Do you know what you are doing wrong?
Today’s massage marketing environment is substantially different than it was even ten years ago. If you’ve been doing the same types of marketing for years and they were once successful but are not as effective now there is a good reason for that.
Pull vs Push your messages to others
Society has changed and the way people expect to hear from you has changed. Where marketing and communications used to be your practice sending information “out” or pushing information to patients and prospects, it is now about you brining them in or “pulling” them to you. Communicating in our society has changed and your marketing communications should reflect that change from a push to a pull strategy. Pushing your information out to anyone that would listen in order to initiate a conversation worked in the past, but no more. Now there is a need to pull prospects and clients into your sphere – this is today’s communication. This is how to connect with people today.
How Obama changed the face of social media
A great example of this was Obama’s presidential campaign. I did a ton of research on this for the healthcare conference I did a workshop in January. Obama did an awesome job “marketing” his campaign and run for presidency. His messaging played an important role (for change) as well as the WAYS he connected with people.
Obama was able to raise over 200 million dollars through a pull marketing strategy. He did this by pulling people in one small step at a time. He received absolutely none of that money from businesses. He built an email list of 3.5 million people in a very short time span. In a very easy and nonintrusive way he simply asked people to join his list to keep up to date on what was going on. He would then ask them to donate small amounts, $10, $15, $20 increments (this is just like asking people to take small steps to improve their health). He spoke to them through short text messages through twitter and YouTube. All with their permission. All through short, concise marketing communications.
How do we know this? Simply take a look at what’s going on with new communication trends. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are all about sending short, concise messages to people that asked to or agreed to hear from you.
Why the change?
There is so much “noise” going on around us and we are all so bombarded with advertisements that we simply can’t process it all.
So healthcare consumers are electing who and what they want to hear about, just like consumers in any other industry.
Bringing this back to you and your practice, look at what types of marketing you are doing. Are you sending things out, out, out and not asking for a commitment or an action from your community? Are you doing the same old post cards, the same old grocery cart brand awareness?
If you are not asking prospects to say “yes” to hear from you they are probably not listening. You don’t have their buy-in. You are pushing.
What are some pull strategies that work well?
Anything where you are getting your client or prospect to say “yes I want to hear from you”. An ezine or this blog is a perfect example. You agreed to receive it. You learned a little bit about it, obviously are interested in healthcare marketing, and gave us your name and email address to learn more.
Blogs, podcasts, newsletters and ezines where the reader has asked to receive the information (rather than just sending it to them), are just a few examples of ways to incorporate a pull strategy into your marketing rather than the current push strategy you may be using.
If you are seeing your marketing is not as effective as it once was understand there is a reason. Look at how you are connecting with both your clients and your prospects.
Contact us at Kelly@AMarketingConnection.com or call 303-460-0285 for more information.
About the author
Founder of A Marketing Connection and The Copywriting Institute, Kelly Robbins, MA, is an award winning author, copywriter and healthcare marketing coach/consultant. Kelly is the author of Marketing 101: Why Successful Alternative Healthcare Practitioners Specialize as well as co-author of The Practice Evolution Success Kit.
Kelly Robbins also publishes The Healthcare Marketing Connection, a free e-zine on healthcare marketing tips. Contact Kelly to receive her free report, “5 Critical Mistakes Healthcare Marketers Make that Lose Sales and Plummet Profits” at www.AMarketingConnection.com or 303-460-0285.
