Chapter 7
From ADA Wiki
ADA Cookbook Chapter 7, How To Market Your Customer Base
Original Author: Kenneth E. Smith, PhD, CCC-A
1. Establish specific goals for your internal marketing activities, being very specific. Re-evaluate and change the goals every six months based on success rate.
2. Set up a computer and software system that will allow rapid access to your customer base. Make sure it can identify patients by a wide variety of factors and generate mailing lists/labels.
3. Keep track of when patients were fit, patients who need a second aid and patients who need an amplification upgrade. Take and make the time to establish a system that allows you to USE the date on a regular basis.
4. Use the dental model to set up a recall system. Use either refrigerator stickers given at the time of patient contact, or a card-recall system. Re-call at 6 months intervals for bi-annual cleaning and tube changes, annual re-evaluations. Tell your patient that you will recall them.
5. Always include the family and significant others in the rehabilitation process; they will generate patient confidence, reinforce your service and generate new patients.
6. Always ask the patient for permission to send a letter to their physician or related agency. Work to make referral letters brief and masterpieces in communication. Use the FAX.
7. Develop literature that communicates: use a logo, type size that is readable but not insulting, clear description of the message or information you want to communicate.
8. Try to keep "constant" contact with your referral sources: send them newsletters, new brochures, encourage in-office screening and try to interact with referral sources in out-of-office activities (clubs, service organizations, etc).
9. Use hearing aid patients as resources for patients who are hesitant to use your services. This is very effective for promotion of programmable technology, where the results can be dramatic. Never coach patients on what to say, but ask them to act as a consultant. Match patients by age and lifestyle as carefully as possible.
10. Give out recognizable publications (Consumer Reports articles on How to Buy a Hearing Aid, AARP publications, etc.) to patients and ask them to pass them on to others.
11. Ask patients for referrals. "Thanks for the referral" notes are very effective. Considering our "professional" image, we have not been comfortable with giving "premiums" for referrals although this is known to be effective in some markets.
12. Set up a battery club (i.e., pre-purchase a battery set, batteries are then mailed on demand), which is sold at the time the aid is fit. Two weeks after fitting, send the patient a WELCOME TO OUR PRACTICE letter, including a discount coupon for battery club. Tell them in advance that this will be coming: it assures you that they will use the "right" battery for their system and establishes a pattern for battery purchase.
13. Do a newsletter! If you write well and are creative, do your own and send it out 2-3 times per ear. It should look like a letter, and should contain "true" news, basic information about hearing, staff or office information and action-oriented promotion. Delivery should be timed to avoid the holiday rush, and the envelope should be printed to alert the recipient that it is "News You Can Use from your Audiologist." Use a "postage Stamp" or pre-printed envelopes from the USPS for proper appearance and cost-effectiveness. If you can’t/don’t want to write, use a commercial newsletter that you can customize. Newsletters take constant work, monitoring and creativity.
14. Plan the time to review and redesign your brochures and literature. Keep them current, readable and write them so that they can be given to non-patients by patients.
15. Send a follow-up letter to each patient or prospect you talk with on the phone. Restate the content of your conversation and include your literature.
16. Send out simple birthday cards, signed by you, that include batteries, etc. Sometimes this is the only birthday card the patient will receive. Recognize special anniversaries with a card or letter.
17. Design readable business cards that promote your name, business, logo and directions for the patient to reach you. A simple map on the back side of your card is very helpful.
18. Write INSERTS to be mailed out with batteries. Any time you send out anything, a piece of literature should be included. Use brief, clear, half or quarter page pieces, printed on brightly colored paper. Information should be presented on only one topic per insert and should be geared toward both educational and promotional topics. These inserts should be changed, re-written and expanded on a regular basis, giving you a "pool" of topics from which to draw. Mailings can be targeted by type of aid, age and other factors, but you need (a) a plan; (b). a person to coordinate the inserts. Take the time to do this efficiently, since it represents you to your patients.
19. Plan carefully for inclusion of your office staff in the internal marketing process, making them a part of the team. Staff phone behavior, in-office patient management and participation in office-related activities (assistance with cerumen management, data entry for programmable systems and "voices" for listening in the fitting process, etc.) need continuing attention from you.
20. Assume that your internal marketing plan needs revision and expansion every 6 months. The plan will change with the economy and your previous marketing experience.
