Running that super-discount limited-number voucher offer with the countdown clock didn’t just fail to bring in qualified new patients, it may also have damaged your brand (how people perceive your practice) by making you look like a smarmy used car salesman, desperate to make a deal.
A strong brand is one that is top of mind with the prospective audience, with a positive image and a clear understanding of its value to them.
Brand damage occurs when the perceived value and trustworthiness of a practice are negatively affected, often due to poor marketing strategies.
One example of brand damage is when a marketing company promotes a high-quality clinic as a cheap, discounted service, confusing potential patients and attracting the wrong type of person in the door.
This damages the clinic’s reputation in two ways.
First, while the campaign might bring in dozens of people, thousands and thousands more people saw the advertisement and created an opinion of the practice from it.
Next, those dozens and dozens of low-quality patients that came in were not a good fit and tended to not become success stories from care.
These people then go out into the community talking about how they tried that practice and “it didn’t work”.
Of course, it takes more than a typo or a few simple marketing mistakes to damage a brand.
To identify brand damage, monitor the quality of incoming calls and walk-ins. If you are attracting the wrong type of customer or receiving fewer referrals, your brand may be damaged.
Brand rehabilitation can be a slow process, often requiring two to three times the duration of the damaging marketing campaign. Some aspects of brand damage may never be fully repaired, but significant improvements can be made.
Of course, there are many more things to know in order to create a consistent flow of qualified new patients for your practice.
To save time, many practitioners choose to partner with my agency, The Customer Factory.
To find out if our marketing program is a good fit for your practice visit our website and book a 15-minute Discovery call.
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