Audiologists: The Missing Step that is Killing Your Website's Effectiveness

for audiologists

Our perspective differs from web design companies because, foremost, we are a marketing consulting firm. We understand exactly what marketing strategy is and how to apply strategies to a website to drive in patients. Almost no web design company understands what we are about to reveal to you.

Why Audiologists Hire Business Builders

When an audiology practice hires us, it is usually because they are falling short of their patient volume and profitability goals. Often, they have tried everything they could possibly think of to promote and grow their practice to little or no avail. Thus, they are searching for a way to capture enough market share to better their financial position despite the economy.

The Missing Step

Before we begin to create a website, we develop the practice's strategic plan. By strategy, we mean, “defining the practice's target markets, and determining exactly what they need to say and how to communicate their message to each of their audiences”. We call these seven questions and their responses The Marketing Formula. We explain that the goal of their marketing should be "to "convince their potential referral sources and prospective patients that they would be making a huge mistake to choose anyone else but them for the type of services they provide”.

We ask and attain detailed answers to 26 strategic planning questions. These enable us to gain a complete picture of the practice's situation from a marketing standpoint. We created the majority of these questions to provide us background. Seven of these questions, however, are specifically worded to allow us to uncover the practice's best possible strategy.

Superiority Is Essential

The initial step of The Marketing Formula is to achieve the goal we call superiority. To create the perception that our client is the better choice, that practice needs to clearly be the more desirable option. If it is not, we work with the practice to uncover and implement innovations. We developed and employ an eight-step Innovation Formula that enables us to uncover breakthroughs that, once implemented, enable our client to stand out from the pack of local hearing professionals.

Promoting Your Competitive Advantage

Our 26-question strategic planning process not only ensures we can create an honest perception of superiority, but also reveals how to communicate that perception to convince the practice's referral sources and potential patients that the practice is the preferred choice. Specifically, these include uncovering and using the most powerful emotional hot buttons to capture attention and engage people, educating target markets concerning what to look for when choosing a hearing professional, presenting a convincing case for our clients services, providing evidence to back our client’s claims, and providing a low-risk offer that enables referral sources and clients to easily take the next step in the buying process.

Your Most Important Marketing Letter

Initially, we prepare the strategic message in a letter format we call The Primary Letter. Usually, two to four pages long, the content serves as a template to create all of the firm's promotion. This certainly includes the text of the practice's website. However, we also use the Primary Letter's content to create the copy of ads, brochures, news releases, blogs and other social media communications, direct mail, employee phone scripts, on hold messages, elevator pitches, and even material for presentations to groups. Developing the content of a website becomes a much easier task. This guarantees the firm will have a convincing website that will take market share away from their competitors.

Article written by Marc Aronson. Copyright © 2012, Business Builders. All rights reserved. No portion of this report may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means (including e-mail or fax), without written permission from Business Builders.