Branding and Marketing for Medical Practice with Denise Blasevick

In this episode, Barbara and Denise discuss:

• How Branding and Marketing is Important to a Business
• How you can Establish your Own Brand
• How to stand out in the Competition
• What makes your Practice unique

Key Takeaways:

“You want people to be spreading the word about you in the way that you want.” – Denise Blasevick

Connect with Denise Blasevick:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deniseblasevick

Website: http://www.thes3agency.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdvertGirl

Connect with Barbara Hales:

Twitter:   @DrBarbaraHales

Facebook:   facebook.com/theMedicalStrategist

Business website: www.TheMedicalStrategist.com

Show website:   www.MarketingTipsForDoctors.com

Email:   Barbara@TheMedicalStrategist.com

Books:

• Content Copy Made Easy
• 14 Tactics to Triple Sales
• Power to the Patient: The Medical Strategist

YouTube: TheMedicalStrategist

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/barbarahales

TRANSCRIPTION (095)

Dr. Barbara Hales: Welcome to another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Today, we have with us Denise Blasevick. She is a self-proclaimed Battler of Boring Branding. She helps healthcare marketers maximize the power and value of their brand.

Denise is the CEO and Co-Founder of The S3 Agency, a creative agency that has helped elevate brands from BMW motorcycles to Becton Dickinson. And she is here to show how doctors can leverage their brands to build stronger bonds with today’s healthcare consumer.

Denise: Thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be here.

The S3

Dr. Barbara Hales: We are thrilled to have you here today! The first question that comes to mind is, what does S3 stand for?

Denise: S3 is a system of threes. What we mean by that is the smallest pattern that the human brain can remember is something in threes. And our goal is to make sure that our clients are memorable, that their brands are memorable, so that they are able to grow their businesses.

Importance of Brand

Dr. Barbara Hales: Many doctors are saying “People know that I am a cardiologist” or whatever specialty they are. “Why do I need a brand?” What would you tell them?

Denise Blasevick: We work with brands to help them appeal more to healthcare consumers. And I think that’s the critical term. It used to be that patients didn’t have the amount of choices or access to knowledge, whether or not it’s true knowledge. But access to what they think is knowledge like they have now, Dr. Google. People are able to find what they think they have, before they go to a doctor.

They feel like they’re a little bit of an expert because they’re able to search among many doctors versus going to whoever might have been recommended to them. They look and see what ratings doctors have and how other people have had experiences with them. And all of that together means that patients are really now more consumers of health care with many choices. Therefore, we need to think about what our brand is like consumers.

Healthcare Consumers

Dr. Barbara Hales: Why do you call patients healthcare consumers?

Denise Blasevick: It’s because they are consuming what they are choosing to consume. In the past it’s “This is the only doctor I can go to.” Now, people are making decisions based on other things. There are doctors that they can find easily online. They might do Telehealth that doesn’t necessarily have to be close to them. They are influenced by many more things than “Is this person a good doctor,” which is sad but true.

I understand that physicians have gone through medical school and their practices are verified who are making an enormous difference in people’s lives. But this marketing aspect has become important for them because the reality is, someone can go into a doctor’s office, that might be the best doctor for them, and have a bad experience. Then they will write about it, tell other people about it, go on social media, and never go back. Other people who might have come there and had a great experience with a doctor might not do that. So that whole idea that consumer mentality has permeated the medical world.

Establishing your Brand

Dr. Barbara Hales: What types of mechanisms do you use to establish branding? Do you do Facebook ads or advertising elsewhere? What is it that you recommend to the potential clients?

Denise: The most important thing before we start thinking tactically about things like ads or however they’re going to be communicating, it’s what they are communicating. Think about how they are differentiating themselves. Know why it is important and why the experience with one health specialist is better than the other. Understand who your patients are and why they come to you instead of going to someone else.

Once you figure out what appeals about you to the patient you appeal to, determine how you are going to execute your branding. It could be social media or even signs on the highway. There are many ways and that depends on where those patients are, how you’re trying to reach them, and the message you want to get across.

Realizing What Makes your Practice Unique

Dr. Barbara Hales: What if your health professional says, “I have no idea why people come to me? I don’t really know what makes me unique than the four other doctors in this medical building.” Do you help them realize what they’re all about and what their treasures are?

Denise Blasevick: Absolutely! We’ll sit down and do an analysis with them. If they are willing to involve talking to other people about them, they can ask patients if they would be willing to have a conversation. Sometimes, it’s weird for the doctor or with this professional who’s trying to figure out what it is that makes a patient want to be my patient because I’d like other people like you to know about me.

Ask those questions and be inquisitive. Determine and drill in on what that is that makes a patient want their doctor. Look at your reviews. What are the good ones saying about you? That’s a great place to start because generally, you don’t put a great review up to say, “This doctor was great – five stars.” It’s more about your actions to the patient that they appreciated.

Working with Becton Dickinson

Dr. Barbara Hales: Becton Dickinson is a rather large and respected company, how did you get them as your client?

Denise Blasevick: We’ve done a lot of work with Becton Dickinson. And the way that we started working with them is it’s a common story for us. Someone who we have worked with somewhere else moves to a new company, and they bring us along because we’ve gotten such strong results for them at their previous company. That’s exactly what happened there where a client of ours who had worked at a healthcare IT company who was about serving high volume specialist surgeons like orthopedic surgeons. Moved over there and brought us with them because we had really helped that company stand out and understand that market and working with those physicians.

Standing Out in the Competition

Dr. Barbara Hales: Now that people are seeing marketing is important for their practice, they’re looking to see who can give them the best results. There are other people who do what you do in terms of branding. How do you stand out? What do you say or do to not only speak to your potential client but convert them over?

Denise Blasevick: One of the biggest differentiators about us is that we bring together both sides of consumer marketing. We’ve worked with consumer brands, so things like BMW motorcycles or Tetley Tea. So we have the consumer marketing down, and then the healthcare side. Our healthcare experience melds with that, so we’re able to take that integrity and rigor that is required for healthcare marketing, and then combine it with the innovation of consumer marketing. That is what has been really stellar at producing results for our clients.

Dr. Barbara Hales: Do you advertise for your own brand?

Denise Blasevick: We don’t do a lot of advertisin