Marketing a medical practice can be incredibly difficult: there are numerous legal and logistical aspects to medical marketing that can create a challenge. When you’re already focusing almost all of your attention on providing top-notch care for your patients, it can feel insurmountable to compete with larger practices or hospital systems with more staff, especially as you must tread carefully with certain aspects of advertising. Learning to turn medical professionals into marketing assets can be a very important aspect to the success of your business.

For example, there are tricky issues involved in soliciting and responding to customer reviews, as you need to be HIPAA compliant; you can’t disclose any private medical details, and even acknowledging that you have a relationship with the patient may open you up to legal action. Your advertising materials need to be factually accurate, which can diminish their persuasiveness to the average consumer.

In addition to overall good practices in marketing for small businesses, you have a secret ally: your employees and applicants themselves. Today, we’ll discuss this little-explored aspect of healthcare marketing, as well as ways that you can implement this in your own practice.

Find Great Applicants That Can Advance Your Brand

While your foremost concern needs to be getting high-quality physicians, a secondary component is choosing those that have a good fit for your brand’s overall personality. 

First, you need to find as many good applicants as possible with the least amount of irrelevant applications, which is why you should turn to online physician job boards, such as Practice Match. Here, you can post applications that will only be seen by those in the medical industry rather than the entire pool of job-seekers, meaning you’re less likely to receive applications from unqualified workers.

When interviewing potential candidates, consider their strengths in regard to their overall personality in addition to their clinical skills. Are they excellent communicators? Is their empathy and warmth a huge draw? Do they enjoy networking and speaking to many people, or are they more introverted? By finding healthcare workers who are personable, you can determine ways to get them talking about your practice to others.

Develop Outreach Strategies with Marketing Assets

Your physicians have a wealth of experience, and by sharing that with the community at large, you can help your practice stand out as an authority in your area. See them not just as the amazing healthcare providers they are, but also as representatives of your overall brand, and consider how you can position them as medical leaders in your area. 

There are a variety of ways to do this in a way that doesn’t take away from their work as physicians, but improves their reach and helps them connect to potential patients.

Social Media

Before we discuss this component, it’s essential that you understand the rules regarding this and how to protect patient privacy. Many doctors and nurses have gotten into serious trouble recently by sharing videos and photos of patients without their permission; for example, an Ohio plastic surgeon lost her medical license after live streaming operations on TikTok. 

To avoid any of this, never show a patient in any form whatsoever without explicit informed consent. Instead, have your doctors talk generally about their expertise and provide helpful tips about your profession, as well as preventative healthcare advice. They could show demonstrations of procedures on a dummy or explain recent healthcare advances in a way that is easy for the average person to understand. Keep this information brief and post regularly, perhaps taking five or ten minutes each day to post a short video to your TikTok page. 

Media Outreach

If any of your physicians or nurses have a talent for writing, consider joining the Help A Writer Out (HORA) network to connect them with journalists and media professionals who are looking for experts on particular topics. 

You can sign up for this service, noting the particular practice areas of your doctors, and have them serve as sources for reporters interested in the field. Make sure that your doctors always mention the practice name, as well as where it is located.

Local Festivals and Events

Sometimes it can be great for a professional to simply connect with the community in a low stress, relaxed environment, such as a local art fair or community festival. 

Set up a booth and purchase some promotional materials, then have a member of your staff serve as an ambassador for your brand by sharing information about what you provide. Those personalized connections can really make your practice stand out to those in the area, who will think of the good conversation they had with one of your practice members when they are considering services in your field. 

It also helps to provide a public face for your brand, which is why it’s so important to look for enthusiastic, outgoing professionals who enjoy talking to others outside of a clinical setting., which make excellent marketing assets

Final Thoughts on Marketing Assets

When you run a small practice, your physicians are your brand: they are who people remember and speak about to others. You can expand your reach by using job boards to find highly qualified staff, then developing a marketing strategy that leverages their warmth, empathy, and personality to your advantage. Remember to always consider patient privacy when utilizing social media for your brand, and look for ways to identify your practice as an authority in your field.