OB-GYN business development
3 little-known business development tips for your OB-GYN practice
3 little-known business development tips for your OB-GYN practice
Kris Borgraeve
May 22, 2021
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#1 tip - Take a step back and inspect
Inspect your OB-GYN business development
When you build a career as an obstetrician/gynecologist, it’s easy to get caught up in a routine. The one that consists of doing what you set out to do, which is helping patients. The 24/7 commitment to obstetrics or gynecology is one typical aspect of your type of business. Another common phenomenon I come across is the total lack of business perspective.
Many gynecologists tell me that they didn’t learn any of this in Medical School, as soon as we start discussing their lead generation, their marketing strategy, or their business development plans.
So the simple solution is to carve out a few hours and to take a step back. Look at your practice as a business mechanism that you created. It delivers a service in a specific catchment area, to consumers who have a choice, and it either reaches its full potential or it doesn’t.
Quality questions to ask in this space are:
- What exactly does it mean to reach my full potential as a private practice? Patient numbers, capacity, turnover volume, and the number of surgeries/deliveries may be part of the equation.
- What is currently not ideal yet, to reach this potential? Referral amounts, new patient inquiries, online visibility, and overall reputation management may come into play.
- What stops me from growing my market, from marketing my practice? Lack of information, expertise, time, or budget may be part of the answers that pop up.
Doesn’t it feel great just to sit back and give these aspects some thought? If you are going to work all those long hours, you might as well structure your practice so it helps you create the life that you want, no?
#2 tip - Take a whole-brain approach
Whole-brain approach for OB-GYN business development
A left-brain approach to private practice consists of spreadsheets and number games. Where do I get my referrals? Where do I advertise? What else can I do to bring in more patients? The right-brain approach focuses on the appearance of the practice, the color scheme of the website, the receptionist’s uniform, and the logo.
The whole-brain approach we use with our customers brings those two worlds together. Our analytical work maps the exact volumes of Google searches for all aspects of your practice. What do patients actually type into Google with the intention to read up on a topic, a condition, a service package, or their antenatal journey? What drives them to stay on a website long enough to consider booking an appointment?
Once that happens in an integrated process, by professionals who work with obstetricians and gynecologists on a daily basis, unprecedented results are achieved and lead generation becomes a science and an art at the same time.
Quality questions to ask yourself to check if you have a whole-brain approach to business development:
- Is your marketing based on up-to-date information about the patient’s Google behavior in your area, in your niche?
- Do you check the impact of your imagery, logo, visual choices, and color scheme on a test audience, so you can evaluate if your brand is contemporary and compelling?
- Do you integrate the data and the subjective creative aspect of your business development when you assess your online presence?
#3 tip - Make business development an ongoing process
Ongoing OB-GYN business development
A classic pitfall in the use of websites and other online tools is a static mindset. Quite often, a gynecologist will tell me with pride that they have only just redone the website…five years ago. In today’s business climate, many things are volatile and if you have been a specialist doctor for a while, you may not be entirely used to the fast pace of evolution in the patient’s online behavior.
New smartphones, new tablets, new Google algorithms, and new consumer expectations all work together and that is why you can no longer afford to treat your online presence like a static given.
Your visibility in Google search can fluctuate from one week to the next. New blog articles, new social media posts, additional web pages, and other content on your competitors’ websites: they all create a ripple effect in the big ecosystem that we call the internet.
Your patients google things they saw on Facebook. They read up on what they saw on TV. It’s all alive. So your business development should be a lively and dynamic process too if you plan to stay in business for a while.
Quality questions to ask yourself to make this an ongoing process:
- Do you have a structure in place to evaluate your traffic and performance at least quarterly?
- Does your marketing agency provide advice on what these numbers mean and how they relate to your 12-24 month business plan?
- Are you clear about the new content you add to your online presence on a regular basis to tell Google that you are dynamic, not static? Do you publish new content (blogs for example) at least quarterly to ping Google and confirm that you are still in business?
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OB-GYN business development
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