BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS- 3

MARKETING AND BRANDING

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN NURSING CLP 406R
MILDRED ODHIAMBO
LEARNING OUTCOMES
• By the end of this topic the student will be able to:
• Describe marketing strategies, branding and role of digital
media
OUTLINE
• Marketing your Business
• Marketing strategy and Branding
• Role of digital marketing
• Marketing strategies vs marketing plans
• Developing a marketing strategy
• Marketing mix
• Marketing strategies
• Healthcare marketing strategies
MARKETING FOR YOUR BUSINESS
• Marketing is the study and management of exchange
relationships.
• It is used to identify, anticipate and satisfy customers' needs
and wants.
• Used to attract customers, and is one of the primary
components of business management and commerce
MARKETING STRATEGY &
BRANDING
• Marketing strategy - a business's overall game plan for
reaching prospective consumers and turning them into
customers of the products or services the business provides.
• A marketing strategy contains the company’s value
proposition, key brand messaging, data on target
customer demographics, and other high-level elements.
 BRANDING
• Branding -is a marketing practice/strategy in which a company
creates a name, symbol or design that is easily identifiable as
belonging to the company.
• Helps identify a product and distinguish it from other products and
services.
• Branding makes a memorable impression on consumers and allows
customers and clients to know what to expect from your company.
• It is a way of distinguishing yourself from the competitors and
clarifying what it is you offer that makes you the better choice.
• Your brand is built to be a true representation of who you are as a
business, and how you wish to be perceived.
ROLE OF DIGITAL MARKETING
• Digital marketing -any marketing effort that involves the Internet or
an electronic device (Hubspot).
• If marketing exists online, it’s classified as digital marketing.
• Examples: social media marketing, content marketing, and SEO are
all under the umbrella.
• Digital marketing has been rising in popularity over the last several
years because the world is online.
• Technology Review gives us the stats–in 2000, the average American
spent about 9.4 hours online.
• Today, most people spend 24 hours a week on the Internet, most of
the time using their smartphones.
CONT. ROLE OF DIGITAL
MARKETING
CONT. ROLE OF DIGITAL
MARKETING
1. Your Size Doesn’t Matter
• It Levels the playing field for small and big businesses
2. It Costs Less
• Saves time and requires minimal personnel-cost-effective.
3. Digital Marketing is Easy to Track
• Your goal is conversion.
• You want the people visiting your website to download that
lead magnet, join your email list, and eventually become your
newest happy customer.
• Tracking your conversion rates is easy.
CONT. ROLE OF DIGITAL
MARKETING
4. Digital Marketing is So Easy
• It’s easy to build a brand reputation.
• People want to patronize businesses they feel they can trust.
5. Digital Marketing is the Future
• Digital marketing is huge, and it’s not going away anytime
soon. $120 billion is the amount the U.S. will spend on digital
marketing in 2020
MARKETING STRATEGIES VS.
MARKETING PLANS
• The marketing strategy informs the marketing plan.
• A marketing plan is a document that details the specific types
of marketing activities a company conducts and contains
timetables for rolling out various marketing initiatives.
• Marketing strategies have longer lifespans than individual
marketing plans
• Marketing strategies cover big-picture messaging, while
marketing plans give the logistical details of specific
campaigns.
 DEVELOPING A MARKETING
STRATEGY
• Marketing strategy should be rooted in a company’s value
proposition.
• Summarizes the competitive advantage a company holds over rival
businesses.
• For example, Walmart is widely known as a discount retailer with
“everyday low prices,” whose business operations and marketing
efforts revolve around that idea.
• Tiles and carpets have annual sales which people plan & save for the
sale
• A marketing strategy is judged based on how effectively it
communicates a company's core value proposition.
CONT. DEVELOPING A
MARKETING STRATEGY
 MARKETING MIX
• Defined as the "set of
marketing tools that the
firm uses to pursue its
marketing objectives in
the target market"
CONT. MARKETING MIX
MARKETING STRATEGIES
• 1. Branding – establish a clear identity
• Professionally use the name, logo, colors to communicate to
your customers
• Go beyond just “rubber stamping” your logo everywhere –
your brand should be memorable even if the logo is removed.
CONT. MARKETING STRATEGIES
• 2. Know your business and know your customers
• Businesses are different and have different requirements.
• There is no one marketing strategy that fits all businesses
• Think of target customers
• What is their demographic? How old are they? Where do they
live? What online services do they use? How do they look for
your product?
• Develop a targeted and more effective overall strategy that
focuses on the channels most likely to produce results for you.
CONT. MARKETING STRATEGIES
• 3. Use Facebook Ads
• Facebook Ads are one of the best ways to target a specific
group.
• Advertising can focus on factors such as age, sex, location,
interests, online habits and so on.
• The system is easy to use and is relatively inexpensive, making
this a great way for you to reach the maximum number of
potential customers in a short time.
CONT. MARKETING STRATEGIES
• 4. Have a great website
• A poorly designed website put people off your company
• Website should be user-friendly, easy to navigate and logically
laid out.
• 5. Understand the power of SEO (search engine
optimization)
• Google searches directs web traffic to your site.
• Keyword optimization makes you rank highly on searches.
CONT. MARKETING STRATEGIES
• 6. Don’t forget email
• Email is easy to use and automate
• Add addresses to your mailing list
• Provide interesting, valuable and relevant content that people will
actually open rather than deleting immediately or sending to the
“spam” box
• The main idea is to get people to come back to your website at a
later date when they are likely to buy your product.
• Email leads still have one of the highest conversion rates of all
sources.
• Free tools like MailGenius help make sure your emails get
delivered (and opened) instead of getting lost in the spam folder.
CONT. MARKETING STRATEGIES

• 7. Use Google My Business

• Google My Business is useful tool for local
businesses with a local customer base.
• It is a great way to have your business appear near
the top of that search.
• When potential customers see your profile and
accompanying good reviews at or near the top of
the list, your business automatically gains credibility
and people will be more willing to trust you.
CONT. MARKETING STRATEGIES
• 8. Sponsor a local sports team
• Participate in CSR (corporate social responsibilities) such as sponsoring a local
sports team/ medical camp
• The activity will make people associate your brand with the local area.
• They will be more likely to think of you when they need your product and will
be more likely to come to you due to that local association.
• 9. Promote product awareness with free samples or demos
• To build awareness of your product, you need to let people try it.
• A great example of this is when Keurig wanted to move from making coffee
machines for the office to producing machines designed for home use.
• They demonstrated their Keurig Brewing System in stores and other high-
visibility locations.
• The strategy paid off since the company has since gone on to dominate the
US home brew coffee market and become a way of life
CONT. MARKETING STRATEGIES
• 10. Work the referrals
• Use your existing customers to drum up more business: try to incentivize
referrals to encourage your customers to bring in more.
• Rewards like free products, gifts , discounts or something else, your already
satisfied customers will be happy to bring in more leads for you.
• Referral leads offer a much higher conversion rate than many other channels.

• 11. Use Google Adwords

• Google Adwords is more expensive than many other marketing options available,
• A very powerful marketing tool if done well
• Adwords greatly increase your chances of people seeing your name.

• Focus on what works for you

HEALTHCARE MARKETING
STRATEGY
• Despite the current patient volume a planned medical
marketing strategy is required to keep your brand at the
forefront of people’s minds.
• Some of the reasons why patients switch healthcare
providers: a change in insurance, relocation, dissatisfaction
with wait times, or just one negative experience.
• Good patient volume is not guaranteed forever
PLANNING YOUR HEALTHCARE
MARKETING STRATEGIES
• A Healthcare marketing strategy is an investment for doctors,
healthcare networks, and healthcare marketing professionals.
• Hire outside help and plan for a larger budget
WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 1. Use consistent healthcare branding
• Despite good clinical skills, branding is vital.
• Figure out what your brand is all about. What’s unique about
your hospital or practice? Is it the way you treat patients?
Your family-friendly office? A spa-like environment?
• The one thing that makes your medical teams unique helps
patients remember your name.
• It takes time to figure out what works for your brand.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 2. Evaluate the online patient experience
• A website is healthcare’s new front door.
• It’s the first thing patients often see
• Optimize user experience for a person considers your hospital or practice.
• Put yourself in a client’s shoes.
• If someone were to land on any page of your site, would they know your
location; your medical practices’ multiple locations, and primary services
in about 5-10 seconds? Would they be able to contact the right person
quickly? Do the imagery and wording represent your average client?
• User experience is an important consideration in website design.
• Sometimes websites need to be completely redone to improve them
• Making small changes, like positioning the “Contact Us” form higher up
on the page would help
 CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 3. Build a responsive website
• A responsive website is one that automatically adjusts to the size of a screen
• Provides the same experience whether the site is accessed on a computer,
tablet, or mobile device.
• It’s the norm in website design
• It’s also something the search engines are looking for when crawling your
website to determine where you rank.

• Google prioritizes competitors who have a site optimized for mobile as it

improves patient experience
• Responsive sites work best for the mobile experience.
• Ensure that the content and imagery continues to load properly on mobile
devices.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 4. Test site speeds
• It only takes 5 seconds to lose a prospective patient who
decides to navigate elsewhere due to your slow site.

• It may cause your medical website to fall in the search engine

results.
• Test your site speed at Google’s PageSpeed
• If load times are slow, speak to your web developer about
ways to speed it up.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 5. Optimize for prospective patients search engine results
• Search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool for getting
medical practice or hospital network to the top of the search
engines.
• It’s a lot more complex than most marketing professionals
realize.
• A large part of SEO involves using the right optimal phrases
and keywords so that Google can understand your website
and be sure you rank for the proper, relevant and pertinent
terms.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• It also means using those terms naturally throughout your
content, as Google cares about readability first and foremost.
• This is the beginning of healthcare marketing best practices
for SEO, which also include:

• Having links pointing back to each page on your site.

• Gaining backlinks from reputable sites.
• Managing your site index or sitemap.
• Claiming your site on Google My Business.
• Submitting your website to Google.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 6. Utilize PPC and display ads for Healthcare Marketing

• These are pay-per-click advertisements

• Paid advertisements that are laser-targeted to appear first for
a set of search terms.
• Have a budget and decide what you’d be willing to spend to
keep your site visible at the top of the search engines.
• Return on investment is clear and defined with both PPC ads
and display ads that appear on the sidebar or top of other
websites.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 7. Leverage social media (the right way)
• Most hospitals and healthcare practices rely on organic social media

• Organic social media means posting photos, updates, events, and more
directly to the Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ platform
• Though a valid strategy, shouldn’t be your only social strategy.
• Paid advertising on social media is a better way to reach the right people
who may be looking for your services—even if you’re not already
connected.

• Paid social media is about more than pressing the “Boost Post” button
that appears when you post from your business page.
• Like PPC and display advertising, it involves strategizing and budgeting to
target the audience you want.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 8. Ask for reviews from patients
• Patients /clients only leave reviews when they are motivated to do so, or if they had an above
average (or extremely poor) experience.
• Do not miss an opportunity to feature positive feedback from patients who were satisfied with
their visit.
• Might be difficult for front office staff

• Automated reviews are recommend as part of any hospital or practice healthcare marketing
strategy.
• Here’s a brief overview of automated reviews:
• patients use a computer or tablet at the office to rate the quality of service they received on a
scale of 1-10.
• High scores automate a follow-up email asking the patient to leave a review on their site.
• Those positive reviews show up directly on your website and can potentially counteract any
negative reviews left elsewhere online.

• Poor scores allow the practice or hospital a chance to ask the patient to elaborate and,
hopefully, reach out and resolve the issue.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 9. Follow up with patient feedback in your marketing efforts

• Patients may have a poor opinion of your practice and leave reviews on outside
sites such as Yelp.
• Follow up with any patient feedback and show that you are working on the
problem.
• Sites like Yelp allow you to respond to patient feedback directly.
• With the right follow-up, patients may be motivated to update their review to
let others know the problem was resolved in a timely fashion.
• Reputation management should be part of any healthcare marketing strategy
• Do not get defensive about negative reviews.
• It means upgrading processes and equipment and ensuring the best possible
patient experience moving forward based on prior patient feedback.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 10. Look into traditional media options
• Many hospitals, healthcare groups, and practices are afraid to invest
in external media opportunities
• Traditional advertising sources like radio, television, billboards, and
newspapers.
• These are a major investments
• Having trustworthy healthcare media buyers should advice the best
way to make sure your advertisements get seen by the right people
at the right time.
• A billboard in the middle of nowhere does little to bring in patients
• A television advertisement that runs on a channel with
demographics that represent your average patient can do wonders
for your ROI (Return on investment).
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 11. Build referrals into your marketing plans
• How does your practice reach potential referring doctors/clients?
• Too many practices and specialty groups trust the front desk to
reach out to doctors who may choose to refer their practice–but
the front desk simply does not have the time to commit to this!

• Doctor/client referrals are some of your best organic strategies for

bringing in new patients.
• A liaison person/ physician should be visiting hospitals and
medical practices every day, scheduling lunches with potential
referral bases, and keeping in touch with potential sources.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 12. Check in with your current patients
• Word-of-mouth referrals should always be part of your overall
healthcare marketing strategy.

• Follow up with patients after an appointment or procedure to

see how they’re doing.
• Ask about their families, or send out birthday cards with a
personalized touch.
• Send emails and mail reminders for follow-up appointments,
and do whatever you can to maintain a relationship.
• Patients will always appreciate that you took the time and may
make a point to recommend you to friends and family.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 13. Become an authority in your field
• Prospective patients/clients remember you when you establish
yourself as an authority in your medical specialty.
• Your PR (public relations) strategy should involve reaching out to the
appropriate media outlet when you have something to share–it’s
free advertising for your brand!

• Stay up-to-date with your industry through LinkedIn groups and

other online forums.
• Consider following sites like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to learn
about interview opportunities.
• Submit press releases from time to time–and consider hiring outside
help to boost your visibility.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 14. Track your marketing strategy
• Continuously monitor how your medical marketing strategy pays off in terms of
ROI (return on investment).
• Adjust your healthcare marketing budget annually in terms of what you want to
focus on
• Based on a careful study of your metrics (performance analytics)

• There are many ways to do this type of tracking:

• Use a CRM (customer relationship management system) like HubSpot to track how
patients engage with your campaigns, via emails, call centers, or targeted landing
pages.
• Use Google Analytics to find out what terms you rank for in the search engines,
and which terms you’re missing out on.
• Track your pay-per-click campaigns by setting up Google AdWords.
CONT. WAYS TO MARKET ANY
HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION
• 15. Audit your front desk’s response to your healthcare marketing initiatives
• You can have the best healthcare marketing strategy for anyone in your area…
but if your front desk staff cannot handle calls properly, you lose money and
opportunities.
• An audit of your healthcare patients‘ front desk, or your call centers, may reveal
any of the following:

• Long hold times for potential patients

• Confusion or patient misinformation
• A slow patient scheduling system
• An inability on the part of your staff to discuss, or “sell”, your healthcare services
• No strategy in place to get patients to book an appointment
• No healthcare marketing strategy is complete if you don’t take the time to train
the front office staff properly!
SUMMARY

• Marketing
• Digital marketing
• Marketing strategies to include branding
Q&
A
 Thank
you
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