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Paid ads for new practices

When we work with new practices on patient acquisition strategies, we’re often asked about using paid advertising from day one. On its surface, paid ads on sites like Google, Facebook, or Instagram seem like they might make a lot of sense, especially for virtual cash-pay practices and for providers who have licenses in multiple states. However, the reality is that in most cases, paid advertising is not a reliable way to acquire patients early on.

To understand why, think about how you make a purchase decision. If you’re like most consumers, you’re opting for brands you already know, brands recommended by people you trust, and/or brands with great reputations online. If you get an advertisement for a brand you don’t know, haven’t heard of, and can’t find positive reviews on, how likely are you to purchase from that brand? Again, if you’re like most consumers, the answer is very unlikely.

Beyond general consumer purchase patterns, many elements of cash-based health and wellness services make it even harder to sell through paid advertisement channels:

1. Prospects often need to be educated about the merits of cash-pay care: Many patients will not immediately know why the services you’re offering are not covered by insurance. It takes a certain amount of education and explanation that does not lend itself well to short-form paid advertisements.

2. Prospects want to build a trusting relationship with their potential provider over time: Health is deeply personal. Patients who are considering receiving specialized care for certain health or wellness issues want to know and trust the person providing it to them.

3. Clinicians want to work with high-intent, committed patients: Generally, cash-based clinicians want to collaborate with patients who are ready to commit to their course of care through memberships or higher-ticket packages. While a consumer might be willing to trial an unknown product once, they may be less likely to commit to something longer-term like a membership or a multi-week program.

While paid advertising is a common way for businesses to expand their clientele, we generally do not recommend it as a path for starting to add patients to a panel. 

The merits of local marketing

So what should you do instead to fill your early patient panel? We recommend hyperlocal patient acquisition.

Hyperlocal patient acquisition, or local marketing, focuses on attracting patients from a very specific area to start. If you’re opening a practice in New York City, local marketing doesn’t mean marketing to all of Manhattan (at least to start). Instead, it means tapping into the ~10 blocks around your apartment or office where you are known, where you understand the local demographics and norms, and where you have or can easily build relationships.

In this post, we detail why to start with local marketing. In a follow-up post, we’ll offer ideas for implementing a local marketing strategy.

1. Local marketing leverages your advantages

As a local practitioner, you have a unique and powerful advantage over larger, national competitors: you live in the community you're serving. You know the neighborhood, the people, and the culture in a way that no outsider, no matter how big their marketing budget, can replicate.

For example, you might know the barbershop owner down the street or have a personal connection to the yoga instructor at the studio around the corner. These relationships give you direct access to potential patients who are likely to trust someone they’ve seen in their daily life or heard about through mutual connections. This kind of trust and familiarity is something that a national organization simply can't buy, no matter how much they spend on ads.

By being a part of the community you’re marketing to, you understand the local norms, preferences, references, needs, and other small details that will resonate. These insights will allow you to tailor your services and messaging in a way that feels authentic and connected.

2. Local marketing helps you find your “1,000 true fans”

There’s an idea called "1,000 True Fans” that has gained popularity over the past several years. It says that for many businesses, rather than trying to appeal to everyone, having 1,000 loyal customers who are deeply committed to your services can lead to sustainable, long-term success.

In a high-touch, cash-pay practice, 1,000 fans might feel like too big of a patient panel, but the idea still applies: "true fans" will be your most loyal patients, promoters, and referral sources. Focusing on hyperlocal marketing helps you identify and cultivate these core patients by providing personalized, attentive care that larger practices might struggle to deliver.

3. Local marketing builds a word-of-mouth flywheel

Word-of-mouth is arguably the most powerful marketing tool for new practices, and it tends to start with local patients. When you focus on hyperlocal patient acquisition, the proximity of your patients will help you create a word-of-mouth "flywheel." This is when your current patients actively promote your services within their own circles, which attracts more patients, who in turn spread the word, creating a self-sustaining loop of patient referrals. Soon enough, it will feel like everyone in a community is recommending and joining your practice!

The key to maintaining the flywheel is delivering exceptional care that each patient will rave about. As long as you’re doing this, you are naturally fueling the flywheel.

4. Local marketing helps you focus

It’s much easier to become well-known in a smaller market than it is to saturate a broader region. With local patient acquisition, you can focus all your resources on a concentrated area, becoming a recognizable and trusted name faster than if you spread yourself too thin trying to appeal to everyone. This approach maximizes your impact in a shorter amount of time. It also helps you build a playbook for eventual expansion: once you've gained a strong foothold in your local market, you can use a similar playbook to expand to neighboring areas.

5. Local marketing makes competition manageable

By focusing on hyperlocal marketing, you’re choosing to compete in a smaller, less crowded space. Instead of competing online against a national brand with millions of dollars in ad spend, you’re competing on the merits of your care, your offering, and your brand as compared to other similarly-sized local providers.

If you can deliver an exceptionally high quality of care and have the benefit of being known in your area, you will stand out far more than a generic ad campaign might.

Implementing local marketing

In the next post, we’ll explore actionable methods you can use to execute a successful hyperlocal patient acquisition strategy.