Approaches to marketing during COVID and beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic has no doubt affected every osteopath in Australia. For many, it’s driven them to rethink how to promote their practices. In this article, Alan Zaia outlines some effective marketing strategies that osteopaths can introduce and implement both to bring in new patients and to engage their current patients during COVID and beyond.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES The way we market our services to attract new patients is vastly different from reminding existing patients that we’re always here when they need us. Therefore, when thinking about where to start marketing through COVID and beyond, we must distinguish between three approaches: Marketing to new patients; Marketing to your patient list; Keeping in contact with your patient list.

MARKETING TO NEW PATIENTS When we think about marketing, we typically think about marketing to attract new patients. Marketing to bring new patients into the clinic hasn’t changed much since COVID and the fundamental aspects remain the same (Zaia, 2021a), namely:

Strong, consistent branding;

A powerful website; An optimised Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business);

Google Ads;

Community-based marketing.

These five fundamental aspects of marketing to new patients are the perfect blend of digital and physical marketing, with the ability to reach potential patients online and in the local community.

Branding Creating a brand always comes before initiating any marketing strategy, because it gives you direction, clarity and purpose.

More than just a name and logo, branding is the equivalent of taking an excellent case history. Much like how the process of taking a thorough case history tells you where and how your treatment will work best, the process of creating a strong brand tells you where and how your marketing will work best. Both act to give you a plan immediately and into the future.

More than word of mouth

While we’re diving into marketing techniques, it’s important to address the effectiveness of word of mouth, and how pairing word of mouth with additional marketing methods can boost clinic growth.

Many osteopaths would agree that word of mouth is their most effective form of marketing. However, while word of mouth is undoubtedly powerful, it’s an unreliable form of marketing because we don’t know when its powers will come into effect.

Since you can’t control when an existing patient recommends you to a friend, family member or colleague, you need to have several marketing strategies operating alongside word of mouth to help you reliably attract new patients to the clinic and encourage existing patients to return. ALAN ZAIA Alan Zaia is an award-winning British osteopath, a finalist in The Institute of Osteopathy Practice of the Year 2019 awards and the founder and CEO of Osteohustle (www.osteohustle.com). Osteohustle is an international network of osteopaths who provide easy, ethical and effective business and marketing tools through coaching, courses and community.

Therefore, if you’ve tried different marketing methods in the past and didn’t get the results you wanted, it’s worth learning more about the process of branding, as a strong brand will fix your marketing forever (Zaia, 2021b).

Website, Google Business Profile and Google Ads When marketing for new patients, it’s important for your website to rank highly for geographically related Google terms like ‘osteopath near me’ and ‘osteopath [your location]’ (Zaia, 2022). There are three different ways people searching using geographically related Google terms can find your website:

Organic search ranking (website search engine optimisation);

Google Maps (Google Business

Profile)

Pay-to-be-seen adverts (Google Ads).

So, when someone searches for a term like ‘osteopath near me’, the digital trio of a website, Google Business Profile and Google Ads gives you three horses in the race instead of one.

Google top tip

When someone types in a geographically related Google term like ‘osteopath near me’, Google knows to display Google Maps with pins highlighting relevant businesses in the local area. The best way to have your practice listed on Google Maps is by having a Google Business Profile (Newberry, 2022). It’s free and is an excellent way for new patients to find you, so there’s no reason not to have it.

Community-based marketing Most of the fundamental aspects of marketing are digitally focused. However, community-based marketing is a fantastic opportunity for osteopaths to grow their reputation and build trust within their community.

While COVID has had a minimal impact on our first four fundamental aspects of marketing, it has significantly affected community-based marketing. Interestingly, COVID has encouraged small businesses to band together to support each other (Anon, 2022), and there’s no reason why osteopaths can’t be a part of that community togetherness.

One of the best bits of advice I’ve ever received when building an osteopathic clinic is to act as if the street your practice is on is a small village. Getting to know other small businesses within your local area is an easy way to build the ‘know, like and trust factor’. This is a marketing concept that suggests the more someone knows, likes and trusts you, the more likely they are to become a patient.

If you combine the five fundamentals of marketing to new patients, you can use your website as a place where both local people who hear about you and those who discover you through Google can learn more about how you help. Now you have the steps to attract new patients easily, ethically and effectively.

MARKETING TO YOUR PATIENT LIST Did you know there’s a 60-70% probability of selling to an existing customer vs. a 5-20% probability of selling to a new customer (Pavlovskaya, 2021)? Although this is an all-industry statistic, we can presume the percentages are similar within osteopathy.

These statistics highlight the importance of marketing to patients who already know, like and trust you. Reaching out to existing patients is a powerful strategy that helps practices grow.

As osteopaths, we all know that we can do more than help people get out of pain. We can also help people eat better, move better, sleep better and improve their overall quality of life. Therefore, you can continue reinforcing your reputation as a healthcare professional who can help with numerous lifestyle factors beyond pain management. Marketing to existing patients is a great way to educate them about this fact and improve their ability to recognise when a friend, family member or colleague would benefit from seeing an osteopath.

KEEPING IN CONTACT WITH YOUR PATIENT LIST Keeping in contact with your patient list is simply touching base with them and sharing clinic news and updates.

We all know the expression ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Therefore, keeping patients up-to-date with clinic goings on will remind them of your existence. Although this could be viewed as indirect marketing because the news may result in a booking, it’s not your primary intention. Instead, you are continuing to build on the know, like and trust factor.

We use the same strategies and platforms to communicate with our existing patients as we use when marketing to them but our intention defines whether we’re marketing or simply keeping our patients up to date with clinic news.

The main tools you can use to communicate with your existing patient list include:

Email;

SMS;

Telephone (including virtual receptionists);

Leaflets;

Posters;

Business cards;

Social media.

MARKETING AND UPDATING: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? The key difference between marketing and keeping patients up-to-date is the action you want them to take. For example, let’s say your team recently took a COVID-safe CPD course.

Community top tip

Creating genuine and authentic connections with local businesses is a fantastic, ethical way to become well-known, liked and trusted in your community. Choosing one business close to where you work, such as a small coffee shop or hairdresser, and spending your time and money there while getting to know the owner is a good way to get started.

“By implementing the five fundamentals of osteopathy marketing we can continue to attract new patients”

Here are two versions of the same email that you could send to your patient list.

Version 1 Hi [Name]

All our staff have recently taken a COVID-safe course provided by Osteopathy Australia to keep our clinic and you safe during your visit.

We want to thank you for your support during this time, and we’re looking forward to your next visit.

If you have any questions about our clinic and COVID, please call us anytime on 444 123 45.

Thank you, [Your name] and the team at [Your Practice Name].

Version 2 Hi [Name],

All our staff have recently taken a COVID-safe course provided by Osteopathy Australia to keep our clinic and you safe during your visit.

We understand that you may be cautious about visiting the clinic during COVID and as COVID hopefully begins to ease. So we want to do everything we can to reassure you that your health is and always will be our highest priority.

We’re ready when you are. View our online calendar here to find a time that suits you.

You can reply to this email, and I’ll gladly answer any questions you have before your visit.

Thank you, [Your name] and the team at [Your Practice Name].

As you can see in these examples, we’ve used the same topic and platform but have changed our intention depending on what action we’d like the patient to take. By pointing the patient to our online calendar in the second email, it’s clear that the action we want them to take is to book an appointment. In comparison, the first email is an open invitation for the patient to ask your team any questions he or she may have.

Can you see how the intention is different while the information is the same? And although the first email is primarily informative, it will have a marketing undertone that may lead to a return visit.

Including a mix of intentions is an excellent way to build the know, like and trust factor with your existing patient base. Other topics you could share with your existing patient base include:

New practitioners and staff;

New services and products;

New skills learned;

Updated COVID regulations (cleaning, masks, etc.);

Updated opening and closing hours, especially during holidays;

Social media top tip

Stop selling, start sharing! Social media is a fantastic tool for osteopaths to use to share their personality and knowledge with people outside their treatment room (Zaia, 2021c). You’d be surprised how much of a better response you’ll get when you start sharing your face, voice and thoughts. Update patients with how COVID affects your clinic, but also reassure them that you’re healthcare professionals who are doing all you can to keep your clinic COVID safe.

Exercise and lifestyle tips (written, image or video-based); New blogs; Addressing a frequently asked question.

COVID AND BEYOND By implementing the five fundamentals of osteopathy marketing we can continue to attract new patients, while we can also connect with our current patient list to build on the know, like and trust factor. Operating a combination of strategies will help us effectively market our practices through COVID and beyond.

References

Anon (2022) Local vendors to shine at Enlighten Festival. https://www.act.gov.au/our-canberra/ latest-news/2022/february/local-vendors-to-shine-atenlighten-festival, last accessed 11 May 2022 Newberry, C. (2022) How to use Google My Business to get more customers in 2022. https://blog.hootsuite.com/ google-my-business/ #Why_you_need_a_Google_My_ Business_account, last accessed 11 May 2022 Pavlovskaya, E. (2021) 70 powerful customer retention statistics you need to know in 2021. https://www. semrush.com/blog/customer-retention-stats, last accessed 11 May 2022 Zaia, A. (2022) The SEO starter toolkit. https://www. osteohustle.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/TheSEO- Starter-Toolkit.pdf, last accessed 11 May 2022 Zaia, A. (2021a) Osteopathy marketing: where to start. https://www.osteohustle.com/osteopathy-marketingwhere-to-start/, last accessed 11 May 2022 Zaia, A. (2021b) How branding will fix osteopaths marketing forever. https://www.osteohustle.com/howbranding-will-fix-osteopaths-marketing-forever/, last accessed 11 May 2022 Zaia, A. (2021c) Social media for osteopaths: how to get patients from social media. https://www.osteohustle. com/how-osteopaths-get-patients-social-media/, last accessed 11 May 2022