As winter turns to spring, you switch out your wardrobe and tidy up your home. Why not also use spring as an inspiration to revamp your practice’s marketing initiatives? With the new season comes new patient concerns, such as allergy and sinus symptoms, as well as new opportunities, like Better Hearing & Speech Month. Spring rain brings new growth to nature; let spring be a time for your practice to grow, too.
May Is Better Hearing & Speech Month
Better Hearing & Speech Month is an annual occasion to raise awareness of hearing loss and speech problems. Originally created in 1927 by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the goal of Better Hearing & Speech Month is to encourage people to take action if they believe there might be a problem with their hearing or speech.
Many in the hearing care industry take advantage of the opportunity to educate people during the month of May, offering hearing screenings and special pricing on hearing aids and assistive listening devices. It is also the perfect time to educate people on the prevalence of hearing loss and the importance of proper hearing protection.
Take advantage of nationally-recognized Better Hearing & Speech Month to make patients aware of the benefit and value of treating their hearing loss. Perform outreach through print and digital advertising to get new patients through your doors, and provide in-office educational materials once they’ve arrived for their appointment. Fuel’s creative team has generated a number of marketing materials for Better Hearing & Speech month that can be customized for your practice.
Promote Allergy Services this Spring
Allergies are the sixth most common chronic illness in the U.S., affecting more than 50 million Americans and costing $18 billion annually. Most likely, many of your patients are already suffering from the early effects of springtime allergies. Promote existing allergy services with in-office collateral such as Mediplay slides and multi-screeners to increase patient awareness of allergy testing, immunotherapy and other services. Fuel’s creative team has created in-office posters to help accomplish this.
If your practice does not offer allergy immunotherapy as an ancillary service, now is the time to consider it. One of our members, a six-physician otolaryngology practice based in the Pacific Northwest, added allergy immunotherapy as an in-house service, accomplishing two goals: Patients have the convenience of receiving treatment at the same place they go for their ENT needs and the practice keeps the revenue otherwise lost in an outside referral.
With a $27,000 investment in office modifications, equipment and software, the practice was able to launch their allergy immunotherapy services to patients. With Fuel’s assistance, the program achieved positive cashflow after just 90 days. The practice, which initially had no allergy patients, grew in one year to 422 patients, generating $286,453 in revenue. By the second year, they had grown to 929 patients and generated $567,840.
If you’re interested in growing your practice this spring, contact your regional manager or account manager to talk about our newest marketing initiatives.