Elliott Fudge, writer
How you market your healthcare franchise can make all the difference between running a successful business and running a failing business. So, here are 6 tips for marketing your healthcare franchise.
There are lots of advantages to running a healthcare franchise. You’ll be running a profitable business with lots of job satisfaction to go with it. But, as good as this all may seem, marketing your operations well can make all the difference between having a successful business, and not.
You could have put together the best business plan, found the perfect location, have financing for all your equipment and franchising needs, only to then find your marketing hasn’t worked and you have no customers. To avoid this becoming a reality, here’s 6 tips for marketing your healthcare business.
6 marketing tips and how to put them to best use them
1. Who are you marketing to?
Before you start marketing, you’ll need to identify who it is you’re trying to sell your business to. The healthcare sector is varied and diverse, meaning that you’ll need to be clear on who you’re identifying as a target demographic.
If you’re looking towards younger age groups, you will be free to market your healthcare business on social media, for example. If you’re looking to appeal to an elderly demographic, this same strategy isn’t likely to work. Be clear on how you will need to approach the specifics of your demographic.
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- Elderly Care Franchises in the UK
- Care Services: Create Your Own Business
- 6 Tips for Building a Business Plan for a Successful Healthcare Business
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- How to find employees for your healthcare business
2. Invest in data
Secondly, and arguably most importantly, you’re going to need to have some technology or data software capable of processing whether your strategy is working. Marketing has come a very long way since its earliest days, and today it’s a highly specialist, expertise-driven industry. For that reason, you’re going to need to understand what is working and what isn’t.
Data is the best way to gather and process this information. With the right technicians, data analysts or even just simple technology, you’ll be able to understand complex data on everything such as:
- Who is clicking on your website?
- Who is staying on your website?
- Who isn’t?
- What pages are visitors most interested in?
- Are visitors to your web page checking out with certain products and services?
All of this information matters, which means if you aren’t gathering this data, you’ll never know if your marketing is going wrong, how to improve it, and what problems are occurring.
3. Invest in your online identity
One of the most common problems encountered by business owners or franchisees looking to sell their healthcare services are web-based. It’s often the case that their websites are not up-to-date, are difficult to use, or don’t have the right information.
Having a poor website is one of the biggest marketing mistakes any business can make. If your website isn’t fit for purpose, customers won’t come back again. In fact, 88% of online website visitors are less likely to return to a website after a poor experience [Gomez], losing you a wealth of potential customers.
This applies across all your online platforms. If you use an app, ensure it is in excellent working condition. If you have landlines and phone numbers, make sure they’re always staffed during business hours. All of this contributes towards good service.
>> Read more:
- What is the Marketing Fee and Why is it Necessary?
- Developing an effective franchise marketing plan
- Try Out These 8 Outside-the-Box Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business and Engage Your Customers
- 10 Tips for Building Truly Effective Social Media Marketing Campaigns
- Franchising 101: 8 Essential Marketing Strategies for Promoting Your Business
- Franchising 101: 6 Tips for Building Customer Loyalty Through Marketing
4. Prioritise your customers
One of the most important ways of building a good relationship with your customers is by asking them to give you direct feedback. Prioritising user experience will give you specific feedback on which parts of your customer journey are working and which parts aren’t. While you will be able to pick some of this up through your own marketing analysis, direct customer engagement is very useful for a number of different reasons.
First, communicating directly with your customers will show that your business is responsive and actively listening to your customers. Having good customer service will encourage others to consider your business as they know their complaints will be listened to.
Secondly, customers will be giving you a direct insight into how they see and experience your website. This feedback is valuable and will allow you to fix whatever issues your customers raise.
5. Be unique
When you join a healthcare franchise, it’s not always a requirement that you need previous healthcare experience. As such, you’ll be able to bring your own experiences to your new health business. Your business will be unique and creative as, based on your unique experiences, you’ll have gained a diverse skillset and have done different things that will make your business stand out.
These different backgrounds may even help your business be more competitive, so don’t be afraid to embrace your uniqueness.
6. Run email campaigns
Another way that many franchises market their goods and services is through email campaigns. Running engaging campaigns can be a very good way of reminding customers about your business. What’s more, as you’ll be marketing directly in your customers’ inboxes, those on your email chain will be almost guaranteed to see your emails.
Offering exclusive discounts through email can be a very good incentive for getting new customers to subscribe as well. Even though it might not be as modern as some new social media marketing strategies, this can be one of the best ways to sell your products.
Start a healthcare franchise and embrace a profitable, rewarding industry
These are a few of the ways that you can market your healthcare franchise. If you’ve been thinking about making a career change and joining a healthcare franchise, we hope these tips will help you hit the ground running.
If franchising sounds like the right thing for you, but you aren’t sure the healthcare industry is the best fit, there are a number of different franchising opportunities in other sectors. You can see a full list of available opportunities on our UK franchise directory.
Elliott Fudge, writer