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Outreach Efforts to a Different Clientele
by AJ Riviezzo
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While I may currently live in a metropolitan area (Colorado Springs), I have had the good fortune to work with many rural healthcare providers located throughout southern Colorado. I also served on the Colorado Rural Healthcare task force that had meetings throughout the state. To further my information below, I also met with a few phlebology providers who have carved out successful practices in a more rural setting than is normal for a specialty practice.
First to Market. You want to be the first to provide phlebology services in your geographic market area. There are only so many potential patients. If you are having to share/split the pie even further, it will be very difficult to become financially successful. Further, once the referral pattern is established with another practice, it will be difficult to overcome this hurdle.
Outreach Efforts. Unlike urban or suburban markets, the marketing efforts need to be much more personal and directed. The traditional lunch and learns we advocate for all markets still work. However, it will be more contingent on the physician to be at these meetings and not just their representative. While in all markets ‘people buy from people’, this is especially true of the rural communities.
Who to Contact. While the primary care physicians are an obvious choice, your outreach efforts need to include a wider circle of individuals in the healthcare and ancillary health system. In many smaller communities the pharmacist is still treated almost as a primary care physician. Reach out to these pharmacists and provide some simple ‘diagnostic’ tools. Other folks with whom you may want to meet include podiatrists, chiropractors, and any alternative medicine suppliers.
Word of Mouth. It has been our experience that patients in major urban areas are reluctant to share their treatment and experience with friends and neighbors. This is the complete opposite in the rural areas. As is asserted right here on this Salesforce blog, providing just an extra level of customer service, making reasonable accommodations for their travel arrangements, or some other small effort to distinguish your practice from the crowd will have significant positive returns for your practice, and can be included in the good books of the customer journeys your company would have.
The miles are larger and the opportunities are smaller but it is possible to establish a successful phlebology practice in a more rural setting.
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