Branding. It sounds simple, but just what does it take for your practice to get it right? Without good branding and marketing, your practice may flounder. Many start-up practices fail, purely because no work goes into the look and feel of the business itself – a logo will not work on its own, it needs a flawless brand to work alongside it.
Branding is a well-loved story told again and again. It is much more than a logo, it is an emotion that a patient feels towards your business.
Build your brand standards
It can take a lot of hard work and an investment to build a reputable brand. For patient loyalty, you need to develop a set of standards that represents the professionalism and character of who you and your practice are.
Repeat these standards consistently across all marketing channels, make sure your patient journey is outstanding, and your patients are unlikely to stray.
Make each touchpoint with your patients count
Think of branding like a blind date:
You meet a person and they’ve put an effort into looking great. They treat you with respect and you get on phenomenally. You go on a second date, and a third, and a fourth… and consistently you have a magnificent time. By the fifth date you know what you’re getting, you know you’ll enjoy yourself and you know that you’d choose that person over any other date.
Now, if you remove that consistency, for example; if on each date something goes wrong, or you argue and some dates end poorly, you are left with the uncertainty of what each date is going to bring. You worry about what will happen on the next date, you don’t look forward to it, and you start to look elsewhere.
When you have an inconsistent brand, your patients will look elsewhere if they aren’t getting the service you’re promising them each time.
Build a strong brand – how to get started
A strong brand makes your practice memorable, retains more patients, and encourages patients to talk about your practice in a positive light. Here’s how you can get your logo and brand to work together.
- Be consistent – if you say you provide great patient journey, then do. Confirm that your team all understand exactly what they need to be delivering and train them so they can fulfil the promises you’ve made to your patients.
- Choose the right look and feel – What you say and how you say it, and even the images you use have a long-lasting effect. If your brand is engaging and meaningful, patients will remember it. Set this in stone with brand guidelines.
- Be good at communication – Keep in touch with your patients by email, post, social media etc, but remember to check they want the communication first. Update them on exciting improvements or services you have.
- Respond to feedback – Value the feedback you get from patients. Publish positive reviews and respond to any complaints. Other potential patients will read both good and bad reviews, so make sure you’re being proactive and sincere in your responses.
Don’t know where to start?
Our Branding service can help you create a logo and provide you with a brand colour palette and brand guidelines, plus online and offline help to keep all your communications consistent. We can also help with your brand values, tone of voice, logo usage, and image usage to name a few extras.
Let us help you to build your brand from the foundations up.
Speak to the team at Rockbridge Web to see how we can help make sure your marketing budget is spent on the right activity.
