Marketing to patients is certainly helpful in growing your ambulatory surgical center, but marketing to doctors can also play a crucial role in your center’s success and growth. With the right marketing strategy, you can recruit more doctors to perform procedures at your ambulatory surgical center (ASC). In turn, this can help you expand your business and allow you to offer more procedures at your facility.
Don’t miss out on this important component of marketing your ASC. Your ASC can market to doctors in these 3 ways.
1. Advertise in industry-specific print media.
Find publications focused on healthcare to place advertisements for your ambulatory surgical center, particularly those based locally. Look for publications that doctors would be most likely to read. If there are magazines in your area that cater to different specialties, you can even tailor your ads to those groups. Focus your advertising messages on the aspects of your surgical facility that would most appeal to doctors–efficiency, quick turnaround times, and lower costs for patients. Make sure to include your website URL and contact information so doctors can learn more if they wish. If you have an event coming up for local physicians (more on that in #3), you might also run print ads in local publications to get the word out about your event.
2. Run online advertisements.
Google display ads and LinkedIn ads are a good way to grab the attention of doctors online. Google display ads will appear on websites relevant to your industry, so doctors who may be looking for information on local ambulatory surgical centers are more likely to see your ads. You can also place your ads on sites that you know doctors are most likely to visit. You can experiment with different ad formats–text only, images, or videos–to see what works best. You can also easily keep track of your ad spend so that you stay within budget.
LinkedIn ads also allow for highly targeted advertising, so you aren’t wasting your advertising dollars by showing your ads to people who aren’t interested in your services. On LinkedIn, you can target ads by location, job title and function, industry, company size, and seniority. There are two types of advertising opportunities on LinkedIn: Sponsored Updates and Text Ads. With Sponsored Updates, you can promote the content you are posting to your LinkedIn company page. This type of advertising would be helpful if you are hosting an event for local doctors (more on that below). Text ads will show up in the “Ads You May Be Interested In” section that shows up to the right of your LinkedIn feed. Text ads are more useful for marketing the benefits of your facility to physicians, much like your print ads.
3. Host an event for local doctors.
Events are a good way to showcase your ambulatory surgical center to local doctors and medical practices so they can learn more about what your center has to offer. You can have your vendors come to the event to demonstrate equipment and technologies to your guests. Advertise the event in local media to get the word out. These types of events will help you build connections with local doctors and medical practices that may be interested in using your ambulatory surgical center for outpatient procedures.
Although these types of events sound costly, they don’t have to be. Becker’s ASC Review recommends establishing a theme that will interest your audience and carrying that theme throughout the event. Hand-delivering invitations to the event will cut postage costs and help you make a more memorable impression. Food and beverage choices are often the biggest expense for these events, so be mindful of your choices there if your facility has a tight marketing budget. You can also personally call your invitees before the event as a reminder; personal calls will also help you get an idea of how many people will be attending.
Marketing your ambulatory surgical center to doctors is just as important as marketing to patients. Your doctors will help you accomplish your goals of helping as many patients as possible. Getting the right doctors on board will help you get the patients your facility needs to thrive.
P3 Practice Marketing has helped orthopedic, spine, and neurosurgery practices market themselves online since 1998. Our focus is on helping practices expand their reach through increased patient recommendations and provider referrals.
