Sometimes big words are used in marketing that actually mean something much simpler and more immediate. This is the case of Referral Marketing , nothing more than word of mouth in the days of healthcare marketing.
We will see better shortly that with Referral Marketing we mean something more structured than the classic "speak well of someone"; but the starting point is word of mouth. In fact, a doctor, especially at the beginning when he has few patients, must ensure that the positive opinion about his services spread, otherwise he risks that competition will crush him or that, on the contrary, a single dissatisfied patient will ruin his reputation right away. . To stem the effects of a negative judgment, especially on social networks, is something very complicated, almost like stopping an avalanche with your bare hands, if you don't know how to do it.
We can divide this article and Referral Marketing into
8 macro-areas:
1. The choice
2. Social proof
3. Word of mouth as a strategy
4. The measurability
5. marketing referral Examples
6. The benefits
7. How to offer the advantage
8. The ethical aspect
We immediately begin to deepen the subject assuming that we are a patient looking for a specialist .
Referral Marketing: a compass for the patient
Let's take off our scrubs for a moment and put ourselves in the patient's shoes, don't you think you would give much more credit to a doctor you've heard of from a relative than a doctor you know absolutely nothing about?
The patient usually struggles to choose the most suitable specialist for him. Whether it is a Dermatologist, an Orthopedist, a Surgeon or any other doctor, the offer is very wide and choosing a doctor instead of another can mean benefiting from an excellent service or spending money on non-resolving treatments. .
In short, when the patient has to choose a doctor is faced with a crossroads. Being able to count on the positive opinion of a relative or a friend we could say that it “removes responsibility” ; takes the pressure off him of the correct choice to make. Even if he doesn't live in a big city, doing a quick Google search he might find ten names of different doctors, but in his eyes they are the same and all with more or less positive and more or less truthful reviews; in this way he will not be forced to choose.
Referral Marketing is nothing more than a “ compass” necessary to guide the patient into the sea of possibilities, just like the compasses that guided sailors on stormy nights, when they were sailing in the open sea, without reference points.
The principle of social proof
We just saw how many different choices your potential patient is faced with. He could opt for the doctor with the highest number of positive reviews, for the one closest to him, for the cheapest one, or perhaps for the one who does health marketing and best communicates the uniqueness of his treatments and his authority .
But the patient may also find himself in the position of having to choose between several specialists he knows very little about, and it is in this case that he would probably rely on the opinion of a relative, or even on the detailed testimony of another satisfied patient.
It is the principle we have talked about other times, the one affirmed by Robert Cialdini in the book The Weapons of Persuasion : the principle of social proof . That is what we tend to reflect the choices of people who have lived the same experience as us before us, because we believe they know more about a certain topic.
Word of mouth as a strategy
From your point of view, instead, what does adopting referral marketing strategies mean? It means making your best patients, the ones you have a more confidential relationship with, your "ambassadors" . They are not patients that you see once and you will never see again; they are those with whom you have a closer relationship, who may have sent you a very heartfelt thank you message on WhatsApp; they are the ones who blindly trust you.
At the base of Referral Marketing there is a concept: the patient who puts a good word for you must be rewarded. At the same time, the Referral Marketing also provides that the new patient, who will book a first visit following word of mouth, will be rewarded.
Triggering such positive word of mouth that it leads another person to become your patient is no small feat. It involves a commitment and above all a great responsibility for the patient "ambassador". The new patient also performs an important act of trust and makes a very specific choice, when he could make many others. In fact, he could choose another specialist or decide not to undergo any visit.
After this important premise, let's now get to the heart of a Referral Marketing Strategy and let's see together which doctors it is most suitable for and what aims it aims to achieve.
The objectives of a measurable referral marketing
Who and Why Should Do Referral Marketing? With what objectives? Surely every doctor can benefit from it, but in particular those who are now starting their own path in private health and are little known. Even those who have never done health marketing and must submit to the uncontrolled opinions that spread online could decide to trigger a positive word of mouth that will bear fruit over time.
Yes, but what fruits? The objectives of a Referral Marketing strategy are essentially 2:
The notoriety of the brand . As a specialist surrounded by fierce competition, with Referral Marketing you will build a growing audience of patients and potential patients who will know the value of your services.
The increase in conversions . Whether you propose a cycle of visits, surgery or other offers that depend on your specialization, thanks to a strategy based on word of mouth you will increase the number of patients who decide to contact you and their wall of distrust will undoubtedly be easier to break down.
In the title of this paragraph I have also named a little word that we at Medical Marketing know well, because it is on that word that we base all our marketing actions: I am referring to "MEASURABLE" .
In fact, it is unthinkable that in a Referral Marketing strategy you do not take into account precisely the "ambassadors" and new patients you get with this form of advertising. Referral Marketing, like health advertising on social networks or e-mail marketing strategies, must always be measurable .
How to measure the effectiveness of your Referral
Marketing
What do I mean by "measurable"? I mean you need to know exactly if and how many patients came through this tool. This will be essential to understand if you are doing a good job or if you need to improve. How can we make word of mouth measurable? There is always a rule that there must be something written, which can be trivially even a business card or a coupon, with a benefit clearly highlighted and that your new patient must bring back to the first visit to be able to use it. This way it will be easy for you to measure the returns and avoid the classic question:
"How did you find out about my services?"
But now let's see concretely some winning examples of Referral Marketing decontextualized from the medical sector, but which can give you different food for thought.
Some great examples of Referral Marketing
Which are the brands that have acquired great notoriety and conquered new customers and fame with Referral Marketing?
One of these is definitely Vodafone , which with the “Bring a friend to Vodafone” promotion has guaranteed benefits both to the customer who puts in a good word and to the new customer for a very long time. Although Sky has done something similar, offering 100 Euro discount about subscribing to existing customers and 30 euro discount friend "new customer."
But there are millions of examples: Airbnb , for example, gives away travel credits to users who invite other people to join. Even Dropbox , one of the first file hosting services based on the "cloud" has created his empire with Referral Marketing, offering more storage space to those who brought a friend. In some cases, sharing on social networks is also a form of Referral Marketing: that is, a benefit is granted only after sharing the brand on one's social profiles. In this case, word of mouth is more generic and more casual and therefore has less value than when it is triggered by a human relationship between two people.
Even the reviews , especially in video format, can be considered a form of Referral Marketing. We have talked several times about how effective they are and how much they promote social proof. In this article you will find an indispensable in-depth analysis, with a schedule that you can send to the patient right away.
Benefits and Referral Marketing
Remember: If you decide to give a benefit to both the satisfied patient and the friends he will bring to you, the latter will have to show up at the first visit with a coupon, in order to easily measure the returns and the effectiveness of the strategy. Do not use the price as a benefit and always keep in mind that you cannot do advertising actions that have price as their main leverage .
That's why we talk about word of mouth in the days of healthcare marketing. Because it is an induced and organized word of mouth, not something left completely to chance and not measurable, as it could have happened 40 years ago . You must carefully choose the patients to whom to propose the benefits: you should in fact choose those who with the most conviction could speak well of you; those to whom you have solved a serious pathology in a particularly brilliant way. In short, Referral Marketing cannot be improvised and the "measurable" advantage must be proposed: let's see how.
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How to offer an exclusive benefit to satisfied
patients?
Some doctors, perhaps of a somewhat introverted nature, may find it a little difficult to offer a benefit to the satisfied patient during the visit; it is also easy to forget about it.
So here comes a health marketing agency just like Medical Marketing , which exclusively takes care of the communication of doctors and knows how to bring them closer to a wide audience of potential patients.
A great way to do "remote" Referral Marketing is to propose it through e-mails . That's where you build a strong relationship and you can explain, with the help of the whole agency team, what word of mouth action entails. You can emphasize the exclusivity of the benefit, granted only to a few patients, and you could highlight the free and absolutely non-binding nature of word of mouth.
You could tell your patient that you would like to grow your profession and that you consider him a fundamental ally in this growth.
Referral Marketing: An example of a benefit offer
You could send an email that has a very similar concept to this in it:
« I would appreciate it very much if you would recommend someone who I could help with my services!
If you know people who may need me or to whom you think my intervention could be useful, I would very much appreciate your reference that can make me known.
I know that advising a doctor is an act of trust, for this reason, in addition to deep gratitude, I would be happy to recognize you and the new patient a benefit in the following form ... "
I know that now, however, a doubt is creeping into your mind: "But isn't this a sneaky way to offer services to those who don't really need them?"
Read on and I'll explain right away why it's not ...
An ethical way to connect with many new patients
Don't think that this system demeans your work and makes the doctor-patient relationship meaningless . On the contrary, the satisfied patient, seeing an added advantage recognized, will be even more grateful to you. Furthermore, Referral Marketing will allow you to meet people who really need you and who otherwise, perhaps, you would never know or would rely on a low cost clinic.
We always talk about people's health and a potential patient will certainly not contact you if he does not really need it, even if he has a possible benefit .
Referral Marketing, like other health marketing strategies, is just a way to connect with many new patients who would otherwise overlook a malaise or the symptoms of a disease. How many doctors stress the importance of prevention? Here, thanks to Referral Marketing you will encourage preventive visits that patients would otherwise postpone.
Never forget, therefore, to trigger an organized and measurable word of mouth . Not a totally random word of mouth, which you cannot control, but something planned together with an agency like Medical Marketing. Only thanks to Referral Marketing and other healthcare marketing strategies will you be able to take off or grow your profession.
