Saturday, May 5, 2018
Thursday, May 3, 2018
The importance of a patient experience officer
A visit to the doctor is becoming about more than just the time spent in an exam room with a clinician. It’s about the way a patient connects with the practice, and the experience they have from the decision to schedule an appointment, to interactions with the staff during the appointment, and the communication from the practice after.
Because of this paradigm shift in patients, many practices are implementing a new role within their organizations of a patient experience officer—a designated employee responsible for making sure the entire experience is in line with patients’ expectations.
Managing the patient experience has quickly developed into too big of a role and become too important in retaining patients to not have a dedicated person working on these tasks. Tasks that used to be left to front-desk employees or other staff members “when they had free time” are playing a bigger role in patients’ decisions about healthcare providers, so it is important to make sure the patient experience doesn’t fall through the cracks.
A recent study shows that a growing number of patients who leave their healthcare provider do so not because they aren’t satisfied with the level of care, but because of frustration with practice logistics—things like interactions with staff, scheduling hassles, wait times, and communication processes. Physicians are seeing the importance of having a member of their team always working to improve the experience and ensure patients return to the practice.
The role of patient experience officer can cover a lot of things, but generally this person is responsible for:
• Evaluating patient experience
• Collaborating with other staff to make improvements or changes to patient experience
• Establishing a patient communication plan/program (i.e., reminders, recalls, education, review requests, etc.)
• Addressing patient feedback from surveys and reviews
• Managing online interactions with patients
• Reporting on feedback collected and the effectiveness of programs to improve patient experience
Most organizations look for someone with five to 10 years of experience in a healthcare setting. Previous experience or training in patient-facing roles, customer service, patient engagement activities or tools is generally preferred. While smaller practices may have one person or even just a half-time person, many larger organizations often have a small team of people in this function, so there is room for growth as well. The salary range is considerable and depends on the location and size of the organization. However, on average, a patient experience officer’s wage is between $35,000 and $65,000 based on data available on sites like Indeed.com.
With so many patients at risk of switching providers for a better experience, creating the position of a patient experience officer is an opportunity to show patients how important they are. Patients want a provider who cares about their wants and needs, not just the revenue coming in. If the practice provides opportunities for patient feedback and incorporates it into their processes, patients will feel heard and valued, and they will be more likely to return to the practice when it comes time to schedule their next appointment.
One example of an organization that has successfully created this role is Allied Physicians Group, based in Melville, N.Y. Leslie Tarver is the vice president of patient experience and marketing, and spends her time looking for ways to improve the experience for the 35 locations in the group. One of her recent decisions was to invest in patient relationship management (PRM) software to make communication between patients and providers easier.
“We needed to provide a solution that offered text messaging,” Tarver said. “We saw that’s where our patients wanted to communicate.”
This feature turned out to be beneficial for both the practices and their patients. Practice staff didn’t have to spend so much time on the phone, and they were able to focus on the patients physically in the office, and make their experience better. Allied Physicians Group was also able to schedule more patients through text messages than they were able to over the phone, because patients appreciated the ease with which they could reach the practices.
In addition to meeting communication needs, the patient experience officer is responsible for gathering opinions about the practice. This can be done by distributing surveys, analyzing feedback, engaging with patients online, and finding solutions to meet patients’ needs—all tasks made easier with patient communication software.
PRM software allows a practice to create customized surveys so they can hone in on an area they want to know more about and get feedback from patients. The patient experience officer is responsible for creating these surveys and analyzing the results. If patients leave feedback that suggests the practice’s scheduling process is difficult and time-consuming, or that they would like the ability to text the practice, the patient experience officer then takes on the task of researching solutions and determining how processes should be changed to improve the experience.
Another way these team members can analyze the patient experience is by interacting with patients online. When current or prospective patients engage with a post on the practice’s social media pages or leave an online review, the patient experience officer can respond to them, asking questions for clarification, or even requesting suggestions from the patient about how to make the experience better. Of course, the most important part of this communication is the action that comes after the conversations. If the practice doesn’t do anything with the information they gather, the development of the patient experience officer is for nothing. Instead of increasing patient loyalty, patients will choose another provider whom they think will listen to and incorporate their feedback.
Focusing on the patient experience can produce great results for a healthcare practice. Improving the experience in an office increases the loyalty patients feel toward the practice, and in turn increases the bottom line.
Practices can’t afford not to create the role of a patient experience officer, and choose the right individual to fill this role to make changes within the practice.
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Because of this paradigm shift in patients, many practices are implementing a new role within their organizations of a patient experience officer—a designated employee responsible for making sure the entire experience is in line with patients’ expectations.
Managing the patient experience has quickly developed into too big of a role and become too important in retaining patients to not have a dedicated person working on these tasks. Tasks that used to be left to front-desk employees or other staff members “when they had free time” are playing a bigger role in patients’ decisions about healthcare providers, so it is important to make sure the patient experience doesn’t fall through the cracks.
A recent study shows that a growing number of patients who leave their healthcare provider do so not because they aren’t satisfied with the level of care, but because of frustration with practice logistics—things like interactions with staff, scheduling hassles, wait times, and communication processes. Physicians are seeing the importance of having a member of their team always working to improve the experience and ensure patients return to the practice.
The role of patient experience officer can cover a lot of things, but generally this person is responsible for:
• Evaluating patient experience
• Collaborating with other staff to make improvements or changes to patient experience
• Establishing a patient communication plan/program (i.e., reminders, recalls, education, review requests, etc.)
• Addressing patient feedback from surveys and reviews
• Managing online interactions with patients
• Reporting on feedback collected and the effectiveness of programs to improve patient experience
Most organizations look for someone with five to 10 years of experience in a healthcare setting. Previous experience or training in patient-facing roles, customer service, patient engagement activities or tools is generally preferred. While smaller practices may have one person or even just a half-time person, many larger organizations often have a small team of people in this function, so there is room for growth as well. The salary range is considerable and depends on the location and size of the organization. However, on average, a patient experience officer’s wage is between $35,000 and $65,000 based on data available on sites like Indeed.com.
Evaluating the Patient Experience
With so many patients at risk of switching providers for a better experience, creating the position of a patient experience officer is an opportunity to show patients how important they are. Patients want a provider who cares about their wants and needs, not just the revenue coming in. If the practice provides opportunities for patient feedback and incorporates it into their processes, patients will feel heard and valued, and they will be more likely to return to the practice when it comes time to schedule their next appointment.
Establishing a Communication Program
One example of an organization that has successfully created this role is Allied Physicians Group, based in Melville, N.Y. Leslie Tarver is the vice president of patient experience and marketing, and spends her time looking for ways to improve the experience for the 35 locations in the group. One of her recent decisions was to invest in patient relationship management (PRM) software to make communication between patients and providers easier.
“We needed to provide a solution that offered text messaging,” Tarver said. “We saw that’s where our patients wanted to communicate.”
This feature turned out to be beneficial for both the practices and their patients. Practice staff didn’t have to spend so much time on the phone, and they were able to focus on the patients physically in the office, and make their experience better. Allied Physicians Group was also able to schedule more patients through text messages than they were able to over the phone, because patients appreciated the ease with which they could reach the practices.
Addressing Feedback
In addition to meeting communication needs, the patient experience officer is responsible for gathering opinions about the practice. This can be done by distributing surveys, analyzing feedback, engaging with patients online, and finding solutions to meet patients’ needs—all tasks made easier with patient communication software.
PRM software allows a practice to create customized surveys so they can hone in on an area they want to know more about and get feedback from patients. The patient experience officer is responsible for creating these surveys and analyzing the results. If patients leave feedback that suggests the practice’s scheduling process is difficult and time-consuming, or that they would like the ability to text the practice, the patient experience officer then takes on the task of researching solutions and determining how processes should be changed to improve the experience.
Managing Online Interactions
Another way these team members can analyze the patient experience is by interacting with patients online. When current or prospective patients engage with a post on the practice’s social media pages or leave an online review, the patient experience officer can respond to them, asking questions for clarification, or even requesting suggestions from the patient about how to make the experience better. Of course, the most important part of this communication is the action that comes after the conversations. If the practice doesn’t do anything with the information they gather, the development of the patient experience officer is for nothing. Instead of increasing patient loyalty, patients will choose another provider whom they think will listen to and incorporate their feedback.
Focusing on the patient experience can produce great results for a healthcare practice. Improving the experience in an office increases the loyalty patients feel toward the practice, and in turn increases the bottom line.
Practices can’t afford not to create the role of a patient experience officer, and choose the right individual to fill this role to make changes within the practice.
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Young Physicians Looking for More Than Just Compensation
What are young physicians looking for in in their career? It turns out it’s more than just money.
CompHealth recently surveyed more than 500 millennial physicians who completed their residencies or fellowships in the past four years to find out how they found their first job, how they felt about it, and what made them stay — or move on to the next opportunity.
Here are six things we learned:
1. New technology doesn’t compete with old job search techniques.
While the survey found that almost all millennial physicians are using social media and smartphones, they’re not using them to land their first job. Good old-fashioned networking and referrals are used by nearly half of physicians and 40 percent are finding jobs through those methods.
2. Physician job satisfaction is high.
One of the most interesting data points was that while physicians are very satisfied with their jobs (65 percent were satisfied or highly satisfied), they are still willing to leave a job they enjoy if it is not giving them exactly what they are looking for. Young doctors say what makes them happiest with their employer are good hours, location, being close to family and friends, and culture fit. All of those come before compensation.
3. Compensation is the top reason physicians leave a job.
While compensation isn’t the most important factor in a physician staying in a job, it’s the number one reason a physician will leave. That’s not surprising, considering the amount of student loan debt physicians accrue while in school. The survey found that 74 percent of physicians have substantial debt, with 44 percent owing more than $200,000.
Young doctors are also willing to change jobs if they can find better work-life balance. Many of our millennial physicians tell us they’re not interested in working 60 plus hours a week if it means sacrificing time for family or interests outside of medicine.
4. Searching for a job is stressful.
The survey also found that while physicians are willing to shop for a new job, the search comes with a fair amount of stress. The top stressors include finding the right job fit, negotiating contract terms, negotiating compensation, and relocation.
5. Men and women have different needs in a job.
While women and men are looking for many of the same things in a job — like good benefits and a stress-free environment — they often have different motivators. The survey indicates that women are more likely to take a job with good work-life balance or good management, while men report the financial benefits are their primary motivator.
6. Practice culture matters.
One of the takeaways for practice owners is that if they want to retain young physicians, they need to be mindful of the culture of their practice. Young doctors love practicing medicine, but they want to do it in an employee-centric facility.
As patient load grows and older physicians retire, the demand on physicians’ time will continue to increase. Practice owners will need to find creative ways to create flexible schedules, as half of young physicians report a lack of work-life balance as the reason they left their last job.
Young physicians are the future of healthcare. We all need to work together to keep them engaged in their work, so they will stick around and have a long career in medicine.
Billing and Collection Supplies
Business Cards and Stationary
Chart Labels
Medical and Rx Pads
CompHealth recently surveyed more than 500 millennial physicians who completed their residencies or fellowships in the past four years to find out how they found their first job, how they felt about it, and what made them stay — or move on to the next opportunity.
Here are six things we learned:
1. New technology doesn’t compete with old job search techniques.
While the survey found that almost all millennial physicians are using social media and smartphones, they’re not using them to land their first job. Good old-fashioned networking and referrals are used by nearly half of physicians and 40 percent are finding jobs through those methods.
2. Physician job satisfaction is high.
One of the most interesting data points was that while physicians are very satisfied with their jobs (65 percent were satisfied or highly satisfied), they are still willing to leave a job they enjoy if it is not giving them exactly what they are looking for. Young doctors say what makes them happiest with their employer are good hours, location, being close to family and friends, and culture fit. All of those come before compensation.
3. Compensation is the top reason physicians leave a job.
While compensation isn’t the most important factor in a physician staying in a job, it’s the number one reason a physician will leave. That’s not surprising, considering the amount of student loan debt physicians accrue while in school. The survey found that 74 percent of physicians have substantial debt, with 44 percent owing more than $200,000.
Young doctors are also willing to change jobs if they can find better work-life balance. Many of our millennial physicians tell us they’re not interested in working 60 plus hours a week if it means sacrificing time for family or interests outside of medicine.
4. Searching for a job is stressful.
The survey also found that while physicians are willing to shop for a new job, the search comes with a fair amount of stress. The top stressors include finding the right job fit, negotiating contract terms, negotiating compensation, and relocation.
5. Men and women have different needs in a job.
While women and men are looking for many of the same things in a job — like good benefits and a stress-free environment — they often have different motivators. The survey indicates that women are more likely to take a job with good work-life balance or good management, while men report the financial benefits are their primary motivator.
6. Practice culture matters.
One of the takeaways for practice owners is that if they want to retain young physicians, they need to be mindful of the culture of their practice. Young doctors love practicing medicine, but they want to do it in an employee-centric facility.
As patient load grows and older physicians retire, the demand on physicians’ time will continue to increase. Practice owners will need to find creative ways to create flexible schedules, as half of young physicians report a lack of work-life balance as the reason they left their last job.
Young physicians are the future of healthcare. We all need to work together to keep them engaged in their work, so they will stick around and have a long career in medicine.
Medical Office Supplies
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10 Tips to Skyrocket Your Post Engagement on Facebook
If you’re in the internet marketing game for a while now, you’re definitely noticing the power and impact of social media channels over today’s online businesses. Yes, SEO and content marketing are another two important traffic generation concepts, yet they’re entirely interconnected with today’s social media marketing.
Facebook is the king, for now, owning more active users than any other social media network. Obviously, you’re reading this post because you’re already familiar with Facebook, and you may probably know how much organic, free, and targeted traffic it may provide if leveraged properly.
As Mark Harvard, a Marketing Manager at ResumesPlanet points out:
“Posting new posts (updates) on Facebook is a basic action that you can take, for free, with the purpose of attracting your potential customers’ attention. The higher purpose is to make sales (profit) and to improve the overall brand awareness and reputation of the brand (profit).”
Simply put, everyone can post content on Facebook yet very few pages manage to bring the desired social engagement. When a post has no likes, comments, or shares, it may seem that it lacks value, so people will immediately skip it.
Well, in today’s post, we’re teaching you how to improve your Facebook posts’ engagement performance. Pay attention to these 10 tips and do your best to implement what you learn here.
1. Know Who You’re Addressing Each Post To
The first and most important rule before posting on Facebook is to know your target audience well enough before you expend time, focus, energy, and money to develop/curate high-quality content. After all, the content’s quality is high the moment it appeals to the person who’s reading it.
Exceptional Facebook posts do not only “appeal” to the prospect. They also inspire, motivate, and help the reader with various needs, problems, misunderstandings, and so on.
The better you know your audience the more personalized your Facebook marketing will be and the more engagement, traffic, and revenues your business will generate.
2. Appeal to Your Audience’s Emotions
Every single human is an emotional being. If you were to make an emotional being do something, would you appeal to his reason and intellect or would you “go” straight for the emotions?
To improve the effectiveness of their posts, great Facebook marketers take the time to:
Understand their audience well enough by consistently testing and asking for feedback
They appeal to their audience’s emotions!
Pretty simple right? Know a person first and you’ll get to understand how that person thinks, behaves, and reacts. No matter what type of prospect you’re targeting, he/she may still be guided by emotions, as the majority of individuals are. Go for strong emotions such as curiosity, fear, anger, love, inspiration, etc.
3. Ask the Right Questions
A terrific way to engage your target audience is to ask the right questions. When people see a question, their mind cannot help but look for the answer. Even if their conscious mind doesn’t seek the answer, the subconscious will always do its work without being asked or commanded.
An easy way to go about it is to simply brainstorm 10 to 20 questions, which you believe that your target audience would love to discuss. Address the question and add a powerful visual element that doesn’t distract too much,
4. Don’t Forget About Your Powerful CTAs
The average internet user totally lacks proactivity. That’s why you must never assume your followers will immediately take the action that you want after they’re done consuming the content of your post.
To improve the engagement, you must specifically tell them what to think, what to do, what to click, what to buy, and so on. Use strong calls-to-action and your Facebook engagement will improve.
5. Post Only Relevant, Helpful, and Valuable Content
The key to both content marketing and social media success is to only post content that is extremely relevant, valuable, and helpful to your specific target audience.
Only a very small number of individuals will truly be interested in “5 Things to Look at in an Expensive Vintage Car” – it’s those people who have enough financial resources and passion to look after old, collection cars. If you post that for an audience that is highly interested and passionate in vintage cars, you will be relevant, helpful, and valuable to your audience and therefore you will improve the engagement of your social followers.
6. Look at the Competition and Find Unique Twists
How often do you take the time to sit and observe your competition? Big brands have entire teams dedicated to such tasks. They truly understand the importance of staying up to speed with the current marketplace shifts, along with the importance of their brand’s positioning in the market.
Find your 5 biggest direct competitors and assess the actions, decisions, and changes they’re constantly making. Look at each of your competitor’s posts and “dissect” them by paying attention to the following aspects:
The purpose of their post: education/leads/sales/brand awareness, etc.
The source and length of their post: did they curate the info? Have they written it on their own? How long is it? 2 minutes read? Half an hour read?
How do they introduce their offer proposition? Intrusively? Mildly?
Take all the clues you get and find your own twists. Start posting in a unique way and your followers will remember you for it!
7. Find the Proper Time to Post
The members of your target audience have their “ideal time” of online activity. If they’re high-level professionals, it’s likely that they won’t be online during specific hours of the day. Therefore, they may login in the evening and miss the update that you’ve posted during the morning.
That’s why it is important to understand the hours in which you should post your content. You can find that out by consistently testing the hours of your posting and seeing which ones perform best.
8. Consistently Analyze Your Posts’ Performance
As I mentioned earlier, by analyzing your Facebook marketing activity, and especially the performance of your posts, you will find countless clues and feedback concerning what people like and dislike. You’ll find the best hours to post, and you’ll find what you shouldn’t post ever again.
The moment you identify positive optimization changes, put them into implementation and see how they perform. If you get it right, you’re ready to scale what you are doing. There are many Facebook analytics tools and software on the web, many of them offering a free version, so there’s nothing that should stop you from paying attention to the important statistics!
9. Measure, Find Patterns, Optimize, and Finally Scale
Last but not least, you’ll need to treat your Facebook marketing campaigns like a continuity, a journey, a process, instead of a result, achievement, or happening.
Analyze and measure the performance of your previously posted content. Look for meaningful patterns that can tell you whether you’re doing it right or wrong. For example, if you post 5 updates with stunning pictures and you then post 5 updates with no pictures at all, and as long as you keep the description the same, your performance metrics will surely be different.
When you identify a better performance of a specific campaign, you should always find out what you did differently in order for the positive result to show up. Lastly, when you’re convinced of the change that produced the optimized result, you should immediately scale the process by posting or investing more!
Takeaways
True Facebook marketing expertise is a result of the same trial-n-error process that absolutely all human beings consistently experience in life. You fail, you get up, you try again. You fail again, you get back up again, and eventually, if you’re consistent, persistent, and hard-working enough, you’ll become a master at the game. When you’re mastering Facebook marketing, website traffic will never represent a problem again!
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Facebook is the king, for now, owning more active users than any other social media network. Obviously, you’re reading this post because you’re already familiar with Facebook, and you may probably know how much organic, free, and targeted traffic it may provide if leveraged properly.
As Mark Harvard, a Marketing Manager at ResumesPlanet points out:
“Posting new posts (updates) on Facebook is a basic action that you can take, for free, with the purpose of attracting your potential customers’ attention. The higher purpose is to make sales (profit) and to improve the overall brand awareness and reputation of the brand (profit).”
Simply put, everyone can post content on Facebook yet very few pages manage to bring the desired social engagement. When a post has no likes, comments, or shares, it may seem that it lacks value, so people will immediately skip it.
Well, in today’s post, we’re teaching you how to improve your Facebook posts’ engagement performance. Pay attention to these 10 tips and do your best to implement what you learn here.
1. Know Who You’re Addressing Each Post To
The first and most important rule before posting on Facebook is to know your target audience well enough before you expend time, focus, energy, and money to develop/curate high-quality content. After all, the content’s quality is high the moment it appeals to the person who’s reading it.
Exceptional Facebook posts do not only “appeal” to the prospect. They also inspire, motivate, and help the reader with various needs, problems, misunderstandings, and so on.
The better you know your audience the more personalized your Facebook marketing will be and the more engagement, traffic, and revenues your business will generate.
2. Appeal to Your Audience’s Emotions
Every single human is an emotional being. If you were to make an emotional being do something, would you appeal to his reason and intellect or would you “go” straight for the emotions?
To improve the effectiveness of their posts, great Facebook marketers take the time to:
Understand their audience well enough by consistently testing and asking for feedback
They appeal to their audience’s emotions!
Pretty simple right? Know a person first and you’ll get to understand how that person thinks, behaves, and reacts. No matter what type of prospect you’re targeting, he/she may still be guided by emotions, as the majority of individuals are. Go for strong emotions such as curiosity, fear, anger, love, inspiration, etc.
3. Ask the Right Questions
A terrific way to engage your target audience is to ask the right questions. When people see a question, their mind cannot help but look for the answer. Even if their conscious mind doesn’t seek the answer, the subconscious will always do its work without being asked or commanded.
An easy way to go about it is to simply brainstorm 10 to 20 questions, which you believe that your target audience would love to discuss. Address the question and add a powerful visual element that doesn’t distract too much,
4. Don’t Forget About Your Powerful CTAs
The average internet user totally lacks proactivity. That’s why you must never assume your followers will immediately take the action that you want after they’re done consuming the content of your post.
To improve the engagement, you must specifically tell them what to think, what to do, what to click, what to buy, and so on. Use strong calls-to-action and your Facebook engagement will improve.
5. Post Only Relevant, Helpful, and Valuable Content
The key to both content marketing and social media success is to only post content that is extremely relevant, valuable, and helpful to your specific target audience.
Only a very small number of individuals will truly be interested in “5 Things to Look at in an Expensive Vintage Car” – it’s those people who have enough financial resources and passion to look after old, collection cars. If you post that for an audience that is highly interested and passionate in vintage cars, you will be relevant, helpful, and valuable to your audience and therefore you will improve the engagement of your social followers.
6. Look at the Competition and Find Unique Twists
How often do you take the time to sit and observe your competition? Big brands have entire teams dedicated to such tasks. They truly understand the importance of staying up to speed with the current marketplace shifts, along with the importance of their brand’s positioning in the market.
Find your 5 biggest direct competitors and assess the actions, decisions, and changes they’re constantly making. Look at each of your competitor’s posts and “dissect” them by paying attention to the following aspects:
The purpose of their post: education/leads/sales/brand awareness, etc.
The source and length of their post: did they curate the info? Have they written it on their own? How long is it? 2 minutes read? Half an hour read?
How do they introduce their offer proposition? Intrusively? Mildly?
Take all the clues you get and find your own twists. Start posting in a unique way and your followers will remember you for it!
7. Find the Proper Time to Post
The members of your target audience have their “ideal time” of online activity. If they’re high-level professionals, it’s likely that they won’t be online during specific hours of the day. Therefore, they may login in the evening and miss the update that you’ve posted during the morning.
That’s why it is important to understand the hours in which you should post your content. You can find that out by consistently testing the hours of your posting and seeing which ones perform best.
8. Consistently Analyze Your Posts’ Performance
As I mentioned earlier, by analyzing your Facebook marketing activity, and especially the performance of your posts, you will find countless clues and feedback concerning what people like and dislike. You’ll find the best hours to post, and you’ll find what you shouldn’t post ever again.
The moment you identify positive optimization changes, put them into implementation and see how they perform. If you get it right, you’re ready to scale what you are doing. There are many Facebook analytics tools and software on the web, many of them offering a free version, so there’s nothing that should stop you from paying attention to the important statistics!
9. Measure, Find Patterns, Optimize, and Finally Scale
Last but not least, you’ll need to treat your Facebook marketing campaigns like a continuity, a journey, a process, instead of a result, achievement, or happening.
Analyze and measure the performance of your previously posted content. Look for meaningful patterns that can tell you whether you’re doing it right or wrong. For example, if you post 5 updates with stunning pictures and you then post 5 updates with no pictures at all, and as long as you keep the description the same, your performance metrics will surely be different.
When you identify a better performance of a specific campaign, you should always find out what you did differently in order for the positive result to show up. Lastly, when you’re convinced of the change that produced the optimized result, you should immediately scale the process by posting or investing more!
Takeaways
True Facebook marketing expertise is a result of the same trial-n-error process that absolutely all human beings consistently experience in life. You fail, you get up, you try again. You fail again, you get back up again, and eventually, if you’re consistent, persistent, and hard-working enough, you’ll become a master at the game. When you’re mastering Facebook marketing, website traffic will never represent a problem again!
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Tuesday, May 1, 2018
6 Ways Your Small Business Can Stretch Its Marketing Budget To Grow Revenue and Profits
Small business owners and entrepreneurs envy the virtually unlimited marketing budgets of large companies.
It would be fantastic to have an unlimited marketing budget, but that simply doesn’t happen in real life.
Small businesses can’t spend millions of dollars on marketing.
The average larger company spends around 9-12% of its revenue on marketing.
The average small business can spend as little as 2% on marketing.
According to a survey from Statista, nearly half of all small businesses in the U.S. spent at least $4,000 on marketing a year ago.
This makes marketing for small businesses and startups tricky, and budgeting stressful.
So how can you do more, with less? How much of your budget should you spend on marketing? How much should you spend on social media marketing?
There’s no magic number because every company is different.
Yet, many successful small businesses and startups do well with limited marketing budgets.
Here are 6 ways you can stretch your company’s marketing budget to grow revenue and profits.
Before assessing different marketing strategies, make sure you understand your goals.
It’s easy to waste your marketing dollars if you don’t understand your goals or have not bothered to set goals.
Too many business owners forget this, as we recently wrote:
It’s not unusual for small business owners and entrepreneurs to focus on strategies and tactics at the expense of also setting appropriate goals. Often, this happens when you see someone else successfully executing a strategy or tactic – and you try to duplicate their success by doing the same thing.
For example, if you’re looking to promote a premium pricing tier and your prospects are mostly on Facebook, then you’re wasting time and money if you’re running Twitter ads.
Once you set your goals, it’s important to understand how data can inform your strategies.
The smartest businesses are data-informed or data-driven businesses. But if you don’t set goals, data is just noise.
If you have lots of data but don’t know what to do with it, the data is useless and you’ll just be wasting your marketing dollars.
No business has a budget for wasted money.
Fortunately, you can take the guesswork out of this process. We’ve previously discussed how you can use science to improve your marketing. Here’s an example from that article:
To optimize how you use data to help you make decisions, you must ask the right questions and focus on the relevant data. For example, if you’re wondering why or when your customers are leaving your site, consider what data you have that can help you answer those questions. You can look at customer complaints, payment history, the funnel customers follow when browsing your site, poor customer service experience, frequency of usage, etc.
Analyzing social media engagement, looking at the data in Google Analytics, and reviewing customer survey results can help you to understand where you can focus your efforts and where to deploy your marketing dollars.
You should build your marketing plan only after you’ve set goals.
With a goal-based marketing plan, it’s easier to think carefully about maximizing a small marketing budget.
Today, it’s tough to market without investing some time and money into social media marketing channels.
As we wrote previously:
A 2017 study by Social Media Examiner reveals that 92% of marketers surveyed feel that social media is important to their business. 88% of those marketers said that social media has increased exposure and 78% of marketers listed increased traffic for their business (among other benefits like generating leads and increased sales).
But, like any other channel, social media is only as useful as the strategy behind it. For many business owners and marketers, figuring out what content to post on social media is a bit of a puzzle. We’ve heard many business owners and marketers ask “How do I use social media for my business?” or “How do I start social media marketing?”
Social media is fast, data-driven, and flexible. It’s instantaneous, provides large amounts of data, and is useful for most businesses to generate leads, build thought-leadership, or develop referral networks.
For more advice on social media marketing, including best practices, check out 7 Ways Your Small Business Can Market Better on Social Media.
Content marketing is another great way to stretch your small business marketing budget.
People love to consume content, but they hate seeing ads. That’s why content marketing has become so popular in the last few years. In fact, companies have even been turning to influencers for help on creating content.
Content marketing, like other forms of marketing, is about storytelling.
The good news is that content marketing is inexpensive. There are tons of free or low-cost content marketing tools that can help you stretch your budget.
And unless you pay for promoted posts, posting on sites like Facebook and Twitter is completely free.
While content marketing does take time, focusing on quality is a great way to keep costs and time to a minimum. As we previously wrote:
The majority of your content should not be promotional. Instead, ask yourself what your audience wants or needs to know. Then tailor your content to their interests or help them solve everyday problems.
Also, take the time to share updates about your company’s triumphs and exciting new ventures (assuming they’re genuine, of course). Share your brand’s journey to help build trust.
And, when you do write (less frequent) promotional content, speak from a position of truth and honesty. Show your audience how the product will benefit their everyday life without the slick hyperbole. Your product or service’s quality should be able to stand on its own.
Content doesn’t just mean writing. Videos and design are great ways to create quality content too.
In fact, everything about your brand is a form of content marketing.
A strong brand starts with a great business name and a memorable logo, but a brand is more than a name and logo. As we recently wrote in Powerful Branding Lessons From The World’s Best Brands (That Actually Work for Your Small Business):
A brand is the sum total of the experience your customers and customer prospects have with your company.
A strong brand communicates what your company does, how it does it, and at the same time, establishes trust and credibility with your prospects and customers.
Your company’s brand is, in many ways, its personality.
Your brand lives in everyday interactions your company has with its prospects and customers, including the images you share, the messages you post on your website, the content of your marketing materials, your presentations and booths at conferences, and your posts on social networks.
Another way to make the most of your small marketing budget is to focus on public relations (PR).
This means finding ways to get the media to write about your business. As we previously wrote:
Don’t be afraid to pitch reporters — the stories that people like you bring to them are the lifeblood of any media outlet. Writers and editors are always looking for great story ideas and as long as your pitch is timely and on topic, they will listen. And just because they don’t bite on your current pitch, don’t give up – you should focus on developing the relationship by asking questions, giving and getting real-time feedback, and developing a one-on-one relationship which allows you to share useful information and give that writer the benefit of your own perspective and personality.
You don’t need a PR agency to do this for you. Build relationships and become your own PR manager:
PR professionals will tell you, correctly, that this is an industry built on relationships and build those, you must. Media professionals, journalists, bloggers and others will typically turn to people they know and sources they consider reliable when looking for opinions, quotes, or expert analysis. There is a symbiotic relationship that exists between these professionals and they are uniquely dependent on one another. PR professionals cannot be successful without placements and media professionals are reliant on the PR folk for leads, story ideas, and background material. Entrepreneurs can and should develop ongoing relationships with writers and others who can help their companies and whom they can also help when called upon.
Nor do you need a PR agency if you have a crisis. For more on this, read Reliable Strategies To Help Your Business Handle a PR Crisis.
Collaboration is a great way to maximize a small business marketing budget.
Partnerships can be really helpful to small businesses looking for a bigger audience.
This is a lesson smaller companies can learn from bigger Brands. As we wrote previously:
Global companies regularly collaborate to enhance their marketing message and enrich consumer experience. Smart brands recognize that their brand is more than just a company’s products and services – it’s also the ecosystem that surrounds those products and services. Such collaborative efforts are strategic – designed to combine creativity and expertise, and to broaden the appeal of both brands to more consumers around the world. In fact, even collaboration with environmental or charitable causes provides great value (but no direct financial value). See, for example, Levi’s collaboration with Water.org to highlight water conservation efforts.
Marketing tools are like cookies. Having a few is okay but having too many can cause a lot of problems.
It’s also very expensive!
It can be easy to fall into a pattern of subscribing to service after service that promises you better analytics, more streamlined content, and more customers.
But how many tools do you really need?
Depending on your company’s marketing plan, business goals, and marketing strategy, the tools you’ll need will vary.
For example, a company that uses social media moderately probably doesn’t need to subscribe to the highest tier of a social media management platform and pay hundreds of dollars per month. A $10 per month account on Buffer might be sufficient.
Maximizing your budget means carefully spending money in places where it makes the most sense.
If a tool you’re paying for isn’t helping you to make decisions or maximize your time, it might be time to cut ties.
We’ve previously written about many awesome tools and recommend you take a look to find tools that can help you with visual marketing and content marketing, as well as tools/apps that can help you run your business.
Let’s Wrap Up
If your marketing budget is still entirely consumed by advertising in the Yellow Pages, you’re probably wasting money.
At the end of the day, no matter your strategy, you want to break through the noise at a lower cost and stretch your marketing budget as far as it will go.
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It would be fantastic to have an unlimited marketing budget, but that simply doesn’t happen in real life.
Small businesses can’t spend millions of dollars on marketing.
The average larger company spends around 9-12% of its revenue on marketing.
The average small business can spend as little as 2% on marketing.
According to a survey from Statista, nearly half of all small businesses in the U.S. spent at least $4,000 on marketing a year ago.
This makes marketing for small businesses and startups tricky, and budgeting stressful.
So how can you do more, with less? How much of your budget should you spend on marketing? How much should you spend on social media marketing?
There’s no magic number because every company is different.
Yet, many successful small businesses and startups do well with limited marketing budgets.
Here are 6 ways you can stretch your company’s marketing budget to grow revenue and profits.
1. Establish and understand your business goals.
Before assessing different marketing strategies, make sure you understand your goals.
It’s easy to waste your marketing dollars if you don’t understand your goals or have not bothered to set goals.
Too many business owners forget this, as we recently wrote:
It’s not unusual for small business owners and entrepreneurs to focus on strategies and tactics at the expense of also setting appropriate goals. Often, this happens when you see someone else successfully executing a strategy or tactic – and you try to duplicate their success by doing the same thing.
For example, if you’re looking to promote a premium pricing tier and your prospects are mostly on Facebook, then you’re wasting time and money if you’re running Twitter ads.
Once you set your goals, it’s important to understand how data can inform your strategies.
The smartest businesses are data-informed or data-driven businesses. But if you don’t set goals, data is just noise.
If you have lots of data but don’t know what to do with it, the data is useless and you’ll just be wasting your marketing dollars.
No business has a budget for wasted money.
Fortunately, you can take the guesswork out of this process. We’ve previously discussed how you can use science to improve your marketing. Here’s an example from that article:
To optimize how you use data to help you make decisions, you must ask the right questions and focus on the relevant data. For example, if you’re wondering why or when your customers are leaving your site, consider what data you have that can help you answer those questions. You can look at customer complaints, payment history, the funnel customers follow when browsing your site, poor customer service experience, frequency of usage, etc.
Analyzing social media engagement, looking at the data in Google Analytics, and reviewing customer survey results can help you to understand where you can focus your efforts and where to deploy your marketing dollars.
You should build your marketing plan only after you’ve set goals.
2. Make social media a strategic part of your marketing efforts.
With a goal-based marketing plan, it’s easier to think carefully about maximizing a small marketing budget.
Today, it’s tough to market without investing some time and money into social media marketing channels.
As we wrote previously:
A 2017 study by Social Media Examiner reveals that 92% of marketers surveyed feel that social media is important to their business. 88% of those marketers said that social media has increased exposure and 78% of marketers listed increased traffic for their business (among other benefits like generating leads and increased sales).
But, like any other channel, social media is only as useful as the strategy behind it. For many business owners and marketers, figuring out what content to post on social media is a bit of a puzzle. We’ve heard many business owners and marketers ask “How do I use social media for my business?” or “How do I start social media marketing?”
Social media is fast, data-driven, and flexible. It’s instantaneous, provides large amounts of data, and is useful for most businesses to generate leads, build thought-leadership, or develop referral networks.
For more advice on social media marketing, including best practices, check out 7 Ways Your Small Business Can Market Better on Social Media.
3. Leverage free or inexpensive content marketing to stretch your budget.
Content marketing is another great way to stretch your small business marketing budget.
People love to consume content, but they hate seeing ads. That’s why content marketing has become so popular in the last few years. In fact, companies have even been turning to influencers for help on creating content.
Content marketing, like other forms of marketing, is about storytelling.
The good news is that content marketing is inexpensive. There are tons of free or low-cost content marketing tools that can help you stretch your budget.
And unless you pay for promoted posts, posting on sites like Facebook and Twitter is completely free.
While content marketing does take time, focusing on quality is a great way to keep costs and time to a minimum. As we previously wrote:
The majority of your content should not be promotional. Instead, ask yourself what your audience wants or needs to know. Then tailor your content to their interests or help them solve everyday problems.
Also, take the time to share updates about your company’s triumphs and exciting new ventures (assuming they’re genuine, of course). Share your brand’s journey to help build trust.
And, when you do write (less frequent) promotional content, speak from a position of truth and honesty. Show your audience how the product will benefit their everyday life without the slick hyperbole. Your product or service’s quality should be able to stand on its own.
Content doesn’t just mean writing. Videos and design are great ways to create quality content too.
In fact, everything about your brand is a form of content marketing.
A strong brand starts with a great business name and a memorable logo, but a brand is more than a name and logo. As we recently wrote in Powerful Branding Lessons From The World’s Best Brands (That Actually Work for Your Small Business):
A brand is the sum total of the experience your customers and customer prospects have with your company.
A strong brand communicates what your company does, how it does it, and at the same time, establishes trust and credibility with your prospects and customers.
Your company’s brand is, in many ways, its personality.
Your brand lives in everyday interactions your company has with its prospects and customers, including the images you share, the messages you post on your website, the content of your marketing materials, your presentations and booths at conferences, and your posts on social networks.
4. Creatively use public relations (PR) to build recognition.
Another way to make the most of your small marketing budget is to focus on public relations (PR).
This means finding ways to get the media to write about your business. As we previously wrote:
Don’t be afraid to pitch reporters — the stories that people like you bring to them are the lifeblood of any media outlet. Writers and editors are always looking for great story ideas and as long as your pitch is timely and on topic, they will listen. And just because they don’t bite on your current pitch, don’t give up – you should focus on developing the relationship by asking questions, giving and getting real-time feedback, and developing a one-on-one relationship which allows you to share useful information and give that writer the benefit of your own perspective and personality.
You don’t need a PR agency to do this for you. Build relationships and become your own PR manager:
PR professionals will tell you, correctly, that this is an industry built on relationships and build those, you must. Media professionals, journalists, bloggers and others will typically turn to people they know and sources they consider reliable when looking for opinions, quotes, or expert analysis. There is a symbiotic relationship that exists between these professionals and they are uniquely dependent on one another. PR professionals cannot be successful without placements and media professionals are reliant on the PR folk for leads, story ideas, and background material. Entrepreneurs can and should develop ongoing relationships with writers and others who can help their companies and whom they can also help when called upon.
Nor do you need a PR agency if you have a crisis. For more on this, read Reliable Strategies To Help Your Business Handle a PR Crisis.
5. Collaborate with others to reach bigger audiences.
Collaboration is a great way to maximize a small business marketing budget.
Partnerships can be really helpful to small businesses looking for a bigger audience.
This is a lesson smaller companies can learn from bigger Brands. As we wrote previously:
Global companies regularly collaborate to enhance their marketing message and enrich consumer experience. Smart brands recognize that their brand is more than just a company’s products and services – it’s also the ecosystem that surrounds those products and services. Such collaborative efforts are strategic – designed to combine creativity and expertise, and to broaden the appeal of both brands to more consumers around the world. In fact, even collaboration with environmental or charitable causes provides great value (but no direct financial value). See, for example, Levi’s collaboration with Water.org to highlight water conservation efforts.
6. Streamline your marketing tools and subscriptions.
Marketing tools are like cookies. Having a few is okay but having too many can cause a lot of problems.
It’s also very expensive!
It can be easy to fall into a pattern of subscribing to service after service that promises you better analytics, more streamlined content, and more customers.
But how many tools do you really need?
Depending on your company’s marketing plan, business goals, and marketing strategy, the tools you’ll need will vary.
For example, a company that uses social media moderately probably doesn’t need to subscribe to the highest tier of a social media management platform and pay hundreds of dollars per month. A $10 per month account on Buffer might be sufficient.
Maximizing your budget means carefully spending money in places where it makes the most sense.
If a tool you’re paying for isn’t helping you to make decisions or maximize your time, it might be time to cut ties.
We’ve previously written about many awesome tools and recommend you take a look to find tools that can help you with visual marketing and content marketing, as well as tools/apps that can help you run your business.
Let’s Wrap Up
If your marketing budget is still entirely consumed by advertising in the Yellow Pages, you’re probably wasting money.
At the end of the day, no matter your strategy, you want to break through the noise at a lower cost and stretch your marketing budget as far as it will go.
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Understanding Your Practice's Bottom Line
The delivery of high-quality care is the number one priority for physicians — but quality should be supported by sound financial management. Let's take a look at four steps you can take to help you understand what is driving the bottom line at your practice.
Three reports – the income statement, cash flow forecast, and balance sheet – can give you a clear, concise indication of your group's financial performance. From these reports, you can learn more about your cash flow. How is revenue trending? Are there any outliers in expenses? What is the forecast for cash flow based on procedure volume, modality mix, payer mix, and payment trends?
You want to compare current periods with prior years' performance and against the budget to reveal variances and trends. Reviewing measures such as revenue per full-time employee (FTE), compensation package per FTE, and overhead as a percentage of total expense will also help you understand whether your practice's performance is in line with your business plan and how your practice compares with other practices nationally.
With regard to benchmarks, be sure to benchmark data that you consider important to the growth of your practice. Common measures include work relative value units (wRVU) per day worked, average procedures per year per FTE, average collections per day per FTE, W2 per wRVU, new patients per month, and scheduling capacity. Obtaining these measures is critical, but even more important is using this information to drive business decisions.
Although claim denials may end up in the business office, they often start in the physician's office due to a lack of required, proper documentation. As an independent business owner, you need to stay up to date on proper documentation methods and continuous coding changes to lessen the likelihood of payment denials or long accounts receivable (AR) cycles. Identifying trends in front-end denials should lead to corrective training, education, and action. Similarly, practices must maintain and regularly review their payer contracts to ensure payer compliance and market rates are in place.
Keep in mind that each decision you make should comply with your groups financial, strategic, and patient care objectives. Therefore, your group should have a decision framework in place that provides an efficient process for making business decisions.
For example: Who has authority to decide? What are the financial and shareholder compensation implications? Is there a downside/upside? How soon must a decision be made?
Medical practices are unique businesses, and as an owner or administrator of this unique business, you may be well-served to seek revenue cycle management services, medical practice management services and/or, financial management advice from third-party experts aligned to the field.
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Review financial reports
Three reports – the income statement, cash flow forecast, and balance sheet – can give you a clear, concise indication of your group's financial performance. From these reports, you can learn more about your cash flow. How is revenue trending? Are there any outliers in expenses? What is the forecast for cash flow based on procedure volume, modality mix, payer mix, and payment trends?
You want to compare current periods with prior years' performance and against the budget to reveal variances and trends. Reviewing measures such as revenue per full-time employee (FTE), compensation package per FTE, and overhead as a percentage of total expense will also help you understand whether your practice's performance is in line with your business plan and how your practice compares with other practices nationally.
Define relevant benchmarks
With regard to benchmarks, be sure to benchmark data that you consider important to the growth of your practice. Common measures include work relative value units (wRVU) per day worked, average procedures per year per FTE, average collections per day per FTE, W2 per wRVU, new patients per month, and scheduling capacity. Obtaining these measures is critical, but even more important is using this information to drive business decisions.
Start with accurate documentation
Although claim denials may end up in the business office, they often start in the physician's office due to a lack of required, proper documentation. As an independent business owner, you need to stay up to date on proper documentation methods and continuous coding changes to lessen the likelihood of payment denials or long accounts receivable (AR) cycles. Identifying trends in front-end denials should lead to corrective training, education, and action. Similarly, practices must maintain and regularly review their payer contracts to ensure payer compliance and market rates are in place.
Connect the dots
Keep in mind that each decision you make should comply with your groups financial, strategic, and patient care objectives. Therefore, your group should have a decision framework in place that provides an efficient process for making business decisions.
For example: Who has authority to decide? What are the financial and shareholder compensation implications? Is there a downside/upside? How soon must a decision be made?
Medical practices are unique businesses, and as an owner or administrator of this unique business, you may be well-served to seek revenue cycle management services, medical practice management services and/or, financial management advice from third-party experts aligned to the field.
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