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What’s So Special About You? |
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What Madison Avenue Advertisers Know About Branding That Most Doctors Don’t |
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This is the first of a 2-part series on creating a brand for your podiatry practice. |
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Creating a Brand Identity |
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Honestly, this is the area clients seem to struggle with the most – the idea of differentiating themselves from all other podiatry practices. I believe this is a reflection of our training, where we were taught to be linear, factual and consistent with all the known scientific evidence. |
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That makes us great clinicians but lousy marketers. If we don’t stretch our minds to be more creative, or hire someone to do that for us and implement their ideas, our success as business people will be considerably limited. |
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Let’s look at how a compelling brand for your practice can be created. Can you imagine going on a trip without knowing the reason for the journey, the route to be taken or even the destination? How long will it take? How will you get there? How will you know when you have arrived? |
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Of course, you can’t, but realize that most podiatrists advertise their practices in exactly that way. They invest their time and money with no clear sense of who their ideal patient is (including demographic and psychographic specifics), who their best payors are, who they need to target; or what specific patient wants and needs that they are uniquely able to serve. |
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A practice that tries to establish universal appeal, attempting to please everyone, often ends up pleasing no one. |
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What Is A USP? |
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To be successful, a podiatry practice must have a Unique Selling Position: something that sets it apart from its competitors in a way that resonates with its target patients. Your USP is your elevator speech. If you were on an elevator with someone and they asked you what you do, you would respond with your USP. |
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Your USP answers this very important patient question: “Why should I choose you over all other podiatrists in the market and all the other non-medical alternatives, including the choice to do nothing?” Your USP is a profound concept because it crystallizes your identity in the patient’s mind and provides an operational direction for you and your staff. |
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It is how you do what you do. It should make people say “How do they do that?” It is what differentiates you from the other podiatrists in your market. It declares in meaningful, specific language what benefits you offer that match up with your ideal patient’s most cherished wants. And it says it all in one or a few sentences. |
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Examples of USPs |
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It’s easiest to think of USP by considering businesses other than podiatry practice. See if you recognize these: |
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When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. |
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Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free. |
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6 CDs for a dollar! |
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The only birth control pill that treats acne. |
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Notice in the Domino’s Pizza example, there’s no mention made of the quality of the pizza. The most important factors for Domino’s customers are timeliness and consistency, not taste. They built a multi-billion dollar business selling pizza that was not the best tasting. There’s a lesson there. |
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Be First, Even If You Have To Change the Rules of the Game |
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You will never build a memorable position in the marketplace unless you’re the first to offer something memorable. |
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Be the first to offer an important product or service that your patient already desires. Make sure that it is not |
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offered by your competition. |
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Work in a very small niche market, usually a thousand prospects or less. Position yourself as exclusively serving that |
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market. Exclusivity commands higher prices for the same service. |
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Align yourself with a sports team, especially high school and college track teams. |
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Target limited neighborhoods and health conditions, set unique hours, offer one-of-a-kind attitudes and behaviors, |
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establish specific delivery of information, queuing for follow up and access methods, provide unusual or interactive environment |
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Your Ideal Target Patient |
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Which patients you attract is often more important than how many. We work extensively with our clients on analyzing their payor mix, CPT coding and frequency of procedures booked to grow their practices intelligently. Take the time to do this in your practice. |
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I suggest you make a matrix of your most common procedural and E/M codes on one axis and payors on the other. Apply the 80-20 rule: 20% of your activities bring 80% of the results. Redesign your office processes and marketing to support doing more of the top 20% activities. |
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Tools to Build a Great USP |
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You should have at least ten USPs. Rank them from most preferred to least preferred. Here are the first 3 of our 7-step proprietary process to build your USP: |
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When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. |
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Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free. |
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6 CDs for a dollar! |
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The only birth control pill that treats acne. |
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Additionally we use a set of 7 directional questions to drill down to the most meaningful differentiating statement. 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. |
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