How to Reach New Practices to Promote Patient Education Seminars

Marketers, business development managers, sales professionals, outreach specialists and more at medical device companies know that helping doctors to educate patients drives real awareness in today’s marketplace.

Awareness leads to sales of course, but it’s more than that. It’s about creating a community of educated, engaged consumers.

With pharmaceutical companies spending gobs of cash on advertisements and stiff competition in the medical device world, healthcare marketing continues to challenge us all.

The question many teams are asking is “How do we reach more practices to promote patient education seminars?”

It’s the same questions many businesses ask in this world of Google, social media, email overload, cold call deafness and general advertising disdain, we’re all looking for innovative ways to reach our intended audiences.

What’s interesting is that we don’t necessarily hate all advertising and outreach efforts. We just have gotten better at sniffing out the really bad content. According to research from marketing and sales automation giant HubSpot, we don’t mind good ads, we just want control.

83% of people agree with the statement “Not all ads are bad, but I want to filter out the really obnoxious ones.”¹

77% agree with the statement “I wish there were a way to ad-filter instead of ad-block completely.”¹

Why People Block Ads (And What It Means for Marketers and Advertisers)

With this in mind, let’s look at a few ways to reach new practices to partner with on education seminars for patients.

Traditional Networking

In the era of Siri, Alexa and other AI platforms, the human connection still has power. It may even set you apart as many companies use chatbots and AI live chat. Sure, they’re great tools in moderation, but that human connection of traditional networking and truly bringing value goes a long way toward building relationships.

This may look like attending Rotary meetings, Chamber of Commerce events, conferences for your niche practice owner and other events where these doctors hang out.

Of course as with any networking strategy, it’s not about closing the sale on day one. As you know, it’s all about building bridges. You can do this through bringing value and serving your network. The more people you help, the more success you’ll see. Be more Zig Ziglar and less Blake.

Social Media – Organic

Using business-focused LinkedIn to connect with businesses can be efficient and profitable. It can also be difficult.

Much like traditional networking, the key here is to treat it like a relationship builder, not a sales tool.

You can design your profile to speak to the needs of doctors and owners of the practices, creating a headline like “I help doctors find new patients and deepen relationships with existing patients.”

Also, spend time searching for the right people with LinkedIn search and the “you should know” tool.

Regardless of the platform, social media is at its core, social. You can use these tools to show your human side and get to know your prospects. Understanding the needs of your personas and picking up on personal cues can help deepen existing connections and develop a digital referral network.

Social Media – Advertising

In addition to the social aspect of Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, you have the paid ad tool at your disposal. Getting your brand and its solutions in front of the right people can build awareness, making cold calls less cold, as well as drive leads.

The right imagery and copy can help doctors on their profiles connecting with family and friend see the future for their patients and their practice. Concentrate on things like geography, interests and demographics to get laser-focused on your audience.

Referrals

Is there any better source for new doctors and practices than happy customers? And what better way to find great partners than essentially cloning your happiest current partners?

Build your referral network through great service, real results, and asking happy doctors to refer you.

You can equip them with the tools to do so, from email templates to social media content to business cards. But the real tool is to make them so happy with your service and the events, and what Jay Baer calls Talk Triggers (seriously, check out this strategy), that you create true word of mouth marketing for you.

Also, you can solicit reviews from your happiest customers, including video clips of what they loved about this strategy of educating patients in-person and the their return on investment.

Multi-platform Approach

Finally, a great way to reach new practices to promote patient education seminars is to try more than one tool. A multi-platform approach can help reach new doctors and raise awareness about what you offer at your medical device company.

Here’s what that might look like when you’re launching a strategic outreach campaign:

Social media => website => email => phone call => direct mail

Not only does this show your interest, but it showcases how you can help market the event itself with the practice.

Patient education seminars can be a great way for medical device companies to market directly to consumers with great partners in a helpful, educational way so the general public understand the options available to them. Reaching those practices that turn out to be great partners comes down to relationships, awareness and service.

Notebook photo by David Travis on Unsplash
Handshake photo by rawpixel on Unsplash