The basics of referral marketing

The basics of referral marketing

Physician referrals are an essential component in attracting new patients. While a growing number of patients are empowered to find their own specialist, there is still plenty of impact behind a personal recommendation from a trusted physician.

Referral marketing, like any other marketing campaign, should have a strategy and a budget. We encourage physician participation in the networking process, but understand that there is only so much time in the day for that to happen. The referral marketer act as a physician liaisons to build relationships on your behalf.

The role of a physician liaison is to help build and maintain long-term relationships with other physicians and their practice staff for the purpose of referral marketing..

A simple 5-step approach ensures the success of  referral marketing program:

1. Getting to know you – Meet with the doctors and staff to become acquainted with your practice and services.
2. Building a customized plan – The marketing team and the physician works together to develop the campaign strategy, including a target list of physicians, and to create supporting marketing materials.
3. Implementing a CRM System – No physician referral program is complete without a customer relations management system. This essential tool is used to track leads and referrals.
4. Executing the referral marketing plan – Once the strategy has been defined, the team will schedule visits and meet with the targeted practices.
5. Reporting on the campaign’s progress – Each month, a report will be compiled to assess referral patterns and refine the approach as needed.

THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE IMPACT

• It takes 12 positive service experiences to make up for one negative experience.
• 91% of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with your organization again.
• 89% began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.
• A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9 and 15 people about their bad experience.
• About 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people.

Happy customers who get their issue resolved tell 4 to 6 people about it. Hence one of the key & probably the most important aspect to ensure a successful Referral marketing program is to have great patient experience as nothing works better than 'WOM' (Word of Mouth).

The above is just the basic for referral marketing, but its the foundation on which all further refinement & re-modelling can be done, hence its important to have the foundation right.