Patient acquisition today calls for targeted practice marketing and targeted practice marketing requires a complete understanding of who your ideal patients are and how to reach them. To do this, you need a detailed view of these patient personas. These personas will be the secret sauce in your marketing strategy, helping you connect with those who you want to reach.
WHAT IS A PATIENT PERSONA? HOW CAN IT HELP MY PRACTICE?
A patient persona is a fictional person that stands as a representation of a group of patients with significant similarities.
Determining your target patient personas is crucial in bringing more of your preferred type of patients through your door. These personas can be used to influence nearly every decision about your practice, from your website content to your marketing.
HOW DO I CREATE A PATIENT PERSONA?
The next step is to identify a group of your ideal patients. Once you have these patients in mind, start looking at their similarities, this will help you complete your first patient persona.
HOW MANY PATIENT PERSONAS SHOULD I CREATE?
There's no set amount of buyer personas that works best for all practices, you really have to figure out what works best for your practice. I suggest separating your personas based on their goals, i.e. their condition or the treatment or service they’re seeking.
Let’s begin creating your first patient persona...
Goal
What does this patient hope to get from being treated at your practice?
Perhaps in your ideal patient group, you notice that the majority of these patients are mainly being seen two services.
Hint: This means you need at least two patient personas.
Demographics
These are the basic details like age, gender, location etc. This information can be found in the common demographic data or you current ideal patients.
The next details are more behavioral, and may not be included in your patient records. To uncover this information, refer to previous conversations you and your staff had with your ideal patients. If you’re struggling, ask your patients what they enjoy and care about!
Hobbies & Interests
What leisure activities or interests do they enjoy? Are they fitness enthusiasts? Are they theater nerds? Do they enjoy cooking?
Challenges & Pain Points
What are they struggling with? Chronic illness? Quality of care? Financial concerns?
Sources of Information
What channels do they frequent for personal connection of entertainment? What online resources do they use to answer health questions?
As a final step, create a summary of details you just listed to create a sharpened vision of your patient persona.
Now that you’ve built the foundation for your marketing and advertising efforts, it’s time to create a marketing strategy to effectively target and reach your patient personas.
Allison Ferguson
Allison is Netsertive’s Corporate Marketing Manager, web administrator, and data lover. She has more than a decade of experience helping companies tell their stories in the changing digital landscape. When she's not thinking about content marketing, you can find her enjoying the outdoors or spending time with her two fur children.
