Promotion of medical clinics. All the secrets of the medical business from Denis Grass. The main thing is not money, but a satisfied client

Good afternoon, dear readers, today we are visiting the editorial office of the magazine "GetMind" chief physician medical center "Medinkur" Denis Aleksandrovich Grass.

– Hello, Denis Alexandrovich. Your center has existed for more than 25 years, and this is a serious date, and our readers would be very interested to know the history of its foundation. How did it all begin?

– It all started really more 25 years old back in the distance 1987 year two doctors from among employees Sklifosovsky Research Institute– resuscitator Sulpovar Leonid Vladimirovich, by the way, he was the attending physician of the poet and bard Vladimir Vysotsky, And Kostsov Boris Emilievich, a traumatologist, then still the head of the traumatology department of the same research institute, decided to open their own commercial medical center. So initially "Medincourt" opened at the base Sklifosovsky Research Institute, under whose wing they existed for the first 5 years, until they moved to Prospekt Mira, 105, where our center is located to this day. The main profiles then were only gynecology, urology and dermatovenerology. These were the most popular areas, and we did not change our profile for a long time.

– It was still the end of the 80s, then cooperatives were just appearing. Tell our readers what difficulties the founders of the center faced, I’m sure there were some.

– Yes, it was the end of the 80s, of course, there were certain problems. In those days, it was quite difficult to purchase medical equipment and we had to buy back written-off equipment government institutions and put it in order. Of course, a lot was acquired “under the counter.” There were also problems in training and retraining of personnel.

But I must say that there were many positive moments. "Medincourt" was one of the first commercial medical centers in Moscow, one might even say that it was a monopolist in the market. At least in terms of the profile of services provided. And we had a lot of patients, when we moved to Alekseevskaya, it got to the point that we hired a bus and went to pick up patients at the Sklifosovsky Research Institute, who came to our old address.

Yes, it was a fun time, can you tell us something interesting about the life of the center during that period? The bandits were probably darned too...

– Bandits... Well, probably anything happened! But in fact, the life of the center in those years developed in a slightly different direction. The center slowly began to expand, recruited new doctors, and opened new directions. We began to deal with the problem of alcoholism and drug addiction, providing not only physical but also psychological assistance to patients - our psychologists conducted group rehabilitation sessions. A little later, a branch was opened in the city Lobnya. There, cosmetology was added to the main services. We tried to develop this area separately by opening a SPA salon with a hairdresser. But somehow it didn’t work out and a few years later this branch closed.

– Tell me, is Medincur a specialized company or do you accept patients with any ailments?

– Well, let's start with the fact that we do not have a specialized, but a multidisciplinary clinic. We work in the following areas - gynecology, urology, dermatovenerology, cosmetology, allergology, gastroenterology, surgery, neurology. We also treat ENT diseases. We plan to add more ophthalmology in the near future, since this area is quite in demand among our regular customers.
In principle, our medical base is ready to cope with any ailment that can be treated on an outpatient basis, not in a hospital.
We also produce ultrasound diagnostics, which we have presented almost in full, with the exception of some really serious heart studies - here it is better to go to a specialized clinic. Collection of tests and laboratory diagnostics. Well, here we are not much different from other centers; all medical institutions work with organizations that can carry out the maximum volume of certain laboratory tests. But there are volumes that we perform independently in our own laboratory, which is very convenient for our patients, since they do not need to wait for results and come back next time.

– Your patients, who are they? Residents of this microdistrict (editor's note: address of the Medincourt Center, Mira Avenue, 105), Muscovites or even residents of the Moscow region?

– Of course, our patients are not only residents of this microdistrict, although probably about half of them. It would probably be more correct to call them not “residents of the microdistrict,” but people who are regularly in this microdistrict. Because a person can not only live here, but also work, and he can live in a completely different place. Many patients from the region are Pushkino, Korolev, Mytishchi, i.e. Yaroslavl direction, there are patients from Khimki And Lobny. If we talk about Moscow, then this Northeast And North.

– There are a lot of medical centers and private clinics in Moscow, they all try to be located within walking distance from metro stations and as close to the center as possible. Do you think the choice of location for a medical institution really has such an impact on its success and profitability?

– To some extent, the choice of location, of course, affects the success and profitability of the medical center, but today it is much more important factor influencing the success of the clinic is the team of specialists working in it. I'm not even talking about doctors only, but also about juniors medical workers, although, of course, patients first of all look for “their doctors.” People pass word of mouth information about a doctor who they liked and was really able to help in a given situation. And a person is ready to get to such a doctor even across the whole of Moscow “by way of transport”. It doesn't matter where he works. Whether he works in Mytishchi, whether he works in Maryino, in Kotelniki, or whether he sees in the very center on Tverskaya Street - a person, if he needs it, will find this doctor, and he will go to see him. Of course, if it is within walking distance from the metro, this is only a plus for the clinic. But today a lot of people have their own car and, probably, a big plus for the clinic will also be its own parking. We have one like this (smiles).
Therefore, I don’t think that the location of the clinic is 50% of success, maybe 20-30%.
For example, I go with my child to the dentist in Odintsovo. We went there once on the advice of my colleague, and my son was absolutely delighted, he is absolutely not afraid of dentists, and now we only go there. And for me it doesn’t matter how long it takes, because my child is happy, and so am I.

– But what about the large “promoted” clinics, because they all try to be located closer to the “accessible” metro stations?

- Well, the situation there is somewhat different! Most of these clinics do not try to retain the client, but prefer to promote him one-time “to the maximum.” That is why they have to invest serious funds in marketing and promotion. own brand. But we prefer to spend money on equipment and attracting good specialists.
Perhaps the “promoted” clinics earn much more than us and, undoubtedly, consider themselves more successful, but, to be honest, they don’t want to be involved in such a business at all... Of course, in this aggressive struggle for the client, location and brand recognition are very important to them, especially if there is nothing else to appeal to the patient.

– What is the general pricing policy clinics relative to your potential competitors? Do you use a loyalty program and how effective is its use in the medical business?

– In terms of pricing policy, we try to stick to average prices in Moscow, or rather, “keep the bar” of prices slightly lower than average. Of course, there are clinics where services are cheaper, but there are also those that are much more expensive. A balance must be maintained in order to be attractive to patients on the one hand, and to retain good specialists on the other.
If we talk about the loyalty program (you can learn more about the loyalty program from the article), then we have a discount for regular customers - 5% , we also constantly hold promotions that imply a greater percentage of discounts on certain types of services. For example, a comprehensive ultrasound examination in both men and women. There are discounts on cosmetology at certain times of the year. Various examination programs that do not include ultrasound.

– How successful is this in general, do loyalty programs “work” in the medical business?

Well, it’s difficult to talk about the “absolute” success of the events, since it cannot be assessed solely from the point of view of profitability. I think that this is successful, since it bears fruit in the future, and a person who comes once for a promotion, with attentive and careful treatment, becomes a regular customer. So, this works to further attract patients.
On the other hand, we have sad experience with coupons or “groupons” that are now popular on the Internet. Through a similar service, we distributed coupons for the removal of tumors from 90% discount. In total, approximately 750 coupons. Used by buyers was about 600 coupons, but this does not mean that 600 people came. Some people purchased several coupons; there was one patient who redeemed 60 coupons. One coupon – removal of one tumor. I can honestly say that using coupons, the clinic served a total of about 150 people, and if 5 of them returned to us, then that’s good. Personally, I have a strong opinion that there are people who are looking for maximum discounts– not 10-30%, but 70-90% and everything else doesn’t matter to them. For them there is simply no such criterion as quality of services! On the one hand, it is very difficult to work with such an audience, and on the other hand, there is no desire.
Such programs turned out to be ineffective for us, and we do not use them. Although other clinics say it works. Perhaps the success of such events depends on the choice of service, and we should not have chosen cosmetic surgery, or perhaps we should not have made a 90% discount and then a completely different audience would have turned to us, who knows...

– And, if we’re talking about loyalty... Is the clinic ready to accommodate a client who finds himself in a difficult situation? financial situation, and he needs medical attention. Can he count on an individual discount or, for example, deferred payment?

– I won’t lie, “officially” the clinic will not accept an individual discount unless the doctor, out of personal loyalty to the patient, indicates in the payment receipt the entire list of services provided to the patient... Yes, this happens with us! For example, I very often give a certain discount to pensioners; if I conducted a consultation and did an ultrasound, then I may not take money for an ultrasound examination if I see that a person is barely making ends meet.
As for deferred payment, yes, we have such an opportunity, and we always try to accommodate our clients. And our employees do not need to contact management or the chief accountant, or any other structures about this, so that they are allowed to do this. And there were never any problems!
We have had this practice for a long time, it works and it’s really good.

– For as many years as the center has existed, business in any industry has undergone metamorphosis. It transforms, adapts to new conditions, sometimes even changes its profile. You have survived at least two major crises, tell us how you managed to overcome this path and what difficulties you encountered?

To date, we have already experienced two crises, and are now experiencing a third. Our center is designed for middle-class clients, and the crisis always hits them the hardest. Of course, during a crisis, our number of patients decreases. Also, I must say that every year it becomes more and more difficult to fight for a client with other clinics. There are clinics that provide cheaper services, there are clinics that charge entourage, etc. Today we are working to expand the range of our services, that is, to provide a greater number of services that we offer to our clients and it is no secret that such a service as VHI– voluntary health insurance. And if an employer is ready to pay for health insurance for its employee, then he will always prefer qualified medical care and go to a commercial medical center, and not to a public clinic, where he will stand in line for three hours to see a therapist. Therefore, today we are engaged in connecting to the voluntary health insurance program. This will not only allow us to get new customers, but will also add credibility to our brand.
We also considered the question of doing some kind of medical examinations. For a driver's license, for carrying a weapon, and something else, but in the end we decided to abandon this idea, since it involves a lot of checks and does not bring the profit that would be comparable to the possible costs and hassle.

– What problems exist today, and how do you deal with them?

– We have already covered some of the problems in the previous question. To these I can add problems with laboratory testing service providers. It is very difficult to find a laboratory in which absolutely all research would be done at a high level. Therefore, you often have to combine them, which always adds extra hassle. Not to mention the fact that it is often necessary to change partners when the quality of their services begins to decline significantly, as happened with the Invitro company, for example.
The next problem is the lack of qualified specialists. This is the biggest problem today. Although I can honestly say that in the last month this problem has begun to be solved, thanks to our state. I don’t know how it is throughout the country, but in Moscow something wrong is going on with medicine. Hospitals are closing and merging, and wonderful specialists are being laid off. They are forced to go to commercial clinics, because it is now extremely difficult to get a job in public clinics. Therefore, now it has become easier with good qualified specialists. This is not bad for us; on this wave we will be able to recruit good qualified specialists and continue to develop successfully. But for the general situation in the city of Moscow, this is a disgusting situation. I don’t know where we will end up, but it feels like we are heading towards completely commercial medicine. Naturally, this will not happen tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but I can hardly imagine what will happen in five years.

– Of course, I do not deny that advertising is the engine of trade, and you need to advertise your services as widely as possible. But, as I said earlier, today word of mouth plays a big role in the development of the clinic. If a doctor is pleasant to talk to, if he is good at his profession and has the proper qualifications, then he will always have patients. This means that there will be clients in the clinic, that means there will be profit, and that means the business will flourish. Although I do not in any way belittle the role of advertising, which occupies 50% success of the clinic. But others 50% – this is, of course, the doctor’s success.

– Please tell us what methods of attracting audiences does your clinic use?

– Professionalism and charm of our employees! (laughs) In fact, today the Internet plays a huge role in marketing, so we try to take our website and its promotion seriously. We are also trying other means - we ordered stickers advertisements in elevators in nearby areas and advertised on a monitor in the nearest metro station - Alekseevskaya metro station.
Just a couple of months ago in the local newspaper "Star Boulevard", which is distributed in our North-Eastern Administrative District, they gave a small advertising publication about our medical center. Although this particular method of attracting new customers did not work - no more than three people came from this advertisement, many of the regular customers mentioned this article, saying that they had learned something new about the center.

– So, word of mouth and attracting eminent specialists who “bring” their patients with them is already more than half the success? But what about branding, presence in the information field?

– Yes, word of mouth and the name of a specialist are something to start with and something that young clinics should under no circumstances neglect. I know one clinic in the Bagrationovskaya metro area, which is supported by practically one doctor who knows ultrasound diagnostics and works in the field of obstetrics. This is probably one of the first people who started doing ultrasound diagnostics in obstetrics here in Russia, and it’s almost impossible to make an appointment with him, that is, you have to make an appointment with him a month in advance. And he almost single-handedly runs the cash desk at this clinic, although there are urologists and gynecologists there. My wife and I have been to this clinic twice, I’ll tell you honestly, I haven’t seen a single patient except for him. It was a full house, a complete house, even to the point of a fight outside the office. Therefore, eminent specialists – yes, this is a huge plus for the clinic.
But branding and presence in the information field is something that needs to be done constantly, but it is better to entrust this matter to professionals.

– What means of promotion today could be most effective for a young clinic, do you think?

– Probably, first of all, the Internet. Since, if, in principle, a clinic has its own website, then a person who searches for some “profiles” or specific doctors will sooner or later find it. The main thing is that this site functions normally, meets the brand’s objectives and can answer questions that interest patients before making an appointment with a doctor. As I already said, it is better to trust such things to specialists and not do it on your own.

Separately, I would like to note that it is often necessary to train doctors to work with clients so that one doctor can refer the patient to other clinic specialists. I know that many clinics greatly abuse such things, and having grabbed hold of the patient, they intimidate him and begin to take him to all the offices until he runs out of money. This is disgusting and unacceptable!
But it also happens the other way around, when a patient needs additional examination by another specialist or requires some additional procedures, and the doctor, having said this, does not even specify what the clinic in which he works can provide required service in the next office.

– If it’s not a secret, do your clinic and its specialists take an active part in the life of the medical community and is this reflected in the profit of the enterprise?

– Of course, many of our specialists take part in the life of the medical community. For example, I am a member Moscow Society of Urologists And Russian Society of Urologists Unfortunately, it’s not so often possible to attend events, but thanks to the Internet you can always listen to many reports almost live or download their text versions.
Our specialists have also made presentations in the field of urology and gynecology more than once.
How does this affect profits? Well, naturally it is reflected, because we increase our level of skill and knowledge and, accordingly, we can offer more to our patients, and we can keep up with the times. And of course, all this has a positive effect on the image of our clinic.

– I would like to hear parting words from you to the owners of young private clinics. What would you like to wish to managers, your colleagues or even competitors?

– Well, I’m probably still a young manager myself, although our clinic has a lot of experience, I haven’t been working here since it opened.
What do you want?

Yes, probably, don’t be afraid of anything, go forward, gnaw, as they say, on the granite of science, because we study all our lives.

And, of course, I want to wish you not to lose human face in pursuit of profit, they did not forget about the Hippocratic oath. This is primarily because now the commercialization of medicine has reached its limit, people, in the pursuit of profit, forget about humanity, morality, medical ethics and do God knows what. Therefore, yes, do not lose face, that is, remain human first of all. And good luck to everyone!
We will work, we will compete. In competition, the desire for something new is born, the desire to improve your knowledge, your professional skills, so all this is like an engine of progress. Healthy competition has never harmed anyone.

There are many private medical centers, the competition between them is strong, and everything is complicated by the fact that the most effective advertising strategies yesterday may not work today. What to do? How to promote? Where to start? Read about it in our article.

The first 4 steps before starting any campaign

In marketing, the main thing is to be as conscious as possible, to take actions not at random, because “it’s written in the book,” but with a full understanding of what is happening. I'm running this ad because it worked last year, and this ad because it's new and I want to see if it will work for my company.

Go through the “things to do before you start developing a campaign” checklist:

1. establish the target audience and find out everything about their interests, concerns and wishes;
2. study advertising media, their advantages and disadvantages, pitfalls;
3. choose the most suitable ones for the medical center;
4. sit down and write a full-fledged strategy that will take everything into account.

You will have to deal with the first point yourself, because this is your target audience, and no one knows more about it than you. But we will help with advertising media - we will talk about what media can work for advertising a medical center.

Examples of advertising media

Internet , especially banners on specialized resources, the account of the center or the doctors of the center on the forum about medicine, pages in social networks, full-fledged SEO promotion - search results, contextual advertising and much more. Part of the advertising budget must be allocated to the Internet, unless, of course, your medical center specializes in helping very elderly people who do not use the Internet at all (although even in this situation children or grandchildren can use it). Presence on the Internet not only helps with promotion, but also strengthens the brand, works to create a trustworthy reputation, and develop customer loyalty through relevant assistance.

at 3.5 months

We often work with medical companies, but for me personally, the most memorable project was the promotion of the Podserdtem medical clinic - the Center for Maternal and Fetal Health, specializing in fetal ultrasound. The leading specialist of the Center is Elena Nikolaevna Porozova, a doctor of the highest category, candidate of medical sciences.

What do you remember about it? First of all, the difficulties that arose before us. And, of course, the efforts that had to be made to achieve the stated results. But first things first.

Features of promoting a medical clinic

First, let me remind you what are the features of promoting medical services online. The most important thing is the restriction on advertising in YAN. You can advertise only on sites of relevant topics, so 90% of traffic from networks can be immediately cut off.

In addition, both Yandex and Google have restrictions on the titles and texts of advertisements, the address where the site is located, and the images used. Of course, additional paperwork is required to confirm that the advertised clinic can actually provide the advertised services.

In general, the main thing is not to offend anyone’s feelings. And this is certainly correct. It just adds a fair amount of additional headaches when promoting... However, the rules are the same for everyone, you have to follow them.

Promotion strategy

Cooperation began with the development of a Marketing Strategy for Growth. I will try to outline its main provisions in a few lines.

Target audience. Women from 25 to 45 years old, for whom it is important to live to the fullest happy life. They make decisions independently and have well-developed professional skills.

The key pain is the need to prevent problems with the health of the fetus at the earliest possible stages. The main fear is to end up with an incompetent and unprofessional doctor.

Promotion channels. Everything is pretty standard: Yandex, Google, social networks (primarily VKontakte). In the long term - YouTube, cross-marketing and promotion of the Center's chief physician as an expert.

Strategy for working with individual groups of requests. The following groups were identified:

• targeted;
• those who want to know the sex of the fetus;
• those wishing to receive photos and videos of the fetus;
• looking for good quality ultrasound services;
• information requests;
• checking for pregnancy;
• complicated pregnancy;
• branded queries based on the name of the clinic and the doctor’s name.

Tuning:“The clinic as a place to find peace and confidence.” When choosing it, we were guided by the closure of the main fears and pains of the target audience.

Satisfying the target audience selection criteria. We have identified among them those that we satisfy better than our competitors (sincere attitude towards patients and a large number of positive reviews), as well as those that we satisfy at the same level as them (professionalism and experience of specialists, quality of equipment and completeness of responses to patient questions).

Stock. We developed promotions aimed at accelerating decision-making by potential clients, increasing the average check, retaining clients and activating word of mouth.

KPI and project payback. We determined how many applications and at what price we can provide using the selected promotion channels.

And here a surprise awaited us. And not the most pleasant one. The media plan showed that we can provide 60 applications per month. For normal payback it was necessary to give 100 applications.

What to do? There are two options: either abandon the project, since the risk of not showing the desired result is too great. Or you can grit your teeth and work to prove that even the exact numbers can be wrong.

We chose the second option - we committed ourselves to giving 100 targeted applications per month and started working.

Packaging development

When creating the site, we paid special attention building trust among its visitors. It is unlikely that there will be a person who is ready to entrust the health of his unborn child to a doctor who does not inspire confidence in him.

Calm, soft colors were used in the design of the site, including the sea green color used in the design of the center itself.

When developing the website design, we used photographs taken during a special photo shoot. We filmed the process of work, the interiors of the center, and the hall of the Center in which patients are waiting for an appointment.

It was very important to use photographs to create a calm, peaceful mood, demonstrate to potential clients self-confidence, and instill in them a sense of security.

As a result, they almost completely abandoned the posting of photos and videos of the fetus on the site - only a few images were left on the screen of the device used for diagnosis.

I will not dwell in detail on all the blocks of the site, I will only tell you about the most interesting ones.

Balance between conversion and information

When working with medical websites, it is very important to walk the fine line between information content and conversion efficiency.

On the one side, medical services they rarely choose quickly - people want to learn more about the service they provide, about the doctor who will work with them.

On the other hand, you need to not overload the visitor, give him the opportunity to calmly leave a request on the site, without forcing him to wade through a sea of ​​information in search of the treasured “Submit a request” button.

As a result, classic landing pages turn out to be close in functionality to websites - and websites, on the contrary, are made up of several landing pages.

Here's how we found such a balance in the block telling about the leading specialist of the Center:

There is a minimum of information in the main body of the site, everything is hidden under various buttons. If the visitor is not interested in learning more about the doctor, then such a block will not overload him.

Or you can even open a separate pop-up window, which contains all the necessary information - from the doctor’s education and achievements to a video message and reviews:

As a result, on the main page of the site there is a minimum of information - only the most important, while in 1-2 clicks you can find out everything you might need.

The next block, which talks about the details of the study, turned out to be very complex in the prototype:

Weight medical information, which must be placed on the site and at the same time made easy to understand.

How to do this? Here's an elegant solution our designer found:

Nice graphic image of the fetus (much cuter than the photo, believe me), switching between trimesters and icons that show which organs are about we'll talk in the tooltip.

Overall, the site turned out to be light, airy and very easy to understand. You can .

The insidiousness of medical topics

By the way, pay attention to the website address: pod-serdtsem.rf. Everything was not easy with him. Initially, we wanted to use a more descriptive domain - diagnostics-fetal.rf.

It was at this address that the site was launched. Or rather, we tried to launch it... But Google decided that such a domain might seem too medical to someone and cause negative emotions- so it was urgently necessary to replace it with the current one, even if it is not “speaking”.

Test period of 3.5 months

So, all the obstacles were removed, and on December 22, 2017, traffic finally began to flow to the site. During the first 3 weeks of work (including holidays), only 6 applications were received, costing 1,800 rubles each. At the same time, the site conversion (especially for medical topics) was quite good - about 2%. But this was clearly not enough for us.

This was not at all the result that the client expected. Of course, it was too early to draw far-reaching conclusions, because the holidays could have played a role... But ultrasound in our case is not a service that can be postponed until the end of the holidays or until money becomes available - the timing of the procedure is clearly tied to the timing of pregnancy.

The first thing that caught my attention was that 5 out of 6 requests turned out to be calls and only one was made using a form. We mentally checked ourselves, since it was too early to draw conclusions.

Statistics slowly began to accumulate, which allowed us to adjust bids for requests depending on user behavior on the site.

Another 2 weeks passed, during which we received 11 applications (the cost of the application was 526 rubles, the site conversion during this period was about 8%). The indicators are very good, but the volume of applications is still insufficient.

Moreover, only 2 of these 11 orders closed into a deal. Another 2 calls came from existing clients and the remaining 7 did not show up for an appointment for various reasons.

In total, since December 22, we have received 17 applications, of which 5 were sales to new clients. If we take dry percentages, the result is not bad. All that remained was to scale it up and receive 100 applications in a month. But how to do this?

Or maybe sell ultrasounds for pregnant women... to men?

Yes, yes, yes, we even had this seemingly absurd idea. Moreover, she was not born out of nowhere. When developing advertising campaigns, we could not even imagine that queries like “second screening cost” would bring men to the site. Therefore, no adjustments were made to rates by gender.

We realized it when, while listening to a recording of one of telephone conversations, discovered that a man was calling. First thought: apologize to the client and turn off advertising to men.

Second: what if? We talked with Elena Nikolaevna and discovered that men are not such bad clients. After all, they are looking for a service not for themselves, but for their wife (which is logical) and at the same time they are prone to rational decisions, that is, they behave in a similar way to our main target audience.

So we decided not to lower the rates on men, but, on the contrary, to show up in the first positions. As a result, the idea did not bring any explosive results, but the men continued to leave applications on the site, which suited us quite well.

The main thing is not money, but a satisfied client

Our standard test period is free and lasts 2 weeks. If we don’t have time to test some ideas, then in rare cases we extend it to a month. And then the period of support begins, because our employees want to be paid for their work.

This time, the project team decided that we needed to achieve results, and only then transfer the client to support. Therefore, it was decided to also consider February a test month and not take money for our services.

What was done? First of all, we noticed that the various promotions that we had on our website did not work. Out of 11 requests in January, they were asked about them only once. We decided that we needed to do one thing - but the most powerful one.

And what could be better than a free ultrasound at a clinic that does ultrasound? Probably nothing. Of course, we did not plan to do all ultrasounds for free. Holding competitions too. That is, the promotion had to be made profitable for both the Center and clients.

We analyzed various options and decided that we would offer an early ultrasound for free. Why him? Firstly, Elena Nikolaevna told us that before screening the first trimester (a mandatory procedure for pregnant women), she often does this study for free.

Secondly, such a promotion gave the maximum LTV. After all, during pregnancy the patient needs to undergo 3 screenings, so the sooner we involve her, the better.

Of course, we continued to work with traffic - after all, the more statistics we accumulated, the more finely we could set up advertising campaigns.

In general, we worked tirelessly. But February let us down - it turned out to be short, it had only 28 days...

Therefore, we were not pleased with the results. A total of 29 applications were received (much better than in the previous period from December 22 to January 31!), the cost of the application was less than 800 rubles, the site conversion was 5.4%.

At the same time, the conversion to sales did not deteriorate - 9 people became clients of the Center.

Where can I find more traffic?

So, 29 applications for February. Need - 100. What to do? To begin with, we decided that the results did not satisfy us. This means there is still a month of free testing ahead.

It is clear that the easiest option is to continue working with search traffic. But it’s unlikely that it will allow us to increase the volume of applications by 3 times - it’s just not the same volumes, and our site conversion has always been at a very high level.

This time we decided to focus on additional sources of attracting traffic. Firstly, we added an online chat to the site for those who do not want to communicate by phone:

Secondly, we began to pay more attention to involving people in communication in the VKontakte community - both in comments and in group messages.

Why didn't they do this earlier? We were counting on more traditional methods of receiving applications, because the media plan promised them to us! This means we did something wrong, we need to do better! But it turned out that media plans can also be wrong.

In addition, doctors are busy people, so I didn’t really want to distract Elena Nikolaevna by communicating on social networks.

And finally, the third improvement is the ability to make online appointments directly on the website:

We implemented it using the Yclients service. In general, it is more suitable for business in the service sector (hairdressers, beauty salons, etc.), alone, and in our case it turned out to be quite sufficient, since the range of basic services at the Center is quite limited.

In general, March was fruitful. 46 applications were received through the website (forms + calls), another 48 through the widget, comments, group messages and online recording. The cost of the application is 574 rubles, the site conversion is 7.7%.

The conversion to sales remained about 30% - 46 applications left on the site turned into 16 patient appointments.

Hooray! The result has been achieved!

Can we stop here? As practice shows - under no circumstances!

After all, the test period is just the beginning of work, the purpose of which is to make sure that our system is capable of generating targeted orders and generating profit for our clients.

The most difficult thing lies ahead - increasing the volume of applications, improving their quality, connecting new traffic sources, setting up a sales department.

But you still need to smooth out seasonality, respond to innovations in advertising services, and you need to keep an eye on your competitors.

In general, after 3.5 months of testing, everything was just beginning for us and the Center for Maternal and Fetal Health “Podzredtsem”!

Which other of our projects would you be interested in reading about? Write in the comments!

From the editor

The marketing mix differs from industry to industry.

The point is not that b2c sales of residential real estate have fundamentally different promotion tools compared, for example, to b2b production of gas equipment. The tools are, by and large, the same.

The difference is in the features of application and emphasis. Understanding this difference is industry experience, which allows you to achieve the same goals for less money or reach new heights with the same money.

Medical topics stand apart in this context. This is a sensitive area and if you do something wrong, the negativity will grow quickly. Here, experience is critical in order not only to make money, but also to avoid getting into an unpleasant situation.

Today Andrey Borisov, head of our marketing competence center “Medicine and Equipment”, talks about the nuances and tools of promotion medical clinics in Moscow.

Instead of a preface

The experience we have accumulated is specific. We work with medical leaders in the capital (MEDSI, INVITRO, Doctor Nearby, SM-Clinic) and promote them only in Moscow. And although the tools we have described are universal, other regions and other business formats will leave their mark on your marketing plan . In any case, this can only be known through experience. Experiment!

Target audience (TA): who are we trying to reach?

No matter how fashionable the marketing model you use is and no matter what foreign abbreviation you call it, you still need to start with a definition target audience.

Answer the questions:

Who are your clients?

What are they looking for?

Where do they live?

In the case of network clinic with good geo coverage(this is when there are many branches and they are located in several districts of the city) the generalized portrait of the client is as follows: “Working men and women 22+ with an income above average.” People with below-average incomes do not go to paid clinics in Moscow (and this is one of those indicators that will differ from region to region). For the client separate clinic We observe other distinctive features: these are people (to a greater extent) living and (to a lesser extent) working in the area of ​​the clinic.

Please note, clients. private clinic are divided into two streams: paying clients and clients under VHI policies. The marketing department usually solves the problem of attracting the first type of customers. They will be discussed below.

Competitors: who is participating in the race?

Having drawn up a detailed portrait of your target audience, start studying competitors. Thoroughly knowing the strengths and weaknesses of those with whom you will have to compete for an audience and profit is no less important than knowing your own advantages and disadvantages.

Studying competitors should start with correctly identifying them. Often an individual clinic compares itself with a chain clinic. This is not true: we have already determined above that they have different target audiences, and therefore different promotion strategies. Mistakes at this stage entail the adoption of incorrect strategic decisions regarding the entire business and marketing plan. We will not dwell on the destructiveness of such decisions. It’s better to repeat that:

competitors of a network clinic - other network clinics;

competitors of an individual clinic are multidisciplinary and specialized clinics located nearby (dentistry, gynecology, etc.).

Unique Selling Proposition: Know Yourself

After studying your competitors, critically answer the question: What am I offering?

Consider your product from all sides, honestly indicating for yourself all the advantages and, no less important, the disadvantages.

How much do you cover demand relative to your competitors? How are doctors distributed among your clinics?

There are often situations when one clinic has all the specialists, and another has two or three visiting doctors who only see a doctor for a couple of hours several days a week. In such a clinic conversion will be lower than competitors and than the network average.

Pay attention! Research competitor clinics. Perhaps a popular doctor with good reviews and a large customer base. In this case, it is easier to transfer the doctor to a branch in another area, where competition is lower, than to try to compete with a doctor with a loyal base.

At the stage of studying competitors, it is necessary compare prices. In conditions of falling incomes, pricing policy is extremely important. But use the prices on the website carefully! On the one hand, indicating competitive prices for services increases conversion. On the other hand, if no one in the region indicates prices, then it is better not to indicate them either, otherwise you will lose calls. If your competitors' prices are lower than yours, also refrain from listing prices. In this case, provided there is a professional call center, there is still a chance to convert calls into applications.

Mini-case 1. With or without prices?

We analyzed conversion from landing pages for gastroenterology and ophthalmology services. In the first case, the clinic’s price was on par with its competitors (almost all competitors indicate prices), in the second, it was higher than its competitors. In the test, we launched pages and, accordingly, ads in advertising campaigns with and without prices. The results of the campaigns are presented in the table.

The conclusion here is obvious: good price- indicate; high - no.

Attraction: Divide and Heal

This concludes preparatory stage. You know your customers (future or existing), your product, its weaknesses and strengths, their competitors, their advantages and disadvantages. The only thing that needs to be done is to attract customers. But yours The target audience is heterogeneous(it is always heterogeneous). And using any one tool, you absolutely will not be able to cover it all. What to do? Segment.

Clients of medical institutions, as well as consumers of the vast majority of services, are divided into primary And secondary. And here we have a standard task: to attract as many primary customers as possible at the lowest possible price, reduce the period between requests from repeat customers and increase average bill at all stages.

Pay attention! We have already written in detail about. In medical subjects it is vital, as in any other modern business. From experience, we note that clinics often have problems with CRM: either it does not exist, or there is no uniform one in clinics of the same network. This complicates the collection and processing of data, and therefore the analysis of results and identification of problems. Consider installing unified CRM, connecting the entire business, even at the stage of planning a business or launching a marketing company.

Attraction: go towards those who are coming your way

The most effective channel that gives quick results for attracting new customers is, of course, contextual advertising. But in medical matters this is difficult . Medical advertising in Google AdWords prohibited. There is a small chance of passing moderation the nth time if you write general text without specifying specialists (gynecologist, urologist) and names of services (ultrasound, ECG). It is impossible to guarantee the launch of a campaign in such conditions. Therefore, the main traffic in the context of medical topics comes from Yandex.Direct, which for this industry is also limited by the prohibition of behavioral targeting and the lack of geotargeting by city districts.

Media context perfectly complements contextual advertising: a banner located on the right in the search results on Yandex. A banner has a positive effect on conversion from the channel: it grows, and accordingly the cost of access falls. From the banner itself, the price of circulation is higher than from an ad on the context, but do not forget about the image effect of such placement.

Pay attention! To launch a media context, a minimum of 700,000 impressions per month is required. You can only promote popular areas: radiology, gynecology, dentistry.

Mini-case 2. How to make an attractive display banner? Part 1

During the prosthetics campaign other things being equal we tested several Yandex media-contextual banners: with animation (left), with text (middle), with a static image.

In this particular case, the main KPI was CTR. Evaluating effectiveness by CTR is not always correct, but here it is quite suitable, since the conversion of the site into hits and the bounce rate as an alternative quality metric were comparable.

The winner was a banner with a small animation, which had a CTR of 0.7%. The text sentence performed worst of all - 0.2%. This example is not intended to give a specific recommendation - make banners with little animation. Its purpose is to show that options need to be tested.

Mini-case 3. How to make an attractive media banner? Part 2

Another advertising campaign was on neuroscience. Here the test was about indicating the cost of the service with a discount. Three options: only the new price, discount percentage and both indicators. The performance indicator for previous reservations was again CTR.

As a result: a banner with only a price (0.7%) performs poorly. If the discount is significant, then it must be indicated (1,2-1,3%).

The medical industry also has such a convenient tool as purchasing leads from portals. The cost of a lead is much lower than in context, although the number of leads directly depends on the fame and popularity of the doctor. Examples of such sites: DocDoc.ru, Prodoctorov.ru, Lookmedbook.ru.

Programmatic gives good results in this direction. We work with AdWords And Yandex.Auction: there are good audiences and proven results that work for pent-up demand. The systems do not have behavioral targeting, which means we can show our advertising message on network sites only for the general interest “health,” which suits us quite well for this task.

Contextual advertising: divide and heal again

Despite the high competition in the topic, setting up contextual advertising and correct separation requests results in acceptable results.

We have developed own algorithm dividing requests into groups, which is convenient to work with. The algorithm differs for network and individual clinics.

For network clinics, we identify the following groups of requests:

General queries like “Moscow clinics”.

The name of the clinic in various spellings is “SuperClinic”, “SuperClinic”.

Directions - “gynecology”, “dentistry”, “surgery”.

Full name of the doctors - “doctor V.I. Petrov”, “surgeon Vladimir Petrov”.

Each group also has its own hierarchy. We are moving along a classic funnel, from demand generation to conversion:

Brand queries: “Surgeon Superclinic”.

Queries from which it is clear that a person is willing to pay for services “surgeon price”, “surgeon for a fee”, “surgeon how much”.

And requests from which it is clear that the person is already ready to make an appointment, is looking for you or a clinic in your area: “Timiryazevskaya surgeon”, “make an appointment with a surgeon”.

For individual clinics you have to make do only brand queries, personal requests using the full names of doctors and requests in areas with mandatory georeferencing. That is, it is “surgeon + area (large streets, metro stations, etc.).” The remaining requests either do not bring clicks or have zero conversion, since a person will not go to the other side of the city to the hospital.

Pay attention! If your clinic works with patients under VHI, then for branded requests a large proportion of people will come under an agreement with the insurance company. If a person has MEDSI written in his policy, then based on advertising, the first place in the search results, or a direct visit, the person will still come to MEDSI.

In marketing strategies Brand campaigns must be included, but for large clinics this is a noticeable part of the budget. Experiment and decide for yourself, based on your own goals. To quickly determine whether clients come to you by cash payment or with voluntary health insurance policies - listen to calls received through a brand campaign.

Conversion on the website: prepare for the meeting

Pay attention! By the time contextual advertising is launched, the site must be 100% ready. We hope you know this and have placed this point here solely within the framework of the chosen text structure.

The required minimum qualities of a modern website for a clinic:

1. Adaptability. In the medical field today, 40 to 60% of traffic comes from mobile devices. Search engines sites that are not adapted are demoted in mobile search results. Just imagine the flow of customers you are losing if your website is not adapted for display on tablets and phones.

2. Very noticeable phone number. The telephone leads in the number of calls - more than 90% of requests from the clinic are received from calls. Make sure that you don’t have to search for the number for a long time.

3. Doctors' profiles. It is important that the site provides comprehensive information about its doctors: where they studied and practiced, specialization, awards, additional education, experience, publications. Keep your information current and update it on time. For many clients, this information is critically important when choosing a clinic.

4. Texts. Sometimes doctors themselves write texts for clinic websites, but they should be written by marketers with medical education or experience in the field. As a last resort, they should definitely work on the text authored by the doctor. Ruthlessly cut out the intimidating medical terms and wording such as: “the urologist performs a digital examination” or “during the anesthesia process, you are injected with a drug that ....” This real examples from practice. Believe me, neither current nor future clients want to be so scared before going to the doctor. Write in simple language , be friendly and focus on the benefits. Don't forget to make a page for each of your services and provide a short summary. advertising description. It should be clear from the text what the procedure is: what awaits the person in the process, how to prepare for the procedure, how much time it will take and costs money (if the competitive situation in the region allows you to directly indicate prices on the website).

5. Landing pages. If you are planning a significant advertising campaign, then you should think about creating a landing page, even if the service is already described on your website. On such a page, the emphasis should be on the phone number and the registration form next to the prices.

An example of a landing page in the context of a website

SEO: optimize in moderation

The presence of a website is firmly associated with the need for its SEO promotion. Can't argue with that. But, in our experience, SEO is only effective when promoting clinics with good geo coverage.

Suppose you have three points in Moscow, and your competitor has 20. A visitor came to you with the request “gynecologist in Moscow.” The likelihood that a visitor will be near you and make an appointment is extremely low. No conversion occurs. And what’s even worse is that the visitor immediately leaves the site. Behavioral factors deteriorate. Search engines discard the site to the bottom of the results. Search engine promotion does not bring the customer the expected results.

In addition, in search results on medical topics in Moscow, competition is between clinics and between information resources. The issue is clogged and it is quite difficult to advance. For a young site, results at significant costs may not appear soon.

No, we do not encourage you to abandon SEO optimization of your website. In any case, your resource must meet the requirements of search engines. But don't expect stunning results from this tool. And at least initially put maximum effort where maximum results are most likely.

And we repeat, our experience is based on moving around Moscow. It is likely that in other cities there is less competition in dispensing, and the territorial location of the clinic does not play such a decisive role.

Retention: let's be friends long and often

You attracted customers from context and even converted someone from search. How to turn them into regular customers? Not so difficult if you are attentive, caring, neat and professional. Think about your clients, think like the client, think two steps ahead and offer more than the client expected to receive.

The very first step towards becoming your client's best friend is personalized offers and convenient service. Of course we are talking about E-mail and SMS marketing. Basically, these are trigger mailings (usually SMS) - confirmation of an appointment, a reminder of an appointment one day before, three hours before, a message about the readiness of test results, etc.

Conduct surveys by mail about the quality of services provided, send information articles about health. Remind them to undergo an examination if the client has not seen a doctor for a year. Send a reminder to have your dental implants cleaned or have a preventive examination.

Pay attention! Be extremely careful with personal mailings in specific areas of medicine. Compose letters and SMS correctly. Please note that they can be read by a stranger. Don't let your client down.

Email and SMS marketing deliver good customer retention results. But more often, clinics send mailings on a residual basis: they send only trigger messages and do not send personalized invitations. Usually there is no specialist in the clinic itself who could do this. And clinics are afraid to send newsletters to agencies because of the privacy of the stored data. The situation is complicated by the lack of a unified CRM system, as we wrote about earlier. Nevertheless, the results of such work can be impressive.

Reputation: we are actually the best

Medicine is competitive environment. Therefore, creating and maintaining an image is not the least important task. The difficulty is that it needs to be carried out simultaneously through a large number of channels, and it is difficult to measure and evaluate the results of the actions taken.

The necessary minimum, which absolutely cannot be avoided, is monitoring reviews and working with negativity. Unfortunately, usually the larger the clinic, the more negative reviews there are about it. And not because this hospital is bad, but because people are much more willing to share negativity. And they do this mainly on industry portals. In the reviews that go to the clinic itself, there is usually a 50/50 negative and positive ratio. Therefore, forums and resources need to be constantly monitored and negativity dealt with immediately.

Motivate people to leave positive reviews. From experience, patients usually thank doctors personally. Nobody writes: “Thank you to the Clinic for having excellent interiors and an electronic queue.” But such reviews can be found on medical portals. This is the result of work to create artificial positivity. Don't use this one bad example.

It’s better to direct your efforts and funds to high-quality PR and SMM. Write and post high-quality professional articles, shoot videos and conduct interviews with doctors. Give potential clients the information they need directly from experts. Conduct joint promotions with bloggers.

Works very well consultation with specialists on the forum, in groups on social networks. If the clinic has a full-time doctor who currently has few clients, assign him to consult and develop his base while there are no appointments. We have an internal case where, while consulting on the portal, a new doctor gained a decent client base in 3 weeks.

Try to be everywhere and tell and remind about yourself not only to those who are looking for a doctor at the moment. Your task is to develop a strong associative connection: I need a doctor - I need to go to the “Super Clinic”.

Minimum, optimal and maximum sets of tools for a multidisciplinary clinic website

The same for a non-network clinic.

Toolkit for a non-chain clinic

We hope that we have proven that everything is not so difficult if you approach the matter systematically and know the features of the industry, which we have already talked about. Some questions remained outside the brackets: the work of the call center and reception; quality of services, medical ethics, selling skills of doctors; offline marketing ( outdoor advertising, on radio and TV, souvenirs, holding events, etc.) We will cover these issues in the next post on the topic.

If you have any questions, be sure to ask them in the comments.

Competition in the commercial healthcare industry continues to increase every month. While in the West the private medicine market is already well established, in Russia this market is still developing. In many cities, competition 3-5 years ago was very low, while today it is becoming much stronger: multidisciplinary clinics and dentistry are opening every year. All this causes an outflow of patients from clinics that were open for 5-10 years and did not feel competition, and therefore did not develop professionally. The service of such clinics makes one wish for the best, because taking care of patients was not necessary, because patients had no choice.

Today the situation has changed dramatically. Those clinics that worked on sarafan feel a shortage of patients, while new clinics, literally in 1 year, receive such an influx of new patients that they do not have time to serve, and therefore, despite the prices, queues line up at them like in state clinics. But there are also unfortunate cases when a new clinic has so few patients that financial difficulties force the owners to either sell the clinic or close it.

Let's figure out what this is connected with!

In what cases does a clinic face failure and closure due to a lack of patients?

1. When the clinic does not have a competitive advantage. Typically, such clinics employ new doctors who have just graduated from university. Usually they try not to go to such clinics, because patients are sure that graduate doctors do not have enough experience to provide quality treatment.

2. When the clinic has a limited range of services.

The trends of modern private medicine are the development of multidisciplinary clinics. Patients prefer to receive services in a one-stop shop.

3. The clinic is located in a non-residential area.

It is advisable to open a clinic either in residential area within walking distance, or in the City Center, where many patients can come to lunch break or by taking 1-2 hours off from work. No one will go to a clinic that is located in a remote area of ​​the city unless it is equipped with the most modern equipment and the best specialists in the city. But this happens extremely rarely! That's why - choose the right place, even if buying or renting such real estate will be 2-3 times more expensive!

Yes, in modern trends in the development of private medicine, it is no longer possible to do without competent marketing. A sundress can only work if you can attract professional doctors with a huge patient base. Only in this case can you count on a rapid influx of patients.

5, The clinic does not have a high-quality website with detailed description prices, services and benefits.

Nobody wants to go to that clinic about which little is known, even if this clinic is located in the very Center of the city. Patients must understand that it is in your clinic that they will be helped to regain and maintain their health! A corporate website for a clinic/dentistry is one of those tools that can help in development (if the site is developed by professionals), or vice versa, cause a negative attitude (if the site was created by a student “on the knee”).

Check out which reports that in modern world 80% of patients search for information about the clinic on the Internet. Decide for yourself what kind of website you need.

Social networks make it possible to form an image of a clinic, because with a large number of participants in a group, patients have the opinion that this clinic provides good treatment. Yes, it’s a paradox to think so, but it’s a fact! Also, through social networks, successful clinics maintain constant communication with patients, which also has a positive effect on patients’ attitudes towards such clinics. Patients feel the care and openness of the medical center.

How to promote a clinic quickly?

1. Before opening a clinic, you must draw up " road map"and strictly follow it. If you have not drawn up a development plan, then be prepared for a large number mistakes and spending millions of rubles on these mistakes.

2. Think over a promotion strategy. Without drawing it up, you will not be able to predict the budget for development and patient attraction. As a result, you will rush from one agency to another (from the cheapest prices to the most expensive), trying to find exactly those who can help you. But it happens that after such ordeals, the budget completely runs out and there is no money left for development, which leads to the closure of the clinic.

3. Start developing a website and launching groups on social networks 2-3 months before the opening, and not after, because 2-3 months is the period that will be required to develop and start promoting the site. By taking care of this issue in advance, you will have everything ready by the opening day and patients will be able to not only see your sign, but also get acquainted with all the advantages of your medical center/dentistry on the Internet. Also, advertising on radio and TV will make money many times more efficiently, because viewers, after watching a video, usually go to the Internet to watch more detailed information about the clinic.

4. Choose TV promotion channels wisely.

We had a client who, before contacting us, ran ads on TNT for 2 months, counting on attracting young people from 22 to 30 years old, spending 250,000 rubles a month on this marketing channel. If this budget had been invested in social networks, then 200,000 would have paid for itself many times over. The client did not get such a result on TV and complained about it for a long time.

5. Use integrated approach for promotion.

Never limit yourself to 1-2 channels for attracting patients, because a larger number of channels used allows you to achieve a synergy effect. Each channel begins to work more efficiently.

6. Test new channels and abandon ineffective ones.

Very often, clinic managers and marketers use channels that do not justify the investment, hoping that sooner or later it will start working.

7. Keep statistics on each channel for attracting patients.

Without keeping detailed statistics, you will not be able to understand which channel is working most effectively and which is simply sucking money. Yes, if you have a large marketing budget and you are working not only to attract clients, but also to improve your image, then the principle “the more the merrier” is completely justified. But even in this case, you need to use these tools wisely.

8. Train your staff

You can often see that a manager invests money in equipment, professional doctors, advertising, but forgets about training the staff who work with patients before transferring them to a specialist. As a result, you don't even understand why patients don't return to your clinic, even though you took care of almost everything to make the patient healthy and happy.

9. Introduce a control system

Without monitoring the work of the clinic, you will not be able to organize its effective work.