What a strange period of time we are going through with Covid-19 and no crystal balls or instruction books to tell us precisely when it is going to end and how the economy and our businesses will be doing when the switch is flipped and we can resume our “normal” life! And what will “normal” be like for your business? Will patients or clients flood back in without reservations or will it be a trickle of returnees until they gain the confidence to go out into the world again?
Like most people who own a business that is in lockdown mode, you are probably fed up with all the bad news, the fake news and the conspiracy theories, have watched almost every movie of interest on Netflix or Prime Video, and are now asking yourself “when is this all going to end and what should I be doing about my business?”
Weird or what?
The weirdest thing has been happening in terms of practices that are shut down or only open for emergencies … they have mostly gone into hiding by shutting down their marketing budgets as well. Other than an email to all patients of record and a voice mail message at the office saying that the practice is closed for all except emergencies, the practice has gone into non-existence.
Come Out of Hiding!
Factually, what you SHOULD be doing is INCREASING your marketing budget till the Covid-19 period is over. Become totally visible everywhere. It is true that you will experience a loss of patients when you reopen since many will have lost their jobs or their businesses. This may mean they will be less likely to afford anything other than emergency treatments. Therefore, you will need to start now to recover past patients, maintain a friendly ongoing dialogue with your current patients, and attract the attention of the general public in your geographic area.
Attention-Grabbers
There are hundreds of marketing ideas that cost nothing or very little. Some involve emails (friendly, good news only, uplifting), short texts with good news (can do this through bulk texting companies or you may already be able to do this through your automated recall system), personalized letters to every single patient of record with an update and asking how they are doing, posting on your Facebook page, paying for Facebook ads to your drawing area (very cheap right now due to fewer practice owners doing advertising), sending out instagrams, posting videos on YouTube, upscaling your website front page, blogs with lots of before and after photos, and so on.
Just Ask Us! TOTALLY FREE!
We are experts at growing practices (31 years in business and 1,800 happy clients) and are totally willing to help any practice owners who would like help with marketing ideas and content and an actual tailored marketing plan (or have any other questions or concerns), completely FREE until the end of the lockdown! We are here for you!
