Practice transition is a crucial time for you, your team, and your patients.

If you’re considering practice transition, the odds are good you have a time horizon of five to ten years. That gives you the runway you need to make sure your practice and people are in good hands. As a major part of your local community, your decisions will reverberate for a long time to come.

Practice Transition Works for You, Your Patients, and the Next Generation

During a practice transition, an established practitioner looks to the next generation to continue the practice. This ensures patients never suffer an interruption in care. Plus, your brand can continue forward, which helps it feel like a smooth and seamless change for those who rely on you.

When a practice transition is done right, everybody benefits.

The practitioner can step back knowing that nobody has been left behind during the change. And the younger practitioner, who may even be a recent graduate, can launch into a new phase of their career with all your brand assets, equipment, real estate, and community goodwill behind them.

Since the younger practitioner doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, they can focus most of their attention on high-quality care. That improves clinical outcomes for current patients and those who will come in the future.

While there are many different aspects to practice transition, selecting the right person for the job is the one that typically takes the lion’s share of effort. Not everybody has the opportunity to pass their practice within the family. Someone has to be chosen who is truly worthy of your mantle.

That said, there’s another aspect of practice transition that’s almost as vital. It ensures that the new head of your practice is able to pick up where you left off, maintain momentum, and strengthen the business. That’s pivotal since not all of your existing patients will stick around after the change.

Unfortunately, this other aspect is often overlooked.

It centers on your brand’s medical practice marketing.

Medical Practice Marketing Is an Infusion of Relevance into Your Practice’s Brand

If you have been in practice for decades, it’s likely you’ve seen the same patients for many, many years. You’ve built a web of multi-generational relationships. When new patients come along, they are often relatives of the current patients or those attracted by word of mouth from close friends.

This is a terrific place for any business to be. But during practice transition, it can sabotage you.

During any time of change, you’re bound to lose some of your existing business. At the same time, it’s harder for would-be new patients to find you through tools like your medical practice website, your social media, or email marketing. Some established practices don’t use these techniques at all.

Without digital marketing as a complement to your sterling reputation, it’s nearly impossible to attract a steady flow of new business. Fresh business is essential so that the incoming head of your practice has an opportunity to develop new relationships. These will underpin the practice’s future and carry it forward for years.

Medical practice marketing is the solution. With the common 5-10 year timeframe of a practice transition, there’s plenty of time to yield dividends from it. Yet, medical practice marketing is often lost in the shuffle. That’s true even though it has the potential to hugely increase the sales value of your practice.

Not only should you shift your focus to marketing now – but you should ensure that the new head of your practice is an integral part of that marketing. Marketing doesn’t need to add heavy overhead to your practice or much complexity to your business, but the time to get started is today.

How to Rejuvenate Your Medical Practice Marketing Ahead of Practice Transition

Many practitioners have never focused on marketing – they simply did the best they could and found that their book of business grew over time. The concept of hiring a marketing agency might sound complicated and even feel unnecessary. But much has changed in the way patients look for care, and your brand must keep up.

Millennials are reaching their 40s, and when they need to choose a clinic or other medical practice, they go online. Influenced by the pandemic, many members of the younger generation are also becoming proactive about medical care and will almost exclusively go online to research their options.

Luckily, medical practice marketing doesn’t need to be mysterious.

Here are some key ideas to guide your marketing strategy:

1. Leverage the Power of Video Storytelling

Research shows, again and again, that video content is more effective than plain text. It is easier to use and much more memorable. Patients are more likely to act on it, enhancing adherence to a plan of care. Doctor-led video storytelling is the most powerful, lending a sense of gravitas to your brand story and re-introducing your brand.

2. Revise Your Logo and Brand Visual Identity

During practice transition, you want to create a sense of continuity between old and new. At the same time, it is helpful to modernize your brand basics. That includes a logo, of course, but there’s more to it. Consistent color schemes and font selections also to create coherence and inspire trust.

3. Update Your Practice’s Website

Is your medical practice website looking old or outdated? It’s critical to ensure it loads quickly and is fully secure even if nobody will be scheduling or paying through it. Streamlined navigation helps patients of all backgrounds to reach their goals on your website, so they don’t get frustrated and look elsewhere for help they need.

4. Start an Email Marketing List

Digital marketing provides you with a variety of tactics for staying in contact with patients between encounters. Medical practices don’t always favor social media, but email marketing is a must-have. Through email, you can send helpful, informative content that bolsters relationships, along with appointment reminders and more.

5. Yes, Get on Social Media

Social media is a boon to some practices but not really necessary for others. Your marketing agency is your #1 ally in determining where your patients congregate on social media and how to connect with them. By using a marketing agency, you can rest assured you’ll get more visits with zero risk of embarrassing gaffes.

New York Ave Is Here to Help You Start Your Medical Practice’s Next Chapter

It takes about 90 days for a medical practice marketing strategy to take hold. From there, the sky is the limit.

While it’s always best to start as soon as possible – five or even ten years away from transition – it’s not too late to infuse your brand with greater relevance even if you only have one year. You’ll not only impress patients but broaden your options for a smooth and lucrative retirement knowing you’ve done your best work.

New York Ave is here to help you make it happen.

Contact us to find out more or get started today.