Think of McDonald’s, FedEx, Nike, and Gatorade. Play word association. What thoughts come to mind? What experiences have you had when using their products? Your answer to that question reflects how well those companies have branded themselves.

A brand is an experience and emotion based perception that a company attempts to create in its customers mind. It does this through the look, feel, price and performance of its product or service, as well as through advertising. Your emotional associations determine how you feel about these products or services, how you use them and to whom you recommend them.

Now, what do your patients think of when they think about you and your practice? Do they believe in your unique ability to satisfy their health concerns? Do they relate to your staff? Are you ‘just another doctor’, not much different from all the ones they have seen before? Are your services a commodity to them? For your patients, is seeing the doctor all about getting the best price for this commodity?

Once you create the right brand for yourself in your patients’ minds, you’ll have patients that visit you more, that follow your treatment recommendations better, that don’t fight you on price and payment, and that refer other good patients into your practice.

But first you have to convince them with your brand. You have to help them to understand that you have something that they need. In the second part of this series we’ll give you an outline to guide you through this process.

How much will your practice spend on its super bowl television commercial this year? If you’re a good negotiator, you could get a thirty-second spot for just 1 million dollars, a real bargain. Why won’t you have one?

Because you can’t afford it. You’re not trying to get people to drink Coke over Pepsi. Your market is regional, not national. You serve a relatively small base of patients.

But the people who sell you advertising get paid based on how much of their media you buy. They’ll tell you “it’s all in the numbers”. Run an ad nine times to get seen or heard three times and remembered once. Then maybe someone will book an appointment.

Then, according to the rep, reinvest some of your profits back into more and bigger ads and soon you’ll end up rich! Or will you? It bears repeating, the people who are selling advertising – good-natured though they are –want you to buy more media. They recommend an approach that is patterned after the big guns: Coke, Pepsi and Chevrolet.

Although the frequency message is actually correct, it misses the larger point that boring, manipulative sales messages turn off more people than they engage. Your ad sales rep probably won’t help you write the copy of your ad. The may, out of human kindness, show you what other podiatrists are running. And those ads all look pretty much the same. What do they look like?

A business card. The headline is their name. There may be something in about good patient care by friendly caring folks. Some mention of office hours and types of payment accepted.

What sane person who saw these ads would be persuaded to call for an appointment? These types of ads don’t speak to patients’ core needs and wants, what keeps them awake at night. They don’t promise to solve any of your patients’ important issues. They just talk about how great the doctor is. Who cares?

Your message has to resonate with patients by answering the question, “What’s in it for me?” You can convey that to your patients – and take your market by storm – by figuring out what your patients want in the first place… what really troubles them… and making your identity, your reason for existing in the market, the answer to that problem.

That’s what a brand really does. It identifies in the patient’s mind what key needs of theirs you are going to satisfy. Only you don’t have Citibank’s ad budget to create that understanding in your patient’s minds.

Fortunately, you don’t have to. There are more efficient methods to accomplish that, like the ones we teach our coaching members. Our members know how to create a memorable brand and be the dominant thought in their patient’s minds without going broke trying.

By the way, the secret that Madison Avenue executives know is this: In general, good advertising will always overcome a mediocre product, but mediocre advertising never helps a good product. Do you know of any successful doctors whose clinical skills are not all that great? I guess we all do.

In part two, we’ll cover what a USP is, how to build one (with do-it-yourself exercises included) as well as how to identify your ideal target patient. Creating your USP is foundational to everything else you do to promote your practice, even if you don’t run any ads. Practice-building is really simple and actionable even though it sometimes appears counter-intuitive to the beginner.