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Hanging Out Your E-Shingle : H ow to Market Your Practice in a Digital Age. John Maese, MACP, FACEP, FHMISS Based on a presentation at Internal Medicine 2011. Shingle. Outline. Why this is an important topic? Marketing Concepts Traditional Content Development Web site Development
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Hanging Out Your E-Shingle: How to Market Your Practice in a Digital Age John Maese, MACP, FACEP, FHMISS Based on a presentation at Internal Medicine 2011
Outline • Why this is an important topic? • Marketing Concepts • Traditional • Content Development • Web site Development • Basic Web Based Marketing • Social Media • Conclusions
Why • Just because you build it does not mean they will come. • Market share is important whether you are employed by a hospital or in solo practice.
Why • Competition. • Other Physicians • Hospital Networks • Nurse Practioners • Pharmacists • PAs • Comparisons. • Consumerism.
Factors that Have Changed the Game • The rise of the internet. • The move towards digital age. • The consumer movement in health care. • The need to protect your image. • Deceptive Medical Advertising. • Change in advertising dollars spent on paper vs. digital media. • Number of patients online.
Internet Statistics • Number of people using the internet in North America 266,244,500 - or about 77% of the population. • Eight in ten internet users look online for health information. • Health information is the third most popular online search. • 44% of internet users look online for information about doctors or other health professionals.
Web Sites that Compare Physicians • Commercial sites. • Data and Patient reviews. • Government sites. • Data. • Insurance Company sites. • Data and Cost.
Commercial Sites • http://www.healthgrades.com • http://www.vitals.com • http://www.ucomparehealthcare.com • http://www.lifescript.com • http://www.qualityhealth.com • http://www.angieslist.com • http://www.healthline.com
Government • The “Physician Compare” Web site, fashioned after CMS’s existing “Hospital Compare” site that enables consumers to shop for hospitals against several price and quality factors. • Initially, information about physicians enrolled in the Medicare program and those participating in the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), through which CMS pays incentives for providers who meet various quality marks. • CMS will add in January 2013 physician performance information based on 2012 quality reporting it receives.
Consumer Movement • The new word of mouth “peer-influence” marketing. • On Feb 25, 2010 in the Wall Street Journal an article titled “Trusting Other Patients' Drug Advice Peer-Influence Advertising Takes Off, as Companies Seek Effective Marketing Tools” was published. • “Market research shows that the sick are relying more on the recommendations of fellow patients, and less on the reputations of companies and endorsers, in deciding whether to seek treatment and what drugs to ask for,” say pharmaceutical companies and their consultants.
Traditional Marketing • Word of mouth • Paper • Telephone book • Radio • TV
Marketing Basics • A brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business - it affects the personality of a product, company or service. A legally protected brand name is called a trademark. • The Brand is the image and personality you want to project.
Marketing Basics • You stand for something! • You are a brand! • You want to brand yourself positively! • You and your practice have a unique look and feel!
Brand • The emotional expression of the brand is the brand personality. • Who you are? • How do you want patients to feel about you? • How you want your practice to look on the web?
Brand Personality • Brand Personality is the guide for the taste, tone, and style of ALL brand communications. • A Brand is formed by the Branding elements.
Branding Elements • Name who you are • Logo your signature • Color how you’re seen from a distance • Symbol what you stand for • Typography how you speak • Illustrative style how you dress
Branding McDonald’s Redis associated with energy, passion, desire, love Yellow is associated with Joy Happiness Intellect Energy. Yellow is often associated with food. Bright, pure yellow is an attention getter,
Getting Started • You need to spend time with staff and decide what you and your practice represent. • An Internist’s Practice will have a different look and feel from a OB/GYN or a pediatric office. • What is the goal of the web site? • What services do you provide?
Getting Started • Collect the correct information: • Practice demographics: • Physician(s) Full Name • Practice Name • Practice Full Address • Practice Phone Number • Hours of operation • Description of Services. • Description of Practice. • Biographies of MDs and key personnel.
Bios • Must be accurate and relevant to the practice. • Who you are in a narrative. • Highlights about the physician or the practice. • Touch on Experience and Education. • Comment on special interests of the physician if relevant to medicine.
Biography • Donna Seminara, MD co-founded Island Internists in August of 1991, and is proud to have served thousands of families in Staten Island, sometimes over multiple generations, as their Primary Care Physician. Although involved in many academic and advocacy positions, she identifies herself first and foremost as a Practicing Clinician. She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, and has re-certified each of these credentials.
Bios • She is Director of the Geriatrics Department and the Fellowship Program at SIUH. She has been elected to represent fellow Physicians on the Hospital’s Medical Executive Committee, and starting in the summer of 2011, will begin a two year term as the first female President of the Medical and Dental Staff at Staten Island University Hospital. Three to five times weekly Dr. Seminara can be found rounding on her patients admitted to Staten University Hospital’s North Campus.
The Brand Dr. Seminara Professional Caring Qualified Compassionate Patient Advocate THEDoctor
Other information • Pictures (physicians, nurses, facilities) • We are in a YouTube world- pictures and video are helpful. • Testimonials ( Optional ) • Patient testimonials are the single most powerful endorsement you can have! • You must get permission to attribute it to an individual. • Awards & Achievements (Optional) • If you have done good things impress your patients.
Other information • Logo • Most practices do not have one. You can go without it. • Can be developed for about $400. • Desired colors • Color has meaning and should be considered carefully. • Any material that you may already have (optional) • For example: Patient Education.
Website • A website is a collection of related web pages containing digital documents/photographs. • A web page is written in plan text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML, XHTML). • A website is hosted on web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet. • World Wide Web is made up of Web pages. • The Internet is the connection between the web pages • It is relatively static compared to Twitter and Facebook.
Website • Website Address or Domain name or URL. • Are easy to obtain. • Costs about $10 -$39 a year for registration • Different Extension have different costs. • .com – Commercial Web site • .net- Network Internet infrastructure activities, such as Internet Service Providers • .edu- Education • .ws - Web site
Website • The Domain name may come as a package with web hosting. • Who hosts the web site is the Internet Service Provider (ISP) address or physical address on the web.
Domain Names • Services • www.godaddy.com • www.networksolutions.com • www.max.md • Others • Domain Name • Should be easy for patients to remember and spell. • Should reflect the practice name. • You might purchase more than one name.
Domain Names • The practice name and spelling variations. • Islandinternists.com • Islandinternist.com • The individual Physician names • Johnmaese.com • Johnmaesemd.com • Johnmaese.md • If the name is already taken then be creative • Islandinternistsonline.com • IslandinternistSI.com
How To get a Domain Name? • Do you want a private registration? • This is like an unlisted phone number. • Do you want it certified? • Do you want an email package? • Cost is about $3 to $7 a month not secure. • Secure encrypted email is about $7 a month purchased by another company.
Hosting Services • Hosting services • Internet Service Provider (ISP) • Can be bought as a separate service • Deluxe vs. basic Service • Basic is about 10 GB or about five pages of content for $ 4 / month • Deluxe is about 150 GB or about twenty pages of content $7 / month. • Security • $ 49 a year for encryption • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • $ 39 year • Total cost simple five page website with SEO about $119/ year
Building a Web Site • The Web site should be simple easy to navigate for your target audience • Consistent with your Brand. • Content optimized for Search Engines. • Keep eye candy to a minimum unless you do cosmetic procedures. This helps keep expenses to a minimum. • The more content, the more memory, the more cost. • Clear! Readable! Understandable!
Building a Web Site • You are going to build it to optimize its detection by search engines. This is called Search Engine Optimization(SEO) • Consider a Blog with your web site. • Track traffic - called ‘hits’ or ‘eyeballs’ • i.e. Web Site Analytics
Search Engines • Search engines use an algorithm or formula that ranks web pages based on a variety of criteria. For example, the quality and number of web sites your site is linked to.
Web Marketing • An overall strategy to use all elements of the Web to increase the ability to be found on the Web. • Use the idiosyncrasies of Search Engine algorithms.
