7 Steps to Growing Your Integrative Medicine Practice in 2015

I want to ring in the New Year by offering 7 core approaches for exponentially increasing patient volume, boosting product sales and reinvigorating the bottom line!

1. Rethink Your Business/Clinic Model

Delivering comprehensive individualized care within a third-party insurance reimbursement model and achieving positive patient outcomes yet suffering economically? Treading the relentless conventional internal medicine hamster wheel to dutifully snuff out chronic disease symptoms within 10 minute office visits? Sound familiar? Right now may be the perfect time to rethink your professional and economic future. Fortunately, you have readily available business model options that can be tailored to your specific customer demographics and needs.

Suggested FON reading:

The Best Clinic and Business Model for Integrative Medicine
How to Get Paid Delivering Integrative Medicine
Is Concierge Integrative Medicine a Viable Model for You?

2. Reimagine Your Website for Modern Digital Communication

Is your static website more like a digital brochure promoting products, services and bona fides? If so, you need critical help.

Business today, including health and medicine, is evermore about your patients and customers; not about you. Thus, it’s absolutely vital that your site is well-structured and designed for instant, meaningful engagement. Current studies clearly show you have a mere six seconds to grab your customer’s attention by offering concise, useful content rendered flawlessly across screens both large and small.

Suggested FON reading:

7 Effective Website Design Attributes for Integrative Health Brands

3. Grow Your Email List

“The gold’s in your customer list.” That’s right—email marketing. While not the shiniest or latest marketing tool, it remains powerfully effective assuming you’re providing real value. In exchange for your visitor’s email address, try offering an exclusive, premium piece of content available from your site as a helpful “gift”. For example, special e-books and guides within an area of your expertise with broad consumer interest make absolutely perfect gifts. Capture email addresses from your site, clinic location, community events and all places you connect with patients and prospects. After earning their trust and respect, many within your growing community will, over time, become loyal patients and customers.

[By the way, are you a current FON subscriber receiving helpful content like this delivered to your inbox? Sign up here. See how that’s done?!]

4. Focus on Content Strategy

I ran a successful media company for 25 years and have written extensively on content: strategy, creation and distribution. Why? Because nothing engages buyers more than consistently delivered quality content.

I’m here to tell you that businesses today are also, by and large, publishers!

That’s right. Corporations have “become” the media. Creating and controlling one’s “own” content (media) is unequivocally today’s most effective form of marketing. Not surprisingly, within the next 10 years brand journalism (aka branded content) will surpass traditional media outlet generated content!

Suggested FON reading:

The Power of Content to Grow Your Integrative Medicine Business
Integrative Medicine is a Story, Not an Advertisement

5. Focus on Non-Digital Practice-Building Activities

Many of yesteryear’s best practice building staples are as equally relevant and applicable today, yet, remarkably, too often neglected in the quest to build patient volume.

To what extent are you engaging your community and developing trust? Participating at community health fairs? Sharing expertise with health consumers and medical professionals? Have you recently considered a direct mail campaign to your current patient panel or a target list of prospective local clients? These are all perfect vehicles for pitching new services, programs and products as well as introducing newly hired practitioners.

Suggested FON reading:

12 Ways to Grow Your Integrative Medicine Practice… Beyond Internet Marketing
Traditional Marketing for Integrative Medicine Still Effective

6. Be Your Authentic Self. Give More.

Perhaps you got into this field seeking a better clinical delivery model after personally experiencing and overcoming a chronic medical condition, a serious health scare or witnessing a broken conventional disease and symptom management system.

Who are you? What’s your story? What’s your expertise? What’s your passion and desire? This isn’t about selling; it’s about genuinely connecting with customers, helping and paying it forward. Give more to receive more. Authenticity always rings true, resonates loudly and invariably builds your brand and business.

Suggested FON reading:

Grow Patient Volume By Marketing Less

7. Overcome Fear and Do the Work!

Most entrepreneurs, business owners and leaders—including many of today’s brilliant household names—have endured hurdles, setbacks and failures before ultimately rebounding to achieve extraordinary professional and personal success.

Understand that fear is largely irrational energy that unnecessarily feeds into self-inflicted distress. Believe me; you’re much better off applying that same energy constructively to your chosen work.

Whoever said “failure is not an option” was over-simplifying the fact that, more often than not, one passes failure along the road to success. While failure in and of itself is not typically devastating, failure to adapt surely is. [Click to tweet]

Suggested FON reading:

Create Your Integrative Medicine Future: Overcome Fear, Do the Work

By implementing these 7 core strategies in 2015, you’ll best position your business for long-term success!

About FON

FON is a leading integrative health and medicine business development and strategy consulting firm. FON specializes in custom solutions for growing patient volume, developing programs, and increasing product sales. Our practical business models are driven by innovative marketing, clear messaging, and customer engagement via branded storytelling.

Contact us today to schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation to discuss your business development or personal brand needs.