It may seem counterintuitive, but the first consideration in all good marketing plans should be referral sources who are already friendly and active. In the rush to create business growth, many marketing planners focus on new prospects and neglect the loyal, active referral sources. Considering active referral sources in your marketing strategy is more than using a sense of fairness when deciding how to distribute freebie budgets. It is actually a consideration for what will give you the highest return on marketing investment.
If your business is not thoroughly marketing to active referral sources, many of your most loyal referral sources are probably sending fewer referrals than they could or should. Put yourself in the doctor’s shoes. When discussing treatment, their literature focuses mostly on pharmaceuticals and surgery. BMA’s ongoing analysis of physician peer-review journals typically shows that 73% of articles addressing treatments discuss drugs or surgery while 27% of articles discuss a variety of other treatment strategies such as enhanced patient education, home medical equipment, and exercise therapy. The typical article that overviews a common diagnosis and addresses multiple treatment strategies will usually save non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical strategies for last, and it will give those issues the most cursory of overviews. For therapy providers and home health providers, your category of treatment options are outnumbered in the literature more than three to one.
The American Association of Family Practitioners reports that the average family physician handles 93 visits per week. They’re busy. Many physicians will readily admit that it is easy to forget everything you can do. Just because they like you does not mean that loyal customers always have you on their mind. Marketing planners must not confuse loyalty with Top-of-Mind Awareness. The question is more than “When they have a choice will they pick you?” The question must also be “When their patient has a need for your services, will they think of you?” The first question reflects preference or loyalty, but a positive answer can still result in underutilization. The second question reflects Top-of-Mind Awareness – a crucial ingredient for full and appropriate utilization of your services.
Having a program of contacting your referral sources at least once per month will keep your services on their minds. The program should not be overly repetitive or annoying. Add elements of service and education for maximum effect.
Marketing to loyal referral sources is more cost-efficient. Three to six good contacts is often enough to garner additional referrals from loyal referral sources. Winning over new referral sources often requires six to twelve advertising impressions before you see one referral. Of course, winning over new referral sources is a mandatory business activity even though it is more expensive. Your marketing budget should be large enough to allow for consistent contact with both active referral sources and prospective referral sources.
Established Medicare-certified home health and hospice providers should order their marketing priorities this way for maximum return on marketing investment:
- Active referral sources
- Prospective referral sources
- Once every reasonable means for reaching referral sources has been exhausted, the public. As the home health market becomes increasingly competitive, the value of community marketing is increasing.
The priorities above may be different for some newly established home health and hospice agencies. If you are having trouble winning over referral sources, sometimes you have to market to the public to get started.
Other types of providers such as physical therapy or non-medical home care have varying needs for physician authorization. While the prioritization scheme above can work for other types of providers, other plans may be equally effective for providers with a greater likelihood of receiving self-referrals.