to bring her average historical cost per lead from about $3-$4 all the way down to $0.50 cents. Now at this 50-cent mark, she is just pushing money towards this campaign and we’re continuing to see Facebook’s algorithm lead to better and better results. Now for her, because she is getting this quantity now, we are making sure that we still have that quality.

We’re working on that next part of the campaign, which is that email marketing follow-up. And here, we’re testing to make sure that that open rate and click rate on her emails actually is going up rather than going down as we’re getting more quantity in there.

Setting Goals for your Healthcare Facebook Campaign

The goal for your Facebook campaign should be within the first, I’d say, three months to really start seeing movement in a positive direction. And that could be starting with a cost per lead or conversion of $60 and working it down. But you don’t want to throw all your money at something until you see that upward momentum towards positive return. So for this dietitian for example, we are telling her to throw money at the campaign because it is currently working, and she’s getting conversions from it. If it was that first example that I gave, we did not spend their whole monthly budget until month three [chuckle] when we were finally able to push the dollars behind a campaign that was getting the results in the price point that they needed.

Always start small, test multiple things at once, and utilize Facebook’s ability to really optimize the campaigns for you.

A trick for optimizing a Facebook Ad Campaign

Now, one of the tricks that we have for tapping into how Facebook can optimize this is utilizing a landing page or a lead page sort of alternative. You can put this directly on your WordPress website or Square Space website. We typically use LeadPages, which is a software to build the lead pages. You can send an automated email afterwards and test to make sure that it really works. I recommend doing this for your business, your healthcare center as well. But of course, if you need any help, we are here to help.

As I wrap up, let’s just talk again about those top benefits for having a Facebook ad campaign running for your wellness business.

  1. The first benefit is getting in front of new people, new prospects. So you’re actually helping your business see an ROI from the social media efforts that you have.
  2. The second thing is that you are nurturing those relationships of people who have heard about your brand or your practice, but haven’t taken that step to come in and learn more or meet with one of your staff. Running these Facebook ads helps you make sure that you stay top of mind to the people who haven’t yet come in.
  3. Then the third thing that it does, is it helps you re-engage with the patients who have been in to see you and just need a reminder every once in a while, that it’s time to come back in and schedule their next appointment.

In terms of what to expect, don’t expect results in the first day. Yes, you might get lucky and you might find that combination where they are coming in right away. Most likely it might take upwards of three months. Now, don’t spend your whole marketing budget in those first three months. Wait for you to see that upward momentum and that path towards getting a positive ROI. From there, give it another three to six months to really run its course and make sure that you are getting after you get that lead, that prospect, that you are then getting someone in the door.

In health care, yes, there are services that need immediate bookings of appointments and somebody needs to come in right away for a consultation or even a surgery. However more often than not, for health and wellness, it’s about educating, teaching people why they need to come in and getting them to know, like and trust your brand. Again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald. This is the Social Speak Network podcast. You can follow us on Podbean, on iTunes or head on over to our website to check out our blog posts and social media as well. I’ll see you next time on the Social Speak Network podcast.

In this podcast episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kim Eickhoff, the founder and creator of the SHiFT program.

Kim really stresses how important it is to be present in the moment and to become more aware of your own feelings, patterns, and fears.

  • Where are they showing up in your life?
  • When are you feeling sad and why?
  • When are you feeling frustrated and why?
  • Taking responsibilities for our own feelings and actions

The one really key point that Kim made was understanding that a lot of these feelings and fears that you have come up from past experiences, whether that be from childhood, young adulthood, things we may not even be aware of on a conscious level.

Now, you may be wondering what does this have to do with business, right? Have you ever felt stuck in your business or feel like you are running in circles? Becoming aware of your fears and how you handle each situation with your clients and colleagues can help you move forward in your business and start creating the life you want.

Enjoy the podcast below:

Learn more about SHiFT here
Subscribe to Kim’s YouTube for daily inspiration

Learn: SHiFT from Fear to Freedom

When we make decisions and take action from a place of fear, or from feeling “less than”, these are not usually the best decisions or actions to take. We have to shift to a place of power, or freedom.

The SHiFT process easily teaches you about your patterns that keep you stuck in the same problems; then how to disrupt those patterns; and finally how to take the right action to move beyond the problems, have better control over yourself and your life, and fully create the life you envision.

Once you learn SHiFT, you can apply it to many challenges in your life and be able to adopt new patterns that put you in the right mindset for growth and success.

From Fear to Freedom

00:01 Amber Irwin: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m your host Amber Irwin and I am so excited for our guest today. Miss Kim, please introduce yourself. Let us know a little bit about who you are, and this is a… I am so excited for this podcast because this is a subject that I’m very passionate about and I know you are as well, so let’s share with our audience a little bit about who you are and what they’re in store for today?

00:29 Kim Eickhoff: Very cool. So, my name is Kim Eickhoff. I have been a business coach for the last 10 years. I love helping entrepreneurs and small business owners learn how to make money doing what they love. I have a lot of clients that are really passionate about what they do, really good at what they do, but they don’t necessarily understand the business side. So, that’s where I come in to just kind of help them with that piece. I also have been a life-long learner of kind of my own personal development, looking at myself, trying to understand why I do what I do [chuckle] and say what I do and get better hopefully at life in general; relationships, business, whatever it is.

01:10 KE: And yeah, I have learned a lot of different tools over the years and so I have now moved my business in a direction of where I still help entrepreneurs a lot, but now I’m also just trying to help people more on a personal development side to become more aware of themselves, what makes them tick, and then how to basically disrupt some of those patterns they get stuck in and make better decisions and create the life they really want versus sort of stuck in a life that they don’t necessarily really want. [chuckle]

01:40 AI: Right. So tell us a little bit about this SHiFT process and why did you create this program?

01:48 KE: So I keep seeing over and over and over again with people, as well as watching myself trying to grow my business, that if I am not working on my own personal issues and I’m not aware of them, that’s what keeps my business stuck or plateaued at a certain level. And as I was seeing this with my clients, a lot of them hadn’t done some personal work and didn’t know about different tools and that sort of thing. So it just kind of dawned on me one day, I have systems to teach them around business so I thought, “What if I had a system to teach them around how to become more aware?” That was fairly simple to learn, can help them see things in a non-judgemental way, so they don’t go into a place of defensiveness or trying to make excuses, but it’s more, “This is really just my reality. This is what I do. This is what I say. This is how I think and feel.”

02:39 KE: And then something that would then help them move out of that. Some tools I could teach them to help them move out of that. So I just started playing with that idea, came up with the idea of SHiFT, started playing with different words that seemed to fit. And then I would say, for the past two years now, it’s evolved slowly and changed a little bit over time to what it is now, to where I think it’s pretty solid. So I’ve been using it consistently for probably the past year the way it is.

03:06 AI: And how do you think that this process has helped you in just your life and business and maybe with your clients as well?

03:15 KE: Well, you know, we’re all human [chuckle] and we all we all get triggered by different things. And what I know for me is I have always been highly emotional. So growing up, I would overreact to stuff. Somebody would say something, it hurt my feelings, or I would get mad about something, I would completely overreact, lash out in a way that was not very helpful, usually. And I mean verbally, not physically, [chuckle] but I would get angry and get mad at somebody, blame somebody else for stuff. And then that never really helped, though. It never really made the situation better. It never really improved or really got me where I wanted to go with whatever that issue was. So for me, what happened was I started practicing this… Well, all the tools I’ve been using over time in various ways.

04:03 KE: Over the last couple of years, once I created it, I started practicing it regularly and I sort of made it my practice when I got triggered about something, something happened, caused a pretty strong emotional reaction, whether it was frustration, or anger, or fear, anxiety, whatever that was, and this could be a cash flow problem in my own business, it could be a cash flow problem with one of my clients because I get worried about them. It could be interactions with people, communication problems, that sort of thing. So not having misunderstandings and getting upset about it, that sort of thing. So I started really using it religiously just to practice it, just to see if it helped. And what I noticed was it the more that I did it, one, I saw really similar themes in how I reacted to certain situations. And so that when it happened the next time, I was much more aware of it and I realized “Oh, I am going into this triggered place.” And when I’m triggered, or somebody is triggered, we don’t usually make the best decisions because our brain goes offline, right?

05:02 KE: Our emotions flood our brain, and so we can’t really make good decisions. So what it does is it helps clear that out so that you can make better decisions. And so, I started practicing it regularly, started seeing the themes, and then at the same time, because I was clearing out all these old emotions, the triggers weren’t as powerful. I wasn’t getting triggered as much in the future. And that was a big… A cool part of it, I thought. Because I was like, “Wow, so now I’m actually releasing a lot of this stuff and what used to really trigger me doesn’t trigger me anymore.”

05:32 AI: Right. You kinda let it roll off your shoulders at this point. You worked through whatever that pattern was.

05:37 KE: Yeah. And the emotions, what I’ve learned is that a lot of these emotions that we have that do kind of come up in these really strong ways, they’re old things. They’re things that happened as kids. Maybe our parents didn’t validate how we felt or we were ignored or whatever, not that parents meant to do these things, but they’re human too and they treat us the way that we probably were raised. And so, we create issues in other people. And so, yeah, when I started to release a lot of that old stuff, because it wasn’t there anymore, the trigger just wasn’t as powerful. And I was like, “Oh that’s really cool, actually. I’m not upset about this anymore.”

06:17 AI: Right, so once you worked that through, like your personal life, how did you see your business grow from letting go of those emotions and not letting those triggers happen anymore?

06:29 KE: Well, so actually, what started me practicing a lot was my business had grown a lot. So I got to this point in my business where I was making more money than I’d ever made, I had a ton of clients, I was really, really busy, but all of a sudden, all this fear was coming up because it felt like, how in the world can I sustain this? Am I really worthy of this kind of stuff? Is this something that I’m gonna be able to keep going with and how do I get to the next level? So all this fear started coming up, and that’s when I started really using shift to work through the fear. What it taught me too was that, yeah, these were old fears that were happening, but at the same time, my intuition was telling me that there are other things I really wanted to be doing and not necessarily what I was just doing so I was just focusing on the business coaching which was fine, but I really felt this desire to move more in this other personal development region as well.

07:29 KE: And I had been pushing that aside because it’s like my intuition kept telling me and I kept shutting it off and I kept… But I’m making money doing this, so why would I change anything? But all this fear, really made me stop and look at that, and when I did, I was like, “Oh.” One, I really wanna get more clear about who I work with ’cause I want clients who really wanna work on this stuff so that helped me see that. And then at the same time, just get clear that this is what I really wanted to be teaching as well as the business coaching.

07:56 AI: Right, yeah, ’cause they go hand-in-hand.

07:58 KE: Right.

08:00 AI: And how have some of your clients that have gone through the SHiFT program, how have their lives and their businesses changed by doing that?

08:08 KE: In lots of different ways. So one client that I have, she’s a photographer and she sells fairly large projects that can range from $10,000-$30,000, so they’re big, bigger size price tags. She would have a lot of fear come up around doing her proposals, because these were big prize tags for her and this was really different SHiFT for her, as far as what she was trying to promote and sell and she just wasn’t ready. A lot of times we’re not emotionally prepared to do something that we know we’re supposed to be doing [chuckle] in our business just ’cause we’ve never done it before, so we have to practice it and get better. So, what I taught her SHiFT and what happened with this was, she would do the process before she actually went into a sales call.

08:54 KE: And so what would trigger her in the middle of the sales call was bringing up the money part. She was able to sort of work through that on the front end and get more comfortable and understand why she was getting triggered and it was all about her own old money stories, really, that’s where she would go with it. And so when she saw that, she learned some tools on how to release that anxiety and those old fears, and then actually just gain more confidence and become more aware that she was worthy of asking for the price that she was asking for. So her business went from… I think the first year we worked together, she sold a couple of projects, so probably $20,000-$30,000 in revenue, around those projects. She did a lot of other things for her business at the time, but she really was moving into this. And this year to this point, I think we’ve sold five, or six already. And so she’s…

09:44 KE: Yeah, she’s really turned a corner with how she presents herself, her confidence and not all that obviously is about SHiFT, but a lot of it helped and she would probably be one of the first ones to say that so. And she uses it now, and she’s in the middle of a meeting, if she starts to feel that anxiety pop up or any of those strong emotions, she knows how to sit there and go through it and feel it and release it and then come back to, “Oh, this is what I’m here to do and this is what I’m confident in,” and then you’re more authentic and you’re more kind of connected, so you’re not just faking it.

10:19 AI: Right. Yeah, and that’s a such an important piece is just being able to notice, when you have that coming up in yourself and not pulling the fingers, but being able to take note and say, “Okay this is what frustrated me,” or, “This is what made me sad,” or… Especially as adults, because you can’t, “You hurt my feelings,” but if you recognize that in yourself, then you can go back and use this practice. So let me ask you this, is this practice easy to learn?

[laughter]

10:52 AI: I mean, we’re talking about a lot here, we’re talking about our emotions. So is this practice easy to learn for everyone?

11:00 KE: It is actually, just because I think that the way it’s broken down. I purposefully made it into a system that is easy to follow. Now what’s hard about it, is to practice it like anything. Like, you can get a gym membership, but if you don’t actually go to the gym, it doesn’t do any good. So, it’s the same idea. You can have tools, but you have to actually use them. But once I lead somebody through it, they’re pretty much on their own from that point, they can always go through it for themselves. The practicing on the back end of the tools that will help you kind of release this stuff and move through it, I find needs a little more hand-holding.

11:37 KE: So what I normally do is I sell this in a few different sessions, like a package, because I teach it to them, they practice it. They come back and see what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, and we talk through the tools that they’re using. If they used them correctly, what could they do better that sort of stuff, not, there’s really wrong or right way but… And then we tweak it, and for me, is about me finding what tools work best for different people, ’cause sometimes something might work for somebody that’s super easy. If you’re very aware of your body and how sensations sort of show up in your body, that’s an easy tool to use. For other people, that’s a really brand new concept. They don’t understand that every emotion they have shows up somewhere in their body physically. And that’s a big piece of this process. And so there’s some teaching and training and practicing, that we’ll do around that, but yes, it’s easy to learn. It’s just not easy to practice, necessarily.

12:30 AI: About consistency, stick into it.

12:32 KE: Yeah, totally.

12:34 AI: And so with this… It’s so about your mindset. So you had said that you were focusing on the business coaching, and you were noticing your patterns in changing [12:47] ____ and those emotions, but then, there’s still that fear and that feeling, your intuition was telling you, “This isn’t what you’re supposed to do.” So that shows that money can’t buy happiness in every single way, but that you may think that you’re doing the right thing, but there’s still that fear and listening to your intuition. So is that a big piece of the program, as obviously, you’re looking at where… Like those sensations, how is that fear or anxiety or whatever we wanna label it as, coming up, and then how to deal with it. And that’s what they’re practicing, is how to notice those emotions?

13:25 KE: Yeah. So there’s several components to it, but the main components are your feelings. So if something happens that triggers you, whether it’s making a lot of money, let’s say. So let’s say you have… You made more money in a month than you’ve ever made, you’re excited on one end, but then some fear starts to pop up. It’s just like, “How in the world am I gonna repeat this? Is this possible? Is this sustainable?”, all this stuff. And so, when the anxiety or fear pops up with that, the key you start to look at is the… Are the thoughts that are connected to the feeling. So a lot of times, if the thoughts are about, “I’m not worthy,” about… It’s a lot of deep, deep thoughts. So it’s like, “If I’m not worthy,” or, “If I don’t believe I’m worthy,” these are all beliefs, “to actually make this amount of money and to be successful,” then you will end up sabotaging yourself.

14:13 KE: And that’s how people stay in the pattern, so they’re like, “No, I don’t believe I’m actually worthy, and this is what I’m gonna do to kind of bring myself back down to this amount of money that I feel comfortable at.” So it’s looking at what those thoughts are, and then it’s learning how to challenge those old beliefs and change them, and so the tools around that become one. If it shows up in the body as a sensation, that’s old emotions that are stuck in there, and so you actually have to heal that, and that is about just feeling it. And I don’t mean thinking about it, I mean really feeling it. And this is a process that’s hard for a lot of people, and so I’ll walk them through how to do this and walk them with an issue that they’re having. We’ll actually go through the practice of feeling sensations or as I call it, surrendering to them, ’cause you actually just wanna be present with what’s really happening in the moment and allow it to come up and out.

15:05 KE: And then once the emotions will dissipate, and they always do, you just have to pay attention to them, then those feelings go away. The thoughts go away, and you can actually make some choices on what you wanna do. What I find is, if the fear is showing up over and over and over consistently, and you keep doing this, that’s usually your intuition saying, “Hey, listen, this is not right.” And that’s… ‘Cause fears can mean different things, but that’s… What I’ve learned is like, “Oh, if this keeps showing up all the time, and I keep releasing it, but it keeps showing up, then it’s something deeper trying to tell me something else.”

15:40 AI: Yeah. Oh, I love it.

15:41 S?: [15:41] ____.

15:42 AI: So what is the number one takeaway from this process, and why is it so important in your mind?

15:51 KE: I think the number one takeaway is that we are completely in control of ourselves, and if something happens that… Whether it’s somebody or it’s a situation, somebody says something or does something, and we get angry or frustrated or fearful, all that stuff is our own stuff. It has really nothing to do with what has happened, with what this person has done, with what the situation is. What we do is we take that, and we make it into a much bigger problem, because we’ll ruminate on it, we think about it. I call it “habitual reaction”, so we will constantly think about it and constantly cycle through it, and your body will just get more and more stressed or more [chuckle] and more anxious or whatever it is. But that’s the biggest takeaway to me, is like, “Oh, if I can actually understand what issues of mine are being triggered around this, then I’m in complete control of my life,” because I can actually deal with those, and I can change how I respond to somebody, or what choices that I make.

16:53 KE: If I don’t know what’s happening, and I continue to make other choices, because I’m making choices to get rid of those feelings, I don’t want the feelings, they’re uncomfortable, but if I don’t even know that they’re there because of my stuff, then I’m gonna stay, keep doing things that are gonna keep me in these patterns that aren’t super-healthy for me. And so, becoming aware of that, giving yourself control back, taking full responsibility and ownership of where you are and what your response is, in some way, to me, is huge, ’cause then you’re in the driver’s seat, right? You can make choices, and you can do different things. So that’s, to me, what the coolest part of this is.

17:31 AI: Yeah. Taking responsibility, owning it and making a change. I love it. So tell us how can people work with you? Do you do, obviously, individuals? Do you do group? Do you speak at events? How can people sign up for SHiFT?

17:47 KE: Yes, I do all those things. [chuckle] So I love speaking at events, and I do sort of a 30-minute, big picture overview of what this is, why it’s important, that sort of thing; I don’t necessarily teach it, but I give a lot of information about it. I do one-to-one sessions with people, so I can do them through Zoom, I can do them in person if they’re here in the Denver area. I’m gonna start doing some more kind of group coaching things, but in corporations, that sort of thing, or small businesses. I work… I’d use this a lot with teams, so teaching teams how to do this individually helps them communicate better, because a lot of times people… I mean, you’re interacting with people, so you get triggered by something somebody says on your team, and then all production stops, ’cause you’re mad or whatever, and they’re mad at you, so nobody wants to work anymore.

18:37 KE: Well, this helps you kinda realize that and work through it, so with teams. And then I’m also working on… I wanna do a class, but it would be all video series, so it would be, you get maybe three to five videos in your email, and each one will teach you pieces of it; it’s much more self-directed. Obviously, you do it when you want, but you’ll learn the basic concepts. And with the others, I usually lead you through whatever specific issue you have, in those other programs, so it’s a little more hand-holding, that sort of thing than the other ones, but on the videos it’s like you just learn it, and you do it.

19:15 AI: Okay. And where can I find this information?

19:18 KE: Oh, [chuckle] on my website. What is my website?

19:25 AI: And you’re on Facebook, so they can connect with you on Facebook.

19:28 KE: Yes. Oh yeah, yeah, I’m on Facebook. So Coach Kim Eickhoff, E-I-C-K-H-O-F-F, is my last name. And then…

19:36 AI: And I’ll put the links below in the comments as well.

19:39 KE: Oh okay, cool.

19:40 AI: And then I’ll put your website in there too.

19:42 KE: Okay, coachkimshift.com, so that’s a good place. And then I have a YouTube channel, Kim Eickhoff, if you just put that in there, it should pop up.

19:53 AI: Awesome. Wonderful. Well, I’m so excited. Thank you so much, Kim, for being on with us today. Be sure to subscribe below, everyone. And if you are ready to make some serious changes in your life and take control back, call Kim, and let’s get to work.

[chuckle]

20:14 KE: SHiFT.

20:14 AI: SHiFT.

[laughter]

20:15 AI: Thanks, Kim, have a great day.

20:16 KE: Thanks, Amber, you too.

Subscribe to our Podcast here

 

Discovering your Patient't Journey

From the moment a patient seeks medical care for an injury or makes an appointment with their family doctor to determine the cause of their recent symptoms, the patient has begun a journey during which multiple people may be involved.

Hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other providers, may all be, at one point or another, involved in this patient journey.

When we start to think of the “Patient Journey” we need to think of these things:

  • What they are going through?
  • What are their pain points before they get to you?
  • What are they experiencing and struggling with?

By identifying these things this helps you as a business owner be able to provide the right resources they are looking for.

In today’s healthcare landscape, consumers have more options, choices, and resources when it comes to the direction of their own care. This ecosystem shift slab that the patient transportation is not a linear one, but rather a multi-stage clause with many different channels and touch points along with the media (much like a tree with dozens of different branches).

A few stages of the “Patient Journey” –

Awareness: Self-assessment of barrier and symptoms, leading to online research and education, consequence problem on social media, etc. This is the start id their journey, they have recognized that something is not right with their body, or how they feel. Most people will become aware of their issue and then start the research process. 

This is where they will spend hours online on different tools like Google, Pinterest, Facebook, WedMd, etc. to try to identify what they are going through.

Help: At this point, the patient understands they need help with their symptoms and are looking for the correct place to go. This is where your resource marketing comes into handy because you have been building a rapport with your patients, they trust you and know you are the right person to start with. 

Care: This piece is where the “know, like, trust” factor comes in. When a patient chooses you to be their caretaker and help them with their issues or symptoms this is a really big deal. most people just think I am a doctor and this is what I am supposed to do, but you are doing so much more. You are becoming a large resource mentally, physically, and emotionally. 

Treatment: You may be on the journey with these patients for a while, or just a couple visits. It’s important to take note of their treatment so you can use that data to help other patients like them. Treatment can be anything from home remedies, physical therapy, chemo, counseling, whether it be large or small treatment it will be a world of difference to your patient if they are no longer in pain. 

Behavioral/Lifestyle Change: Changes to reduce readmissions and promote proactive health. How has your care and treatment helped them to live a better life? This piece right here is the end goal, this is what people are looking for. 

  • Do they want to be able to walk with ease again?
  • Be able to live to see their family grow?
  • Be able to overcome their fears?

Whatever that lifestyle is for them that they will be able to achieve when they are doing work with you and your practice is the first step to your digital marketing. They are wanting something better in their life, they became aware of their problem, sought help, got treatment, and now ready to live their life again.

Ongoing Care/Proactive Health: What is the call-to-action? Do they need to come for follow-up appointments, exercises at home, home remedies, physical therapy, etc.? What do they need to do to continue their lifestyle and be proactive from here on out? 

It’s important for the patient to understand their journey and continue to improve. 

WHAT IS PATIENT JOURNEY MAPPING?

Patient route mapping in the healthcare industry is a data-driven, patient-centric approach to planning marketing activity, communications, and (to some degree) even delivery care. It’s a way to gather the facts, discover the anticipation of your patient, and then line-up that information to deliver an exemplary healthcare experience.

What testament a patient excerpt map do for you?

In short, patient section maps give you a clear guide for how to improve retention and acquisition through customer satisfaction. Exceeding patient expectation benefits your saps relation convenience twofold:

  1. It increases retention rates through patient satisfaction
  2. It increases new patient acquisition through evangelism

Word of mouth is still, and most likely always will be the best form of marketing, but if you can really connect with your patient’s on a much deeper level and be able to provide information, be a resource for them and their family. This allows you to take your digital marketing to the next level and reach more people. 

Conclusion

Active listening and putting systems in place is key! You will always want a steady flow of patient’s, and as their lives change maybe they move or find a different doctor or maybe your services are no longer needed, it’s important to keep that pipeline full with new and potential patient’s that need your services.

Digital marketing is a great way to connect with a potential patient’s in your community and be more than just a provider, but a resource. Once people feel they can trust your practice and get their questions answered, that’s when the magic happens. They start talking about you online and referring you more and more.

A few things to do when you get a new patient:

  1. Collect their email address – don’t just leave this in your system and not do anything with it, add it to your CRM like MailChimp, InfusionSoft, SalesForce, MyEmma, Constant Contact, etc. an email software so you can send them monthly newsletters with valuable information.
  2. Ask them to like you on Facebook or Instagram
  3. Invite them to leave a positive review on Google and/or Facebook once they are satisfied with their treatment
  4. Then have a strong social media presence to continue to stay top of mind

Remember, you are an important piece of your patient’s journey!

Learn more about  3 Tested Tactics to Integrate Patient Journey in Digital Marketing Strategy

Understanding your patient's journey and How to market to them online