Market Your Practice to the Right People

One of the most important things to know in marketing is that you are trying to reach specific types of people with your marketing and not just a generalized group called “everyone.”

The area where you practice has many different, but very specific, groups of people, which makes up the population of your area. Each of these groups are different; they have their own ideas, they have their one sets of living standards, different activities and act very different one group to another. Each one of these separate groups is called a “public.” To define this further “a public is a section of the community having a particular interest or connection”.

Without understanding this you can get yourself caught up in marketing just for marketing sake. You can have all sorts of great ideas, flashy marketing pieces, spend a small fortune and not be noticed by anyone and end up starving! This is the fate of many practice (and business) owners that don't understand that there is a specific public in need of their service and that they have to locate this public and market to them.

To simplify this even further, a public is a type of audience. With this in mind you have to delineate the specific publics (audiences) you are intending to market to. For example your public may be parents of children, retirees or the health conscious business professionals.

There are a great deal of public types, but the trick is to locate and isolate the publics that will need your service and who in turn will be valuable to your practice. With that you can take your marketing efforts and focus them on specific groups, which will increase your marketing effectiveness and the the value of the dollar you invest in your marketing.

The key with your marketing plan is to always target specific types of public.

Let's Talk Promotion and Marketing for the Private Practice

Let's face it - marketing can be a pretty confusing subject!

Most people, when it comes to marketing one's business or practice, will happily turn over the marketing responsibilities to someone else in hopes that they won't have to worry about it or in hopes that the other person will do the job a heck of a lot better then they would.

Others go hog wild and do what ever comes into their heads, where it really just becomes a lot of noise and confusing messages to public. They hope that at least someone will get interested and come in to the business or practice and some money will be made as a result.

Neither has a guarantee of any success and more than likely will result in a waste of money.

The truth is - marketing is simple, once you understand some basics.

Marketing only seems confusing because some of the most basic aspects have never been defined. As a result most professionals are tossed around in the tornado of misconceptions and lack of know how.

But when you break it down it's actually quite simple. So, let's break it down:

Marketing is defined as the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers and the packaging of these products and getting them into the hands of the intended customers. It is the strategy and actions to prepare the product and to get it placed in the market so it reaches the greatest amount of potential clients possible.

Promotion is publicization of a product, organization, or venture so as to increase public awareness and thus sales. It is campaigning to get a product or idea well thought of and accepted. Promotion is the activity of offering a product in such a way that it creates response and want by the intended customer base.

Dissemination is scattering widely, to spread abroad; promulgate. When we say disseminate we are talking about making widely known the value and availability of a product, activity or service. This includes many different ideas and methods such as the use of the internet, social media, letters, calls, word of mouth, news paper ads, etc.

Each word is different and have distinct meanings. They are different words that are related, but at the same time are not the same. Understanding each should give someone a greater understanding of what makes up promotion and marketing.

Marketing really covers the entire evolution of selecting and preparing what products or services you have to offer, what you will promote to your client base and how you will go about getting that done. It encompasses the color of your office walls, how your logo will look, the type of paper you use, etc. It also includes the managing of your marketing activities to see that it is resulting in increased sales and determining what you have to reinforce or get rid of.

Promotion is an aspect of your marketing. It covers the actions reaching out to your customer base and getting a response. As covered above, this could be done in the form of an ad in the paper, a flyer, a tweet, a post on your fan page. It is the act of your staff promoting your service to your clients or patients and creating response.

Dissemination is a more all encompassing term that includes the promotional actions of sending out flyers, posting tweets, having a good website and also includes the packaging of your services and products and any methods to reach your customers.

All three of these together marketing, promotion and dissemination create a complete package and create the flow of new patients, new clients or new customers that all business, medical practices or other group, depends on.