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Marketing Strategies for
Academic Audiology Clinics
Increasing patient volume and revenue while
maintaining nonprofit ideals and improving
training.
Consult with Fuel Medical Group as their University Audiology Advisor
Consult with Northwestern University on an NIH grant conducted jointly with Mayo Clinic Florida
DISCLOSURES
If we had more time:
Mission, Value Proposition, Ideal Patient, Marketing Goals, Markets, Pathways, Culture, Calendar &
Budget
MARKETING PLAN
(Marketing University and Other Nonprofit Audiology Clinics in Marketing in an Audiology Practice
Edited by Brian Taylor, Plural Publishing 2015)
Learning Objectives
• Understanding the importance of having a marketing strategy
• How to market the advantages of your nonprofit and university
status
• The four pathways new patients can take from the marketplace
to your clinic and which are most important for academic
audiology clinics
• How to accomplish marketing with limited resources
Calm Before the Storm
•
•
•
•
The academic clinic’s emphasis was on training
Free clinics were common in academia
Training clinic costs were covered by the university
There was little incentive to know or engage in best
business practices
• Marketing was nonexistent, even frowned upon
• Student enrollment was determined by faculty and
adequacy of available resources
Perfect Storm
in Academic Audiology
Increased &
Stronger
Competition
Pressure to
Increase
Student
Enrollment
Pressure to
Cover More
Clinic Costs
TRAINING
CLINIC
Storm Gear = MARKETING
Professional marketing will:
• Increase revenue to cover cost and produce profits
• Differentiate your clinic from the competition and make the clinic
more competitive and difficult to imitate
• Increase patient flow to meet growing student enrollment
• A professional marketing plan helps make tough choices about how
and where to compete and how to allocate limited resources
• Demonstrate business skills to university administration and build
trust with administration to win additional resources
Marketing is the action that will create solutions to pressing problems.
MARKETING THE ADVANTAGES OF
ACADEMIC AUDIOLOGY CLINICS
Being nonprofit gives academic audiology clinics an advantage in establishing trust.
Being part of the university further establishes trust and promotes confidence in your skills, deep
knowledge and state of the art practices and procedures.
Market these unique advantages and do not market product and price.
NONPROFIT STATUS & TRUST
The Decisive Differentiators
CLINIC TYPE
REASON FOR
BEING
OPERATIONS
PROFITS
MOTAVTION
PUBLIC
VIEWPOINT
FOR-PROFIT
PROFIT
PATIENT CARE
TO OWNERS
MONEY
SUSPICION
NONPROFIT
PATIENT CARE
PATIENT CARE
SERVING MORE
PATIENTS
PATIENT CARE
TRUST
Trust is the most significant differentiator between nonprofit academic
clinics and their competition.
TRUST: The Elixir of effective long-term relationships
For seniors trustworthiness is the primary factor in choosing their
hearing healthcare clinic.
Trust is much easier to establish between a patient and a nonprofit
clinic versus a for-profit clinic.
A higher trust factor and your university affiliation also gives
academic nonprofit clinics an advantage in forming relations with
professional referral sources.
Building and maintaining trust is the academic nonprofit clinic’s
greatest advantage and should be the core of its brand, value
proposition, marketing and clinical practice.
SUCCESSFUL MARKETING DEPENDS ON
POTENTIAL PATIENTS RECEIVING A CONSISTENT
MESSAGE FROM A VARIETY OF SOURCES
•
•
•
•
Retail
Third Party Referrals
Grassroots
Digital
STRATEGY: Consider those sources and how they should be prioritized
Retail
Choose Wisely – Spend Carefully
SUMMARY
• No Manufacturer Sponsored Retail Marketing
• No Magazines
• No Direct Mail
• No Radio except Public Radio and University and use them
sparingly. Know the demographics.
• Newspapers – Target demographic and use inserts. Do not market
price or devices. Use to differentiate your clinic and educate. Use
Call Source to track ROI.
Patient Referrals
Attempt to help people with hearing difficulties seek clinic
services earlier by friend, family, and colleague referrals.
• Educate patients about the benefits of early detection
• Need a systematic plan that involves all clinic personnel and
tracks how successful each audiologists is and monitors the
role of front desk staff.
• If you feel you must give a monetary referral reward then give
it to the new patient not the referring patient.
• Use professional materials to explain and facilitate the plan
• Send “thank you” card to referring patient.
Physician Referrals
Understand that physicians want to refer patients where they will get
the best treatment and not be sold something they do not need and
this is what you are offering them.
• Requires an established physician marketing plan, a person
responsible for implementing the plan, and constant
communications with physician practices.
• Actively seek partnerships with local PCPs and other local
physicians around the triple threat of
– Physician/Patient miscommunication resulting from hearing loss
– Serious consequences of untreated age related hearing loss
– Comorbid conditions associated with hearing loss
Physician Referrals
• Expensive, start small with clinicians contacting local medical
practices serving the same market niche
• Use demographic analysis to see density of local physicians
• Build a library of peer review articles stressing the importance of
early treatment and the negative consequences of no or delayed
treatment. Distribute articles along with marketing materials on a
regular basis to local medical practices.
• Use lunch and learns to educate the staff as well as physicians
• Be aware of who will be most important in making the referrals
educate and facilitate them and win them over.
• A physician referral program requires constant care and feeding of
those from whom you want referrals.
GRASSROOTS
• Consistent with a nonprofit image and increases visibility but
not a dependable source of patients
• Good for long-term public education and student experience
• By being helpful you can build trust in the nonprofit
community – Integrate with Pillar of Community strategy
• Focus on health-related events that include your market niche
• Support the local HLAA chapter or similar groups.
• Choose grassroots events carefully and participate selectively.
Patient’s Path to the Clinic
Traditional
MARKETING
RECEPTIONIST
• Referrals & Advertisements
• Phone number & Address
• Phone Call & Conversion to
an Appointment
New World of Audiology
MARKETING
WEBSITE
RECEPTIONIST
CLINIC VISIT
• Appointment
• Patient Satisfaction
CLINIC VISIT
• Referrals & Advertisements
• Phone #, Address, Website URL, E-mail
• Discover about Clinic Personnel & Services
• Educate Themselves & Compare Providers
• Phone Call & Convert to Appointment
• E-mail & Convert to Appointment
• Appointment
• Patient Satisfaction
In our new world of audiology, before calling for an appointment, a growing number of people will check your
website and that is where their first impression will be made.
Website
• Majority of people search for healthcare information online
• SEO,PPC ads, and remarketing will improve the chances of
people finding your site
• Website must be professional and consistent with you
marketing, branding and patient care
• Explain services you provide, your value proposition, location,
hours of operation and photos and short bios of clinicians
• Patients expect university websites to have educational
materials easily available
Shift the Cost, Use University Resources, Involve Students, Track ROI
ACCOMPLISHING MARKETING WITH LIMITED
RESOURCES
Shift the cost by using Fuel Medical Group
• Fuel Medical Group will help you manage the clinic and provide
many marketing skills such as designing of marketing and patient
and physician educational materials at no cost.
• Fuel has its own in-house team of designers, content editors and
writers, coders, and business managers to team with you to meet
your goals.
• Fuel will team with you to create your marketing plan: mission,
value proposition, marketing goals, ideal customer, markets,
marketing calendar and marketing budget.
• Fuel will assist you in monitoring your clinic KPIs and marketing ROI
and suggest innovative improvements based on them
Use University Resources - PR
• Because of Town/Gown issue universities may like to publicize
the good they are doing in the community like your clinical
services, public lectures, and grassroots events.
• Make friends with the PR folks & align clinic and university
community service strategies.
• Educate the PR folks about how people will benefit from your
services, outreach and educational events.
Use University Resources - HR
• Work with your HR department to make your clinical services
better know to faculty and staff and their families.
• Offer special considerations for university faculty, staff, and
their families to gain HR support and publicity.
• Work with HR to create a hearing benefit plan for employees.
– A plan where university hearing healthcare services are provided in
your clinic.
• If a lot of alumni reside in the community a similar approach
can be used for them.
Use University Resources – Business School
• Create a relationship with the business school. Business schools
often provide their communities with free experienced teams of
experts to tackle nonprofit business development projects.
• These collaborative projects:
– Bolster the university & business school’s community reputation
– Provide a challenging experience for business students
– Meet millennial B students’ need for social action and involvement
– Allow the audiology clinic to do market research, diversify revenue
streams and other projects without cost and with minimum time
commitment.
– Build your reputation upstream as being business savvy
Use University Resources – Involve Students
• Marketing is no longer optional for audiology clinics, yet little is
being done to train students about clinic marketing.
• Involving students in your marketing efforts will create more
people working on the marketing effort and give hands-on training
to the students.
• Students can:
–
–
–
–
Be part of the physician liaison program
Participate in clinic projects with the business school students
Participate in business conference calls and meetings with Fuel
Conduct capstone projects focused on needed market research, analysis of
the research results, development of a plan of action and its
implementation.
Using Limited Resources
Control cost
• Use Call Source to monitor marketing success
• Constantly monitor ROI for marketing projects and make
adjustments accordingly
Work smarter
• Establish a marketing culture to make marketing most effective
• Marketing is everybody’s business
• Continue this discussion at the Fuel Medical Booth in the Exhibit Area.
• Contact me at [email protected]
• Continue studies on your own using: Marketing University and Other Nonprofit Audiology
Clinics in Marketing in an Audiology Practice Edited by Brian Taylor, Plural Publishing 2015
THANK YOU