As a provider of BHRT, there’s so much to learn on the clinical side, and then there’s the BHRT marketing end.

We were lucky to have Rich Force, the CEO of Florida-based Medical Marketing Solutions Company, teach us about BHRT marketing at a recent event.

Who is Rich Force?

I first met Rich Force before we took the BHRT Training Academy online.

Rich got most of his initial experience in the health club industry and then moved into training physicians and other medical practitioners on how to market and sell treatment programs.

He started Medical Marketing Solutions several years ago after realizing that most practitioners wanted to practice, not sell services.

A proponent of BHRT, he now trains practitioners in marketing and sales conversions, lead generation, and consulting.

He helps his practice partners boost revenue by assisting them in developing and market services not covered by insurance.

How to Find Success in BHRT Marketing

Here’s what Rich had to share in his presentation on BHRT marketing success:

Your BHRT programs are highly beneficial for your patients.

To be successful, you need a marketing strategy, which means getting the word out and separating that marketing strategy into what we can do internally and what we can do externally.

As a practitioner, you’re always in contact with patients or prospective patients. Sales aren’t something you do to sell to someone; sales are something to do for someone.

Every time you’re speaking to someone, you might be talking about a basic BHRT program, but there’s something in addition that you think they might benefit from; it’s in your best interest and theirs to talk to them about it.

So if you hate “selling,” try to think of it this way: You’re not selling it to them. You’re introducing it to them and educating them about all the benefits of BHRT.

BHRT Marketing: 4 Key Digital Components

The reality is there is a lot more than just having a website. Internal marketing is all the things you do within your BHRT practice that promote the practice.

Website

How To Find Success With BHRT Marketing

To be great, your website has to do three specific things: educate, market, and sell.

I would say probably 95% of the websites we look at need anywhere from a bit of improvement to a whole new website.

Investing in your website is vital because it’s the online equivalent of your physical practice.

When somebody lands on your website, you want them to know what you do. If you just write “we are BHRT providers,” people will not know what that means.

But if you write, “we enhance energy, sleep, libido and help you get in better shape,” then somebody will think, I want to increase my energy and get better sleep.

Your website should also be:

  • Fast
  • Optimized for mobile
  • Well-planned
  • Full of quality content
  • User-friendly

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

How To Find Success With BHRT Marketing

SEO is about digitally optimizing your website.

The goal is to get the highest possible ranking results in a search engine organically, which means you’re not paying extra fees to get leads.

Let’s say someone is interested in your BHRT services and uses Google to search (there are other search engines, but Google dominates the market).

So once your website is published live, somebody must be behind the scenes, constantly optimizing that website for Google.

When helping practitioners understand this, I always ask, “if you were looking up your practice, what would you be looking for?” So, just type that in and see if you can find your practice.

If you don’t show up, then you need to think about how to fix this problem. It doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have good SEO; it just means that maybe those specific keywords that came to your mind when you’re typing in a phrase didn’t show up.

You want to make sure that your SEO is focused on the best BHRT keywords for your BHRT practice.

Google provides you with analysis tools, but you will want to get help with this. You are going to pay for your SEO service, but it is invaluable. Ensure that whoever’s doing this is a Google certified partner or at least that they have a reputation for following best practices.

Email and SMS Marketing

How To Find Success With BHRT Marketing

Email marketing is always a very powerful way to stay connected to your patients, as well as past and prospects.

For BHRT marketing, you want to build a list, an email database, and a very robust database of email subscribers because this will allow you always to maintain close relationships with them.

When you’re sending out emails, it doesn’t need to be selling something; it should be more educating and maybe a call to action. But you always want to ask people for their email addresses.

As for text messaging, whether you end up deleting it or not, you’re usually looking at it. So again, e-mail marketing and SMS marketing are some of the things we provide in my business.

We don’t want to be overbearing; we want to give them just enough to stay interested and, hopefully, one day, become a part of the practice and take advantage of your BHRT services or other treatments.

Social Media

How To Find Success With BHRT Marketing

Social media is a critical component of BHRT marketing because it’s all about building a community of loyal followers.

When we talk about selling, we’re not necessarily talking about, hey, you have to do this or that. We are planting seeds.

Social media is excellent for educating people, making sure that they see the benefit, and why they should come to you instead of going to a competitor.

Here you can highlight your BHRT services to them through visuals like before and after pictures.
You want to pull at people’s emotional heartstrings, and this is an excellent place to do it.

BHRT Marketing: Inside the Clinic

Word-of-mouth advertising is the best, and it doesn’t cost you any money.

If patients have a great experience, and if the treatments work, your patients will go out and tell everybody they know.

I’m sure that you’re offering different treatments and services in each of your practices that go hand in hand. So how is it that you sell those treatments or get people involved?

To start, you want to have the inside of your practice be a marketing home where things are strategically placed throughout the practice that will pique the interest of your patients.

Tips for BHRT marketing in-office:

  • Give out brochures
  • Prepare educational materials in a take-home package
  • Give patients a comprehensive list of services
  • Have people sign in when they enter your practice
  • Ask questions on the sign-in iPad or sheet — for instance, what are some other services that interest you?
  • Have a list of four questions in mind for discussion in the first inquiry
  • Tie each question to an emotional need
  • Have professionally made video loops, including testimonials on your waiting room TV
  • Make sure all inquiries are monitored, recorded, and annotated for follow-up.

Also, make sure that your staff, answering the phones, always answers the phone with a customer service and sales mentality.

Everyone in your practice should be able to answer questions about all procedures or treatment plans that you offer.

BHRT Marketing: Lead Conversion

If someone is interested, how do we get that person to become a patient?

Getting leads is not easy. Converting the leads you have is probably the most uncomfortable and the most challenging part for most practices.

I love to find out what’s going on in their life, and I love to show them solutions. So, we kind of make it a partnership or a friendship.

No matter how much internal or external BHRT marketing you do, you have to be able to convert your prospects into patients.

  1. To track the success of your BHRT marketing activities, you should be setting up monthly goals.
  2. I believe that paid consults give you better results than free consults. I guarantee you, anyone who pays $150 or $200 for a consultation is going to show up, and if they’re not, they’re going to call you. Now, if they schedule a free consult, there is a real good chance they’re not going to show up.
  3. Have a solid BHRT pricing strategy. Ask yourself: How are we doing our BHRT programs? Are we charging every month? Are we doing it every quarter? Make sure you allow time for your follow-up labs and where you can redo your adjustments if necessary.
  4. Track patient information. Are you keeping it all on a spreadsheet? Is it written down?
  5. Always follow up on your email inquiries as quickly as possible.

Remember your list of emails and what you have; those are always potential sales down the line. Technically only 3% of people will buy on their first time with you. So that’s 97% who are not buying unless you have just an excellent sales and conversion team.

If you have their information and they give it to you willingly, you now have permission to communicate with them and keep them in the loop.

When you speak to people and have inquiries, your team should be converting around 30% of your inquiries into consultations or from the web, views to follow-ups. This is critical.

If you’re interested in becoming a bioidentical hormone replacement therapy provider, drop me a line!

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