Marketing can often seem like a complicated, complex discipline particularly if you've ever tackled one of the many weighty volumes dedicated to the subject. But the fact is that we are all consumers in one way or another and live in an environment where 'the brand is king', so in some small way we can all claim to know at least something about what marketing is.
Developing a marketing and communication plan for your practice does not in the first instance require finance to any great degree. What it requires is time and objectivity. No-one can develop a strategy for any type of business whilst wearing rose tinted spectacles; if you believe that everything about your practice is the very best it can be, congratulations, now is the time to retire! If however you are one of those many people who have a desire to improve your practice for the benefit of your patients, your staff and above all yourself, then you have at least the right motivation to succeed, what you now need is some guidance to help you through the process.
If we go back to basics, I believe marketing, in its simplest form is essentially about three key questions:
- Where are you?
- Where do you want be?
- How are you going to get there?
It logically follows that to answer the second and third questions you first have to establish exactly where your business is at a particular moment in time.
What may surprise you, is that you almost certainly already have the means to answer at least some of the question not least because it is all about your business, and who knows your business better than you? Well the reality is that as with most owner occupiers, sometimes it is difficult to see the wood for the trees, and objective decision making and realistic planning can undoubtedly be helped by your ability to obtain sound, accurate business information.
The use of robust software systems to help you establish facts about your business are valuable in that they give you the opportunity to qualitatively analyse the current position of your practice and also make it easier to obtain quantitative data that will help you understand the current position of your practice. It is a valuable exercise to think in both qualitative and quantitative terms as this helps to substantiate your aims and objectives and gives definite criteria by which to measure success.
Establishing where you are needs to be done by analysing defined key performance indicators (KPIs) for your business such as recall effectiveness, chairtime utilisation, top ten treatments by value. The ability to obtain accurate information in these key areas gives you the scope to understand where inefficiencies exist and how you can best improve productivity and performance.
For instance, recalls are one of the fundamental factors in running a successful practice and having up-to-date statistics on recall effectiveness allows you to appreciate the viability of various recall methods and also helps you to understand the 'knock-on' effect of a reduction or an increase in recall uptake. The timing of recalls also has a significant impact on the level of appointments for the following month and knowledge in this area helps you to accurately forecast purchases, staff rotas and holidays and plan ad hoc events such as team training.
The amount of time each chair in the practice is in use is another key productivity indicator and the analysis of data can help you understand trends and predict slow down with a greater degree of accuracy, which in turn enables more accurate planning. If chairside time is under-utilised, there is usually a good reason, business data will let you identify where shortfalls exist and develop strategies to help fill gaps in your appointment book.
Establishing where your practice is, gives you the ability to plan for the future, knowing how and whether to expand the practice in key treatment areas, understanding what level of capacity the practice needs to function at to be profitable and ultimately can provide you with the information you need to be able to modify elements of your day-to-day operations that can have a significant impact on turnover and gross income.
Most practice management systems can provide you with a certain level of information that will help you embark on this marketing journey, but at Software of Excellence, we understand that this process can be difficult to achieve on your own. Our recognition of the value of robust, accurate business information has led us to take the process one step further. The development of THRIVE Business Services is aimed at helping practices understand where they are in relation to a defined set of KPIs. Our THRIVE consultants then work with principals and practice managers to interrogate the data inside EXACT to understand the practice's current position, facilitating realistic goal setting, which, when supported by regular monitoring, provides a complete business programme.
The power of business knowledge should never be underestimated, it is the foundation on which successful planning is built. The more accurate the information you can take from your business, the more targeted your planning will be. Marketing is a constantly evolving process; it changes as economic conditions change, it alters with the advent of new technology and needs to be flexible enough to cope with differing patient demands. Being able to access updated business information quickly, easily and on a regular basis gives you the tools to take firm control of your practice and your future.