From the editor
The marketing mix differs from industry to industry.
The point is not that b2c residential real estate sales have fundamentally different promotion tools compared to, for example, b2b production of gas equipment. The tools are basically the same.
The difference is in the features of application and accents. Understanding this difference is the industry experience that allows you to achieve the same goals for less money or reach new heights with the same money.
Medical topics in this context stands apart. This is a delicate area, and if you do something wrong, the negative will quickly grow. Here, experience is critically important in order not only to earn money, but also not to get into an unpleasant situation.
Today Andrey Borisov, head of our Marketing Competence Center "Medicine and Equipment", talks about the nuances and tools for promoting medical clinics in Moscow.
Instead of a preface
The experience we have accumulated is specific. We work with the medical leaders of the capital (MEDSI, INVITRO, Doctor Nearby, SM-Clinic) and promote them only in Moscow. And although the tools we have described are universal, other regions and a different business format will leave their mark on your marketing plan. In any case, the only way to find out is by experience. Experiment!
Target audience (TA): for whom are we trying?
No matter how fashionable the marketing model you use and no matter what foreign abbreviation you call it, you still need to start work with the definition target audience.
Answer the questions:
Who are your clients?
What are they looking for?
Where do they live?
In case of network clinic with good geo coverage(this is when there are many branches and they are located in several districts of the city) the generalized portrait of the client is as follows: "Working men and women 22+ with an income above the average." People with below average income do not go to paid clinics in Moscow (and this is one of those indicators that will differ from region to region). For client separate clinic we see others distinctive features: These are people (to a greater extent) living and (to a lesser extent) working in the area of the clinic.
Be aware customers private clinic divided into two streams: customers paying for services and clients under VHI policies. The marketing department usually solves the problem of attracting the first type of customers. They will be discussed below.
Competitors: who is running the race?
Having made a detailed portrait of the target audience, start studying competitors. Thoroughly knowing the strengths and weaknesses of those with whom you will have to compete for an audience and profit is no less important than knowing your own strengths and weaknesses.
The study of competitors should begin with their correct identification. Often a separate clinic compares itself with a network one. This is not true: we have already determined above that they have different target audience, and therefore different promotion strategies. Mistakes at this stage entail making the wrong strategic decisions about the entire business and marketing plan. We will not expand on the perniciousness of such decisions. Let's reiterate that:
network clinic competitors - other network clinics;
competitors of a separate clinic are multidisciplinary and specialized clinics located geographically nearby (dentistry, gynecology, etc.).
Unique Selling Proposition: Explore Yourself
After studying the competition, critically answer the question: What do I suggest?
Consider your product from all sides, honestly pointing out for yourself all the advantages and, no less important, the disadvantages.
How much do you cover demand relative to competitors? How are doctors distributed among clinics?
There are frequent situations when in one clinic there are all the specialists, and in another there are two or three visiting doctors who see them only a couple of hours a few days a week. In such a clinic conversion will be lower than competitors and than the network average.
Note! Study the clinics of competitors. Perhaps a popular doctor with good reviews and a large client base is taking in the next one. In this case, it is easier to transfer the doctor to a branch in another area where the competition is lower than trying to compete with a doctor with a loyal base.
At the stage of studying competitors, it is necessary compare prices. In the face of falling incomes, pricing policy is extremely important. But use the prices on the site carefully! On the one hand, specifying competitive prices for services increases conversion. On the other hand, if no one in the region indicates prices, then it’s better for you not to indicate them, otherwise you will lose calls. If competitors' prices are lower than yours, also refrain from listing prices. In this case, subject to a professional call center, there is still a chance to convert calls into requests.
Mini-case 1. With or without prices?
We analyzed the conversion from landing pages for gastroenterology and ophthalmology services. In the first case, the price of the clinic was on par with competitors (almost all competitors indicate prices), in the second case, it was higher than the competitors. In the test, we launched pages and, accordingly, ads in advertising campaigns with and without prices. Campaign results are presented in the table.
The conclusion here is obvious: good price- indicate; high - no.
Attraction: Share and Heal
This concludes the preparatory stage. You know your customers (future or existing), your product, its weaknesses and strengths, their competitors, their advantages and disadvantages. The point is small - to attract customers. But your CA is heterogeneous(it is always heterogeneous). And using any one tool, you will definitely not be able to cover it all. What to do? Segment.
Clients of medical institutions, as well as consumers of the overwhelming number of services, are divided into primary and secondary. And here we have a standard task: to attract as many primary customers as possible at the lowest possible price, to reduce the period between repeated customers' requests and to increase the average bill at all stages.
Note! We have already written in detail about . In the medical field, it is vital, as in any other modern business. From experience, we note that clinics often have problems with CRM: it either does not exist, or there is no single network in clinics of the same network. This complicates the collection and processing of data, and hence the analysis of the results and the identification of problems. Consider installing unified CRM linking the entire business, even at the stage of planning a business or launching a marketing company.
Attraction: go towards those who come in your direction
The most effective channel that gives quick results to attract new customers, of course, contextual advertising. But in the medical field with this difficulty . AT Google AdWords medical advertising prohibited. There is a small chance to pass moderation from the nth time if you write a general text without specifying the specialists (gynecologist, urologist) and the name of the services (ultrasound, ECG). It is impossible to guarantee the launch of the campaign in such conditions. Therefore, the main traffic in the context of medical topics is taken from Yandex.Direct, which for this industry is also limited by the prohibition of behavioral targeting and the lack of geotargeting by city districts.
The media context perfectly complements contextual advertising: a banner located on the right in the search results on Yandex. The banner has a positive effect on the conversion from the channel: it grows, respectively, the conversion price falls. From the banner itself, the price of circulation is higher than from an ad on the context, but do not forget about the image effect of such placement.
Note! To launch a media context, you need a minimum of 700,000 impressions per month. Only popular areas will be promoted: radiation diagnostics, gynecology, dentistry.
Mini-case 2. How to make an attractive display banner? Part 1
During the campaign for prosthetics ceteris paribus we tested several Yandex contextual media banners: with animation (on the left), with text (in the middle), with a static image.
In this particular case, the main KPI was CTR. Evaluation of effectiveness by CTR is not always correct, but here it is quite suitable, since the conversion on the site to hits and the bounce rate as an alternative quality metric were comparable.
The winner was a banner with a small animation, which had a CTR of 0.7%. Worst of all worked out the text offer - 0.2%. This example is not intended to give a specific recommendation - make banners with little animation. Its purpose is to show that variants need to be tested.
Mini-case 3. How to make an attractive display banner? Part 2
Another ad campaign was on neuroscience. Here the test was in terms of indicating the cost of the service with a discount. Three options: new price only, discount percentage, and both. The performance indicator under the previous reservations was again CTR.
As a result: the banner with only the price does not perform well (0.7%). If the discount is significant, then it must be indicated (1,2-1,3%).
There is also such a convenient tool in the medical industry as buying leads from portals. The price of a lead is much less than on the context, although the number of leads directly depends on the fame and popularity of the doctor. Examples of such sites: DocDoc.ru, Prodoctorov.ru, Lookmedbook.ru.
Programmatic gives good results in this direction. We work with AdWords and Yandex.Auction: there are good audiences and a proven result that works on pent-up demand. There is no behavioral targeting in the systems, which means that we can show our advertising message on network sites only for the general interest “health”, which suits us well for this task.
Contextual advertising: divide and heal again
Despite the high competition in the topic, setting up contextual advertising and the right separation requests gives as a result acceptable results.
We have developed our own algorithm for dividing requests into groups, which is convenient to work with. The algorithm differs for network and individual clinics.
For network clinics, we distinguish the following groups of requests:
General requests such as "Moscow clinics".
The name of the clinic in various spellings is "SuperClinic", "SuperClinic".
Directions - "gynecology", "stomatology", "surgery".
Names of doctors - “doctor Petrov V.I.”, “surgeon Vladimir Petrov”.
Each group also has its own hierarchy. We are moving along the classic funnel, from generating demand to conversion:
Brand queries: "Surgeon Superclinic".
Requests from which it is clear that a person is ready to pay for the services “surgeon price”, “surgeon fee”, “surgeon how much does it cost”.
And requests, from which it is clear that the person is already ready to sign up, is looking for you or a clinic in your area: “surgeon Timiryazevskaya”, “make an appointment with a surgeon”.
For individual clinics, you have to manage only brand queries, personal requests for the full name of doctors and requests for directions with mandatory geo-referencing. That is, it is “surgeon + district (big streets, metro stations, etc.)”. The remaining requests either do not bring clicks or have zero conversion, since a person will not go to the other side of the city to the hospital.
Note! If your clinic works with patients under VHI, then a large proportion of people will come for branded requests under an agreement with an insurance company. If a person has written in the MEDSI policy, then according to advertising, in first place in search results or by direct entry, a person will still come to MEDSI.
In Marketing Strategies be sure to include branded campaigns, but for large clinics this is a significant part of the budget. Experiment and decide on your own, based on your own tasks. To quickly determine whether clients come to you on a cash basis or with VHI policies, listen to calls coming from a branded campaign.
Website conversion: prepare for the meeting
Note! By the time contextual advertising is launched, the site should be 100% ready. We hope that you are aware of this and have placed this paragraph here solely within the framework of the chosen text structure.
The necessary minimum qualities of a modern site for a clinic:
1. Adaptability. In the medical field today, 40 to 60% of traffic comes from mobile devices. Search engines downgraded in mobile issuance of unadapted sites. Just imagine what kind of customer flow you lose if your site is not adapted for display on tablets and phones.
2. Very noticeable phone number. The telephone leads in terms of the number of calls - more than 90% of the clinic's requests are received from calls. Make it so that the number does not have to look for a long time.
3. Profiles of doctors. It is important that the site provides comprehensive information about its doctors: where they studied and practiced, specialization, awards, additional education, experience, publications. Stay up-to-date and update data on time. For many clients, this information is critical when choosing a clinic.
4. Texts. Sometimes texts for clinic sites are written by doctors themselves, but they should be written by marketers with medical education or experience in the subject. As a last resort, they must definitely work on the text of the authorship of the doctor. Ruthlessly cut out frightening medical terms and formulations from the category: "the urologist performs a finger examination" or "during the anesthesia process, you are injected with a drug that ...". it real examples from practice. Believe me, neither current nor future clients want to be so scared even before going to the doctor. Write in plain language, be friendly and focus on the benefits. Don't forget to make pages for each of your services and provide them with a short promotional description. It should be clear from the text what the procedure is: what awaits a person in the process, how to prepare for the procedure, how much time it will take and how much money it will cost (if the competitive situation in the region allows you to directly indicate prices on the site).
5. Landings. If you are planning a significant advertising campaign, then you should think about making a landing page, even if the service is already described on your site. On such a page, the emphasis should be on the phone and the registration form next to the prices.
An example of a landing page in the context of a website
SEO: optimize in moderation
Having a website is strongly associated with the need for its SEO promotion. You can't argue here. But, in our experience, SEO is effective only when promoting clinics with good geo-coverage.
Suppose you have three points in Moscow, and a competitor has 20. A visitor came to you with the request "gynecologist in Moscow." The likelihood that a visitor is near you and will make an appointment is extremely small. No conversion takes place. And even worse, the visitor immediately leaves the site. Behavioral factors spoil. Search engines drop the site to the bottom of the issue. Search promotion does not bring the expected results to the customer.
In addition, in the search results for medical topics in Moscow, competition is between clinics and between information resources. The issuance is clogged and it is quite difficult to advance. For a young site, results at significant costs may not appear soon.
No, we do not call for abandoning SEO-optimization of the site. In any case, your resource must meet the requirements of search engines. But don't expect stunning results from this tool. And at least initially put maximum efforts where the maximum result is most likely.
And again, our experience is based on moving around Moscow. It is likely that in other cities there is less competition in issuance, and the geographical location of the clinic does not play such a decisive role.
Hold: let's be friends long and often
You attracted customers from the context and even converted someone from the search. How to turn them into regular customers? Not so difficult if you are attentive, caring, accurate and professional. Think about your customers, think like a customer, think two steps ahead and offer more than the customer expected to receive.
The very first step on the road to becoming best friend its client is personalized offers and convenient service. Of course it's about Email and SMS marketing. Basically, these are triggered mailings (more often SMS) - confirmation of an appointment, a reminder of an appointment a day before, three hours in advance, a message about the readiness of test results, etc.
Conduct surveys by mail on the quality of services provided, send informational articles about health. Remind about the examination if the client has not been to the doctor for a year. Send a reminder to do a cleaning or preventive examination of dental implants.
Note! Be extremely careful with personal mailings in specific areas of medicine. Properly compose letters and SMS. Please note that they can be read by an outsider. Don't frame your client.
E-mail and SMS marketing bring nice results for customer retention. But more often, clinics are engaged in mailing according to the residual principle: they send only trigger messages and do not send personalized invitations. Usually in the clinic itself there is no specialist who could do this. And clinics are afraid to give the newsletter to agencies because of the privacy of the stored data. The situation is complicated by the lack of a unified CRM system, which we wrote about earlier. Nevertheless, the results of such work can be impressive.
Reputation: we are generally the best
Medicine is a competitive environment. Therefore, creating and maintaining an image is far from the last task in importance. The difficulty is that it must be carried out at the same time a large number channels, and it is difficult to measure and evaluate the results of the actions taken.
A necessary minimum, without which absolutely nothing can be done - monitoring reviews and working with negative. Unfortunately, usually the larger the clinic, the more negative reviews about it. And not because this hospital is bad, but because people are much more willing to share the negative. And they do it mainly on industry portals. The reviews that go to the clinic itself are usually 50/50 negative and positive. Therefore, forums and resources need to be monitored constantly and the negative should be worked out immediately.
Motivate people to leave positive reviews. From experience, patients usually thank doctors personally. No one writes: “Thanks to the Clinic for excellent interiors and an electronic queue.” But on medical portals such reviews are found. This is the result of work to create an artificial positive. Don't follow this bad example.
It is better to direct your efforts and funds to high-quality PR and SMM. Write and post high-quality professional articles, shoot videos and do interviews with doctors. let's potential clients information of interest directly from experts. Spend joint promotions with bloggers.
Works very well expert advice on the forum, in groups in social networks. If the clinic has a full-time doctor who has few clients yet, instruct him to consult and develop a base while there are no appointments. We have an internal case when, while consulting on the portal, a new doctor gained a decent client base in 3 weeks.
Try to be everywhere and tell and remind about yourself not only to those who are looking for a doctor at the moment. Your task is to develop a strong associative connection: I need a doctor - I'm in the "Superclinic".
Minimum, optimal and maximum tool kits for a multidisciplinary clinic website
The same for the non-network clinic.
Out-of-network clinic tool kit
We hope that we have proved that everything is not so difficult if you approach the matter systematically and know the features of the industry, which we have already talked about. Some of the questions remained outside the brackets: the work of the call center and the registry; quality of services, medical ethics, selling skills of doctors; offline marketing (outdoor advertising, radio and TV, souvenirs, events, etc.) We will cover these issues in the next post on the topic.
If you have any questions, be sure to ask them in the comments.
Forbidden:
- use the image of medical workers;
- advertise medical services for artificial termination of pregnancy;
- use links to specific cases of curing diseases, improving the state of human health as a result of the use of the object of advertising;
- individuals to express gratitude in connection with the use of the object of advertising;
- Assert or assume that advertising consumers have certain diseases or health disorders.
If we single out the most common mistakes, then in most cases the wrong pictures are selected for teasers and banners.
Website
According to the requirement of the Ministry of Health, each medical organization must have a website.
Appendix No. 1 to Order 956n says that the official websites of medical organizations must have reviews, working specialists, contacts, rights and obligations of patients, contacts of regulatory authorities, etc.
It is also necessary to comply with the law on personal data. For this you need:
- Add a personal data policy (PD) to the site.
- Send data from all forms only with consent to the processing of PD.
- Prepare internal documents on data storage.
- Send a notification to Roskomnadzor that your company is a PD operator.
Telemedicine
The whole of 2017 was filled with news about telemedicine. On July 29, 2017, the term "telemedicine" appeared in the legislation, which provided explanations regarding remote consultations and electronic medical documents. The law came into force on January 1, 2018, but left many unclear points.
For medical centers, this law provides new opportunities in attracting patients. Now the patient does not have to come for a second consultation or go to the clinic with a simple problem. You can do everything remotely, even write a prescription for some types of medicines. With the right organization, modern clinics will be able to use this to their advantage.
However, there is also a negative effect. Clinics have a lot of non-core competitors ready to work like a marketplace or virtual clinics. Yandex, Sberbank, MTS, Doc+, Doctor at work, Pediatrician24/7, and many others have started actively recruiting doctors for remote consultations and promoting their services. Services that position themselves as a virtual clinic will be especially competitive. These companies operate under a medical license and hire doctors. Such a company, for example, plans to become Yandex.Health.
Advertising channels
Search promotion (seo)
In the past year, we have seen many clinic leaders abandon this channel because of the cost and unpredictability. However, it is one of the most converting channels. With proper promotion, you can significantly increase the number of patients and increase the conversion of the site. Especially in regions where competition is not yet so high.
The average conversion rate for our clients was 8-10%. Which is generally a good indicator.
I recommend paying attention to the semantics and usability of the site. Semantic core it is better to expand not only with target queries by type<направление-город>or<врач-город>but also queries related to symptoms and diseases.
contextual advertising
Yandex
You can use search networks and YAN. However, it should be noted that such a popular tool as retargeting is prohibited in Yandex for medical services.
A few budget saving tips:
- Show geo-targeted ads (near the clinic).
- If you do not have a diagnostic center, then it is better to exclude ultrasound advertising. It eats up most of the budget and has a low conversion rate.
- Indicate the address / district / metro in the ad.
- Specify the cost of the service.
- Specify promotions in ads or in additional links.
- Hashtags
They gained new popularity when it became possible to subscribe to them. Create your stories for hashtags and run on subscribers. Or you can launch your own special project on popular tags.
- Stories
Instagram stories appeared a few years ago, but have already gained a lot of popularity. The essence of stories is the publication of photos or short videos from life, which are deleted after 24 hours. As planned, this functionality reveals the details of everyday life, and only high-quality content remains in the main feed.
- Live
Basically, it's like a webinar. The doctor of the clinic turns on the camera and talks about the disease or prevention live. Anyone can connect to the broadcast at any time. If you pre-announce live broadcast among subscribers, you can increase coverage.
In contact with
- Community post promotion
With Facebook announcing a reduction in the visibility of posts from the community to 2% in the main feed this year, promotion is becoming more of a necessity.
You can use pictures, text and video. Promote the most interesting publications with a link to the site.
MyTarget
- Classmates
- My world
- Mail.ru and partner sites
YouTube
It is the world's most popular video service and is slowly evolving into a new social network. Video is rapidly gaining popularity every year. If you believe the statistics, then for the younger generation (under 25 years old), video becomes a priority over text. That is why video bloggers are so popular now.
- Google Display Network
- Sponsorship of bloggers
Good afternoon, dear readers, today I am visiting the editorial office of the magazine "getmind" chief physician of the medical center "Medincourt" Denis Alexandrovich Grass.
- Hello, Denis Alexandrovich. Your center has existed for more than 25 years, and this is a serious date, and our readers would be very interested to know the history of its foundation. Where did it all begin?
- It really started 25 years back in the distance 1987 year, two doctors from among the staff Research Institute of Sklifosovsky– resuscitator Sulpovar Leonid Vladimirovich, by the way, he was the attending physician of the poet and bard Vladimir Vysotsky, and Kostov Boris Emilievich, a traumatologist, then head of the traumatology department of the same research institute, decided to open their own commercial medical center. So originally "Medincourt" opened at the base Research Institute of Sklifosovsky, under whose wing they existed for the first 5 years, until they moved to Prospekt Mira, 105 where our center is located to this day. The main profiles then were only gynecology, urology and dermatovenereology. These were the most popular destinations, and we for a long time don't change your profile.
- It was still the end of the 80s, when cooperatives were just appearing. Tell our readers what difficulties the founders of the center faced, I am sure that they were.
- Yes, it was the end of the 80s, of course, there were certain problems. In those days, it was quite difficult to acquire medical equipment and we had to buy decommissioned equipment from government institutions and put it in order. Of course, much was acquired "from under the floor". There were also problems in the training and retraining of personnel.
But I must say that there were many positive moments. "Medincourt" was one of the first commercial medical centers in Moscow, one might even say that it was a monopolist in the market. At least in terms of the services provided. And we had a lot of patients, when we moved to Alekseevskaya, it got to the point that we hired a bus and went for patients to the Sklifosovsky Research Institute, who came to our old address.
Yes, it was a fun time, can you tell something interesting from the life of the center of that period? The bandits must have been mended too...
- Bandits ... Well, probably, everything happened! But in fact, the life of the center in those years developed in a somewhat different direction. The center slowly began to expand, recruited new doctors, opened new directions. We began to deal with the problem of alcoholism and drug addiction, provided not only physical, but also psychological assistance to patients - our psychologists conducted group rehabilitation classes. A little later, a branch was opened in the city Lobnya. There, cosmetology was added to the main services. We tried to develop this direction separately by opening a SPA-salon with a hairdresser. But somehow it didn’t work and a few years later this branch closed.
- Tell me, is Medincourt a specialized company or do you accept patients with any ailments?
- Well, let's start with the fact that we do not have a specialized, but a multidisciplinary clinic. We work in the following areas - gynecology, urology, dermatovenereology, cosmetology, allergology, gastroenterology, surgery, neurology. We also treat ENT diseases. We plan to add more ophthalmology in the near future, as this area is quite in demand among our regular customers.
In principle, our medical base is ready to cope with any ailments that can be treated on an outpatient basis, not in a hospital.
We also produce ultrasound diagnostics, which we have almost in full, with the exception of some really serious heart examinations - here it is better to contact a specialized clinic. Sample collection and laboratory diagnostics. Well, here we are not much different from other centers, all medical institutions work with organizations that can the maximum number perform certain laboratory tests. But there are volumes that we perform on our own on the basis of our own laboratory, which is very convenient for our patients, since there is no need to wait for the results and come back next time.
Who are your patients? Residents of this microdistrict (editor's note: the address of the Medincourt Center is Prospekt Mira, 105), Muscovites, or even residents of the Moscow region?
– Of course, our patients are not only residents of this microdistrict, although probably about half of them. It is probably more correct to call them not “residents of the microdistrict”, but people who are regularly in this microdistrict. Because a person can not only live here, but also work, and he can live in a completely different place. Many patients from the region are Pushkino, Korolev, Mytishchi, i.e. Yaroslavl direction, there are patients from Khimki and Lobny. If speak about Moscow, that is Northeast and North.
– There are a lot of medical centers and private clinics in Moscow, they all try to be located within walking distance from metro stations and as close as possible to the center. In your opinion, does the choice of a location for a medical institution really have such an impact on its success and profitability?
– To some extent, the choice of location, of course, affects the success and profitability of the medical center, but today a much more important factor influencing the success of the clinic is the team of specialists working in it. I am talking not only about doctors, but also about junior medical workers, although, of course, patients first of all look for “their doctors”. People pass from mouth to mouth information about a doctor who they liked and really could help in a given situation. And a person is ready to get to such a doctor even through the whole of Moscow “on the bed-posts”. It doesn't matter where he works. Will he work in Mytishchi, will he work in Maryino, in Kotelniki, or will he receive in the very center on Tverskaya Street - a person, if he needs it, will find this doctor, and he will go to see him. Of course, if it is within walking distance from the metro, this is only a plus for the clinic. But today a lot of people have their own car and, probably, a big plus for the clinic will also be its own parking lot. We have one (smiles).
Therefore, I do not think that the location of the clinic is 50% of success, maybe 20-30%.
For example, with my child I go to the dentist in Odintsovo. We went there once on the advice of my colleague, and my son was completely delighted, he is absolutely not afraid of dentists, and now we only go there. And it doesn't matter to me how long it takes, because my child is happy, and so am I.
– But what about the large “promoted” clinics, because they all try to be located closer to the “passing” metro stations?
- Well, there is a slightly different situation! Most of these clinics do not try to keep the client, but prefer to promote it one-time "to the maximum". That is why they have to invest heavily in marketing and promotion of their own brand. But we prefer to spend money on equipment and attracting good specialists.
It is possible that the “promoted” clinics earn much more than we do and, undoubtedly, consider themselves more successful, but, to be honest, they don’t want to be engaged in such a business at all ... Of course, in this aggressive struggle for a client, location and brand recognition are very important for them, especially if there is nothing else to appeal to the patient.
– What is the general pricing policy of the clinic in relation to your potential competitors? Do you use a loyalty program and how effective is its use in the medical business?
- In a relationship pricing policy we try to keep the average prices in Moscow, or rather, "keep the bar" prices slightly below average. Of course, there are clinics that are cheaper to serve, but there are also those that are much more expensive. It is necessary to maintain a balance in order to be attractive to patients on the one hand, and on the other hand, to retain good specialists.
If we talk about the loyalty program (you can read more about the loyalty program from the article), then we have a discount for regular customers - 5%
, we also constantly hold promotions that imply a larger percentage of discounts on certain types of services. For example, an ultrasound complex examination in both men and women. There are discounts on cosmetology at certain times of the year. Various examination programs that do not include ultrasound.
– And how successful is it in general, do loyalty programs “work” in the medical business?
Well, it's hard to talk about the "absolute" success of the events here, since it cannot be assessed solely in terms of profitability. I think that this is successful, as it bears fruit in the future, and a person who came once for a promotion, with careful and careful handling, becomes a regular customer. So, it works to further attract patients.
On the other hand, we have a sad experience with coupons or “groupons” that are now popular on the Internet. Through a similar service, we distributed coupons for the removal of neoplasms from 90%
discount. A total of approx. 750 coupons. Used by buyers was order 600 coupons, but this does not mean that 600 people came. Some people purchased multiple coupons, there was one patient who redeemed 60 coupons. One coupon - removal of one neoplasm. I can honestly say that according to coupons, the clinic served a total of about 150 people, and if 5 of them returned to us, then this is good. Personally, I have a strong opinion that there are people who are looking for maximum discounts - not 10-30%, but 70-90%, and everything else does not matter to them. For them, there is simply no such criterion as the quality of services! On the one hand, it is very difficult to work with such an audience, but on the other hand, there is no desire.
Such programs turned out to be ineffective for us, and we do not use them. Although, other clinics say it works. Perhaps the success of such events depends on the choice of service, and we should not have chosen cosmetic surgery, or perhaps we should not have made a 90% discount and then a completely different audience would have contacted us, who knows ...
– And, if we are already talking about loyalty… Is the clinic ready to meet the needs of a client who is in a difficult financial situation and needs medical assistance? Can he count on an individual discount or, for example, a deferred payment?
– I won’t be cunning, “officially” the clinic will not accept an individual discount, only if the doctor, out of his personal loyalty to the patient, does not indicate in the receipt for payment the entire list of services provided to the patient ... Yes, this happens with us! For example, I very often give a certain discount to pensioners, if I had a consultation and did an ultrasound scan, then I can not take money for an ultrasound examination if I see that a person can barely make ends meet.
As for deferred payment, yes, we have such an opportunity, and we always try to meet the needs of our customers. And our employees do not need to contact the management or the chief accountant, or some other structures about this, so that they are allowed to do this. And never had a problem!
We have had this practice for a long time, it works and it is really good.
– For as many years as the center already exists, business in any industry undergoes metamorphoses. It transforms, adapts to new conditions, sometimes even changes its profile. You have survived at least two major crises, tell us how you managed to get through this path and what difficulties did you face?
To date, we have already experienced two crises, now we are experiencing a third. Our center is designed for a middle-class client, and the crisis always hits him the hardest. Of course, during a crisis, the number of patients decreases. Also, I must say that every year it becomes more and more difficult to fight for a client with other clinics. There are clinics that provide cheaper services, there are clinics that take entourage, etc. Today, we are working to expand the range of our services, that is, to provide a greater number of services that we offer to our clients, and it is no secret that such a service as VHI– voluntary health insurance. And if the employer is ready to pay for medical insurance to his employee, then he will always prefer a qualified medical care and go to a commercial medical center, and not to a state clinic, where he will stand in line for three hours to see a therapist. Therefore, today we are engaged in connecting to the VHI program. This will not only allow us to get new customers, but also add solidity to our brand.
We also considered the issue of doing some kind of medical examinations. For a driver's license, for carrying a weapon, something else, but in the end we decided to abandon this venture, since it involves a lot of checks and does not bring the profit that would be comparable to the possible costs and troubles.
What are the current challenges and how do you deal with them?
– We have already covered some of the problems in the previous question. To these I can add problems with laboratory service providers. It is very difficult to find a laboratory in which absolutely all research would be done at a high level. Therefore, often, you have to combine, which always adds unnecessary trouble. Not to mention the fact that you often have to change partners when the quality of their services begins to decline significantly, as happened with Invitro, for example.
The next problem is the lack of qualified specialists. This is the biggest problem today. Although I can honestly say that in the last month this problem began to be solved thanks to our state. I don’t know how it is all over the country, but something is wrong with medicine in Moscow. Hospitals are being closed and merged, great specialists are being made redundant. They are forced to go to commercial clinics, because it is now extremely difficult to get a job in state-owned ones. Therefore, now it has become easier with good qualified specialists. This is not bad for us, we will be able to recruit good qualified specialists on this wave and continue to develop successfully. And for the general situation in the city of Moscow, this is a disgusting situation. I don’t know where we will end up, but it seems that we are striving for completely commercial medicine. Naturally, this will not happen tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, but what will happen in five years, I can hardly imagine.
- Of course, I do not deny that advertising is the engine of trade, and you need to advertise your services as widely as possible. But, as I said earlier, today word of mouth plays a big role in the development of the clinic. If a doctor is pleasant in communication, if he is good in his profession and has the proper qualifications, then he will always have patients. This means that there will be clients in the clinic, which means there will be profit, which means that the business will flourish. Although I do not in any way diminish the role of advertising, which occupies 50% clinic success. But others 50% - This is, of course, the success of the doctor.
– Could you tell us, please, what methods of attracting an audience does your clinic use?
– Professionalism and charm of our employees! (laughs) In fact, today the Internet plays a huge role in marketing, so we try to seriously deal with our site and its promotion. Also, we are trying other means - we ordered the posting of advertisements in elevators in nearby areas and gave advertisements on a monitor in the nearest metro station - Alekseevskaya metro station.
Just a couple of months ago in the local newspaper "Star Boulevard", which is distributed in our North-Eastern Administrative Okrug, gave a small advertising publication about our medical center. Although this particular method of attracting new customers did not work - no more than three people came from this advertisement, many of the regular customers mentioned this article, saying that they had learned something new about the center.
- So, word of mouth and the involvement of eminent specialists who “bring” their patients with them is already more than half the success? But what about branding, presence in the information field?
– Yes, word of mouth and the name of a specialist is something to start with and something that should never be neglected by young clinics. I know one clinic in the Bagrationovskaya metro area, which is supported by almost one doctor who owns ultrasound diagnostics and works in the field of obstetrics. This is probably one of the first people who began to engage in ultrasound diagnostics in obstetrics in Russia and it is almost impossible to make an appointment with him, that is, you have to make an appointment with him in a month. And he almost single-handedly makes a cash register in this clinic, although there are urologists and gynecologists there. My wife and I have been to this clinic twice, I can honestly tell you, I have not seen a single patient, except for him. There was a full house for him, a full house, up to a fight near the office. Therefore, eminent specialists - yes, this is a huge plus for the clinic.
But branding and presence in the information field is something that needs to be done all the time, but it is better to entrust this business to professionals.
- And what means of promotion today could be most effective for a young clinic, in your opinion?
- Probably, first of all, the Internet. Since, in principle, the clinic has its own website, then a person who searches for some “profiles” or specific doctors will find it sooner or later. The main thing is that this site should function normally, meet the brand’s objectives and be able to answer questions that patients are interested in before making an appointment with a doctor. As I already said, it is better to trust such things to specialists and not to engage in amateur performances.
Separately, I want to note that it is often necessary to train doctors to work with clients so that one doctor can refer a patient to other clinic specialists. I know that many clinics abuse such things very much, and when they seize the patient, they intimidate him and begin to drive him around all the offices until he runs out of money. This is disgusting and unacceptable!
But it also happens the other way around, when a patient needs an additional examination by another specialist or he needs some additional procedures, and the doctor, having said this, does not even specify that the clinic where he works can provide the necessary service in the next room.
– If it’s not a secret, does your clinic and its specialists take an active part in the life of the medical community and does this affect the company’s profit?
– Of course, many of our specialists take part in the life of the medical community. For example, I am a member Moscow Society of Urology and Russian Society of Urology, unfortunately, it is not so often possible to attend events, but thanks to the Internet, you can always listen to many reports almost live or download their text versions.
Our specialists also made presentations in the field of urology and gynecology more than once.
How does this affect profits? Well, of course it is reflected, because we increase our level of skill and knowledge and, accordingly, we can offer more to our patients, and we can keep up with the times. And of course, this all has a positive effect on the image of our clinic.
– I would like to hear from you parting words to the owners of young private clinics. What would you like to wish to the leaders, your colleagues or even competitors?
– Well, I’m probably still a young leader myself, although our clinic has a long history, I’ve been working here far from the moment it opened.
What to wish?
Yes, probably, not to be afraid of anything, to go forward, to gnaw, as they say, on the granite of science, because we learn all our lives.
And, of course, I want to wish that they do not lose their human face in the pursuit of profit, do not forget about the Hippocratic oath. This is primarily because now the commercialization of medicine has reached its limit, people in the pursuit of profit forget about humanity, morality, medical ethics and do the devil knows what. Therefore, yes, do not lose face, that is, remain a person in the first place. And good luck to everyone!
We will work, we will compete. Competition gives rise to the desire for something new, the desire to improve one's knowledge, one's professional skills, so all this is like an engine of progress. Healthy competition never hurt anyone.
Medical services are not the easiest product. The competition is very high, and in the struggle for clients, many medical centers have created publics on Facebook and VKontakte to inform visitors about new services. Ashmanov & Partners conducted a study of this market and found out that the efficiency of many medical centers in social networks leaves much to be desired.
Publications in many groups of clinics do not imply a backlash, and user questions asked in the comments remain unanswered.
Main problems
Here are the most typical problems, some of which are inherent even to large chains of polyclinics with a large marketing budget.
Separately, we studied what causes the most questions among the target audience when choosing which clinic to contact. Here are the most common problems:
- It is not clear how clinics differ from each other.
- It is difficult to figure out which is better - a public clinic or a private one.
- Too much conflicting information in reviews due to competitive wars.
This suggests that medical centers have not yet realized their full potential in building and promoting their brands. Therefore, the factors listed above should be taken into account not only when preparing content, but also when developing positioning.