The "Healthcare Practice Growth Secrets" Interview
Jason's "New Patient Funnel" Diagram
Interview Transcript
Mike:
I’d love to welcome everyone today to a very special interview.
On today’s interview we are going to talk to an expert at growing Healthcare practice businesses.
Today we’re talking with Jason Loewen.
Jason is the Owner and CEO at My Business Connections, an online marketing firm focused on growing Healthcare practice businesses using digital marketing.
In this interview, Jason is going to walk us through the unique way that they can help their Healthcare Practitioner clients grow their monthly revenue using a unique and strategic online marketing Strategy.
Jason. Welcome to the Interview.
Jason:
Thanks, Mike. It’s great to be here and get to share all the fun stuff with the audience. Let’s get to it!
Mike:
Ok first big question.
What led you to starting My Business Connections and why do you focus exclusively on working with Healthcare Practices?
Jason:
Well I wish I could say there was some big master plan to it, but honestly, it just stems from me being a paramedic, and as it is with most healthcare practitioners, having a desire to help others coupled with me being a bit of a tech nerd. I was like, “How can I combine my interests into something that I really enjoy doing?”, and this is where My Business Connections was born!
A few years into my career as a paramedic, I sustained an injury. I had to seek services from other healthcare practitioners more than I had ever had to in the past. One of these practitioners that I received an immense amount of help from was in the infancy of his independent practice and had just started his practice a couple of months prior to me visiting him. I observed some of the challenges that are faced with new practices like this as well as observed some things established practices are neglecting to do to really boost their credibility online and ultimately their bottom line. Through this we put together systems that healthcare practices can put to use with relative ease and in turn we can play a role in helping these healthcare practitioners help more people.
Mike:
So what kind of Healthcare Practices do you work with specifically?
Jason:
We will work with all healthcare practices but we focus more so on the practices in the private sector as they have a greater need to have a well structured internet presence which builds their reputation and builds a good brand image; whereas practitioners in the public sector do not have to rely on good brand image as heavily.
An example of healthcare practitioners we work with are doctors, dentists, chiropractors, midwives, physiotherapists, massage therapists, psychiatrists, or counselors. Of course we’ll work with any healthcare practitioners and this is in no way a comprehensive list of who we’ll work with but these are the ones we focus on mainly.
Mike:
I love it. So let’s get to the part everyone is waiting for. I’d like for you to walk us through the exact strategy that you put in place for all of your Healthcare Practice clients that gets them new business using the internet.
What is the core framework of your system?
Jason:
We call it our “New Patient Funnel” and we focus on overhauling 3 core components in every healthcare practice that we work with.. The 3 components that make up that funnel are the Website, Social Media, and getting Google Reviews.
Underneath each of those elements we have systems in place that get us to our ultimate goal of getting more new customers. But at the core, a lot of what we do is to take a healthcare practice’s Website, Social Media, and Review getting process and make it actually work for the business instead of it being just something that someone set up because they thought they were supposed to.
I can definitely dive more into how all of that works.
Mike:
Ok… so how do all of those pieces fit together?
Jason:
So let’s start with the Website.
Most businesses just set one up because they know that they are supposed to. When that happens the website typically doesn’t do much for them because it’s missing some pieces and it has a lot of pieces that it doesn’t need. One of the core things that you have to understand about a Healthcare Practice website is that it’s essentially just a table of contents. People come to a healthcare practice’s website to find practitioner info, or the phone number, or the location as well as to book appointments. This is the basic stuff that everyone understands. What a lot of people miss is what’s going on in the background. When people come to a website, they are most often looking for the “Vibe” of the place and who the practitioners are.
So a lot of our focus is making sure the branding on the website is insanely attractive when a new person visits it. But more important than that even is making sure that the website is a lead collection tool. We equip every site we build with a way to collect leads and the bait to get them to sign up for something. An example of that bait might be a free mini service or a discount off of their first treatment. It also might be something as simple as a way to sign up for alerts for the practice’s specials they have going on. And once we have those people on an email or text marketing list, we can send them all kinds of reasons to come in. And most of those emails and text messages are automated… so the owner or managers don’t have to do anything to make it continue to work for the business.
From there, we dig into social media.
Potential patients go to your website to get the vibe of the place. They go to your social media to get a peek at what’s going on inside of the practice and get to know better who the practitioners are. The first key with social media is that we make sure the branding looks professional and consistent with the overall branding of the business and website. The second key is that we are posting daily content that relates to all of the things going on in the business that week or month. So many businesses lose out on customers because people weirdly assume that if a social media page is dead that the business is also dead. We make sure to keep a businesses social media pages posting good content, without adding any workload on to their staff.
We accomplish this through a 90/10 rule of what to post.
10% of the content that we post is new content. 90% of what we post to a practice’s page is what we call “rotated content”. This is content that catches people’s eyes and gets them excited about the business but is repeated over and over again. This gets the job done of making the page active without it being a huge time or financial cost for the business.
The big deal with social media is that it’s also always pointing people back to the website, where we are collecting leads (and then marketing to those leads via email and text).
Finally, there is review marketing.
One of the most effective tools for growing any healthcare practice is just what the general public is saying about your practice. Your website and social media are your opinions about your practice. Google Reviews are what other people think about your practice.
Most business owners hate reviews before we start working with them because they are leaving their reviews to chance. The reason behind that is because usually the only reason someone leaves a review is when they have a bad experience and need to vent.
The key is to implement systems so that your biggest fans have a reason to leave reviews and that outweighs the occasional bad review.
Both the website, social media, and your staff should constantly be asking for reviews. That can be hard if you don’t have a system in place. We have tools on both our client’s websites, social media, and cards that the staff hands out that encourage reviews from happy customers.
A quick trick for every one listening.
We use QR code and NFC cards in our client’s businesses. When someone is obviously having a good experience, the staff member presents that card and asks for a review for the business and to mention them in it. If the customer isn’t having a good experience, we take care of that the best we can in house, but we don’t present them with a card. This, and what we do online, results in tons of new positive reviews each week.
When someone new is looking for a place to check out, all those positive reviews add up fast. On top of that, it also helps our practice rank higher in Google faster for the keywords that they are after.
Mike:
I love all of that. So what do you consider a successful result of this system at the end of every month?
Jason:
Our goal within the first three months of implementation is to add 10k to the bottom line of our healthcare practice clients. After that it’s just keeping that number steady and adding to it little by little as the reviews and marketing list grow.
Mike:
Ok… so lets say that a Healthcare Practice wants to get started with your system.
Where do they go to sign up?
Jason:
If anyone wants to apply to become a client all you have to do is go to mybusinessconnections.com, and message me using the Contact Box. I love meeting new folks in the industry and talking shop so I’ll get back to you within 48 hours to chat.
Mike:
And what happens once a new Healthcare Practice signs up? What is the onboarding process like?
Jason:
As soon as someone signs up with us, we have them select a point of contact in their business that will be who we talk to. This is going to be our connection to the business and someone who can handle getting us everything we need. This helps because it takes the pressure off of busy managers and owners so that they don’t have to be that person. We collect brand information and start designing mockups right away. Typically we are ready to showcase a “New Patient Funnel” for a business within two weeks.
That’s website, social media assets, and review systems. The point of contact approves the stuff they like and then lets us know what doesn’t work. We fix any issues and are ready to go within 4 weeks of initial sign up.
From there, we get everything live. Over the next month, we monitor everything to make sure everything is working. We tweak anything that isn’t connecting and work closely with our point of contact with once a week meetings. After we get it dialed in, we typically only have to talk with the business once a month and that’s just us checking in.
The best part of our “New Patient Funnel” is that once it gets to working, it's pretty hands off for the business owner, manager, and the employees. We take care of everything and it just brings in alot of new business.
Mike:
If you could give any piece of advice to a business owner providing healthcare services who was looking to grow using the internet besides all of the good stuff you’ve already laid out… what would that advice be?
Jason:
My biggest piece of advice is to just get started with digital. We obviously have great systems in place so that we can work with businesses and get this done without it costing them an arm and a leg. Even if you don’t work with us though, just get started.
An hour a day working on your social media can be absolutely huge to your bottom line. It won’t click right away (which is why people get discouraged), but if you consistently put in the time, you will see it affecting your bottom line. My advice to the healthcare practice owners out there is to just get started and try to make a little bit of time for it daily… even if it’s not an hour and only 15 minutes.
Mike:
I love it.
To everyone listening, I hope that you’ve pulled a ton out of our interview with Jason today. I can’t wait for this to be shared with Healthcare practice owners.
Jason, thanks for being with us today for this interview.
And like Jason said, if you have any questions, you can connect with him at jason@mybusinesscxns.com or at 1-888-671-2522.
Thanks for listening to this special interview today.
