How to Lead Your Practice Through The Coronavirus Pandemic

Throughout the US, businesses across various industries are already beginning to feel the impact of the stomach-churning market drops and growing recession talk over the past few weeks. All triggered by the uncertainty and worry around the global spread of the coronavirus.

Cash-based practices have certainly not been immune to the growing economic anxiety over the spreading coronavirus. Plastic surgeons are seeing a drop in patient visits and surgeries as many consumers are waiting for the uncertainty to be resolved before making any big purchases. Many Americans are also simply staying home and avoiding unnecessary contact with crowds and public transit to minimize exposure risks. Either way, cash-based practices in certain regions are seeing their first quarter sales lag behind what they typically expect to see this time of year.

There are a number of ways that MyMedLeads can help your practice communicate the right message to patients during this time while also helping you reinvigorate sluggish sales numbers.

Work Remotely with Web-Based Software

First and foremost, let us not trivialize the current situation. The coronavirus is a serious issue, and the health and safety of both your staff and patients is paramount. Many states are encouraging those that can work from home to do so when possible in an effort to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.

MyMedLeads is a web-based tool that connects your marketing to your practice management software, making it easy for some of your staff to work remotely. Some employees do not need to be physically present to manage patient inquiries. Members of your team can still communicate with leads and patients via email and text message straight from the MyMedLeads dashboard.

This may also be the perfect time for remote workers to focus on generating new marketing materials for your practice. This type of creative work is often best done with minimal distractions anyway, and MyMedLeads provides all the tools your marketing personnel needs to completely revamp your marketing campaigns.

Shift Focus to Long-Term Marketing Strategy

As touched on above, now may be a great time for you to really focus on planning an effective marketing plan for the second and third quarters. If the coronavirus is contained in the upcoming weeks and virus-related fear begins to subside around May or June, the US economy could see a bounce-back with consumers resuming their typical spending behavior.

The most successful plastic surgeons have learned how to spend less while maximizing results with targeted marketing. MyMedLeads’ suite of marketing automation tools is specifically designed around segmenting your audience by demographics and delivering hyper-targeted messages that resonate with these groups of individuals.

While MyMedLeads allows you to target leads and patients by procedure of interest, age, gender, lead source, etc… We recommend clients keep it simple by starting off with some procedure-specific campaigns for common procedures like liposuction, breast augmentation, Botox and so on.

Check out our blog post on Smarter Email Segmentation.

Our system allows you to create procedure specific emails and text messages, which can then be set up as automated drip campaigns. This means that when a lead calls or reaches out to your practice online, but does not schedule a consult, you can still market to this lead in the background without any additional manual effort (aside from the initial setup).

Once you mark their interests in MyMedLeads, the system will trigger the most relevant campaign to start sending them a series of messages with more information about their interests over a pre-determined time. You can even add call reminders for staff to your campaigns to ensure leads are being engaged through all mediums.

Creating procedure-specific emails requires less effort than you might think. You already have lots of great resources on your website like before and after photos, FAQs, patient testimonials, financing info and more. Simply drop some of this content into an email and you’re ready to go!

Check out our blog post on creating lead nurturing campaigns for further inspiration: Closing the Sale With Effective Lead Nurturing

Reassure Patients with Proper Messaging on Safety

You can also use MyMedLeads’ communication tools to send the right message on safety to your existing patients. There is a lot of panic around the Coronavirus right now, and some of it stems from misinformation online as well as nonstop news coverage.

With MyMedLeads, you can easily send a reassuring message to inform all existing patients in your practice management software/EMR about what they should be doing at home, as well as what you are doing at your practice to keep them safe during their visit.

Here is a great example from Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon, Dr. Jay Calvert, of the type of messaging you can share with patients during this confusing and worrisome time. Sound, practical advice from a medical professional they know can be very comforting at times like this. Advising your patients on what they can do to keep themselves and their families safe and healthy throughout this season can be a great way to show them how much you care about their wellbeing.

In addition to campaigns, MyMedLeads allows you to send one-off messages for communications like this, along with monthly newsletters, special offers and other one-time messages

Moving Forward

We understand that many elective care practices operate leanly, and that tighter profit margins can generate a great deal of stress and anxiety. If you need help getting more patients without having to spend loads more on marketing, then MyMedLeads is an affordable solution that can help.

If you are interested in learning more about how our software can help you automate your lead-to-patient sales process while taking the complexity out of marketing and tracking results, then give us a call at 844-446-9633, or click on the button below to schedule a free, no-obligation demo.