The Mini Marketing Primer for Entrepreneurial Physicians

I recently received this question below from a physician and decided to share my response with you.

“I was wondering if you have any quick ideas or advice for marketing my XYZ business geared towards ABC market. How would you suggest I tap into this market?”

Well, unfortunately marketing is such a huge subject that it's hard to give quick advice. It’s also one of the most vital skills you need to acquire if you want to succeed in your entrepreneurial venture, be it your practice or another business.
 
Here’s my quick take on Marketing, and an adapted version of my response:

• You MUST know your "ideal client"/target market in exquisite detail -- their desires, needs and pain points. As Dr. Mark Goulston pointed out in our Business Development teleclass last week, you need to have listened deeply to enough of them to truly hear them express their pain or desire. And only then do you craft your service or product in response to what you have heard. This makes your marketing efforts a whole lot easier!


• As a physician, you are best positioned to make your marketing all about education, and to leverage your credentials thoughtfully in the eyes of the consumer


• You need to craft a powerful marketing message that is emotionally compelling and "speaks to your target market's listening" -- you will have to stand out in a noisy, clamorous marketplace where over 3000 marketing messages are competing for each individuals attention A DAY!


• Marketing is like fishing. If you are trying to attract trout in a stream, you don’t stand a chance if you put a chunk of chicken on your hook. The trout will swim right by and potentially even laugh at you. But a skillfully cast fly of just the right attractive colors will dramatically increase the chance that you will land that sucker!
  
  So it is with your marketing message and follow-up – they MUST be designed to match your ideal client’s interests, needs, habits and preferences.


• You have to develop a marketing strategy with tactics made up of consistent actions and behaviors that you commit to doing over and over, week after week, month after month -- otherwise you are randomly darting from one marketing effort to another, and you’re never patiently letting any strategy mature.
• Likewise, you ought to be tracking your marketing efforts. If you have been diligently working one strategy in your marketing plan and it’s not yielding any results, switch strategies! Find out what is working and do it MORE REGULARLY and BETTER.


• You'll find many different ideas and thoughts in my blog category "Marketing for the marketing-allergic" -- I suggest you take some time to gather my many thoughts there as there’s way too much to say in one article.


• And if all else fails, I do have a Marketing Mastery product in the Store on my website that is a program for developing an effective marketing approach.

Happy fishing!