How To Advertise Nutrition Services To Physicians

October 2012 Issue

Marketing Your Practice — Here's How to Develop a Client Base and Abound Your Concern
By Faye Berger Mitchell, RD, LDN
Today's Dietitian
Vol. 14 No. 10 P. 18

Author's Notation: This article is the concluding installment of the three-role series on how to start your own nutrition business. In the get-go article, I discussed the pros and cons of starting a individual exercise and the skills and personality traits you demand to succeed. In the second article, I provided strategies to observe office space and reviewed the types of office infinite available as well every bit the furnishings and equipment you demand. In this final article, I talk over ways to market and advertise your services to attract clients and build your business concern.

Karen has come a long way. She'd e'er dreamed of starting her ain nutrition business organisation so she examined the pros and cons of starting a private practice and spoke with other RDs who have their own businesses to determine whether entrepreneurship was right for her. Later examining her strengths and weaknesses and doing much enquiry, she decided to get for it. Karen plant a keen location for her role and furnished her infinite with the equipment she needed.

Now, Karen's eager to begin seeing patients. The question is, where will these patients come up from? You lot can have a unique approach to patient care or a special niche in the marketplace that will set up you apart from other dietitians, but unless you let the public know who and where you are and generate referrals, your business probable volition fail.

To learn how to attract clients, Karen pored over books and periodicals about business that helped her develop a three-pronged approach. She realized she needed to build a network, market her practice, and gain publicity. Just before she could begin, she needed to target her market.

Market Research
To begin targeting your market, you lot'll need to decide who will ultimately exist using your services and analyze specific characteristics of that population. Try to focus on a niche that hasn't been tapped before. For example, you may look at your neighborhood and realize in that location are several retirement communities inside a four-mile radius. Ask yourself these key questions to analyze the market:

• Are there any RDs nearby in individual practice?

• Do the residents of these communities presently seek nutrition counseling?

• Are they obtaining nutrition communication from a local health nutrient shop or a well-known weight-loss chain? If so, how much are they paying for services?

• How can y'all set yourself apart from the contest?

In one case you answer these questions, you may conclude that specializing in geriatric nutrition is the all-time way to target your market.

Sometimes, as luck would have it, your target market finds you. If you already have a clinical specialty as a hospital RD, you lot can build on those years of expertise as y'all start your practice. Another possibility is to begin specializing in an expanse of diet with which you're most familiar. For example, if yous have small children, you understand the challenges most families face when it comes to regularly preparing healthful meals. This can get a great niche.

Edifice Networks
Merriam-Webster defines networking as "the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions; specifically, the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or concern." True networking is somewhat of an fine art. The novice networker may believe that networking is as elementary every bit meeting people and exchanging concern cards, but there's more to it. It involves edifice relationships in which you give and receive.

Think of networks every bit people you know and clubs or organizations to which y'all vest. Some networks are professional and others are personal. Professional person networks include other health professionals, dietetics and wellness organizations, and business and networking groups. Personal networks can include your children's school or sports squad, places of worship, civic associations, and relatives. However, it's not enough to join organizations; successful networking requires agile participation.

Virtual social networks besides are slap-up tools for networking. These networks are growing rapidly and gaining in popularity. Electronic mailing lists and chat rooms are two examples that can provide multiple opportunities. Advisedly choose which networks you'd like to bring together or you lot'll run the risk of getting bogged downwards with trying to keep up with also many of them.

Jan Patenaude, RD, CLT, managing director of medical nutrition for Signet Diagnostic Corporation, a medical laboratory that specializes in mediator release testing (MRT) for food allergies and intolerances, and coauthor of the Certified Jump Therapist training and standing education programme, met the vice president of Signet by posting on a health bulletin board. That post led to one,000-plus private practice consultations via telecounseling, and she was able to help the vice president boost his business by introducing MRT and LEAP (Lifestyle, Eating, And Performance) therapy to RDs across the country.

Marketing Nuts
Earlier you begin your marketing campaign, establish the professional image yous want to project, suggests Yvette Quantz, RD, CSSD, LD, CLT, of Customized Nutrition Newsletters + Blueprint Services. "A professionally designed logo and business organization bill of fare along with a good website are your first impression, and they do count," she explains.

Advertising
Advertizing is a great fashion to become the give-and-take out virtually your practice. Information technology can be expensive, but y'all need to spend coin to brand money. Information technology's important to present a professional image when advertising, and then don't skimp on pattern and layout in impress media. You'll want to carefully examine the cost benefit of all media before developing your advert upkeep. Many RDs in individual do accept institute large newspaper, television, and radio ads the least effective and have turned to other formats, such equally neighborhood newspapers and school or customs newsletters.

Brochures
Printed brochures are inexpensive and a great mode to market place your practise. You can create your own brochures by simply using a good desktop publishing program. Your brochures should convey information almost you and your practice and include your philosophy. You can distribute them at speaking engagements or doc'due south offices or send them as direct post to your target market.

Newsletters
Traditional newsletters fall under the directly mail category and are best used downward the route when you've established your target market place. E-newsletters, however, are an inexpensive way to advertise your services and stay connected to patients. "Sending a monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly newsletter will help people get familiar with you," says Quantz , who oft gets requests for appointments in response to her monthly newsletter.

Websites
An essential tool for doing business, a website volition give y'all and your exercise credibility and let potential patients to visit with yous before they actually come across you. Some patients, when referred to an RD, receive several names to contact. They often brand their decision based on Spider web presence, so creating a site that looks inviting and is easy to navigate is recommended.

Your website also can get a time saver. Listing your location and role policies reduces the amount of phone fourth dimension spent with new patients. You tin directly them to your site for this information. It's also beneficial to post new patient forms they can download and complete before the first visit. Outset with a simple site and add pages as your concern grows.

Publicity
Publicity is an boosted style to get the word out well-nigh your practice. It differs from advertisement in a couple of ways. Ad costs money; publicity is free. Another difference is that advert gives yous the opportunity to control your bulletin whereas publicity sometimes does not. For example, if you're interviewed, a reporter tin have your words out of context or suit them slightly to fit into a story.

Since publicity can requite you and your services credibility, though, consider creating your ain by writing and sending press releases or press kits to local newspapers and television and radio stations. You likewise can write a mag or newspaper article or offering your expertise to the media. For case, publicity has paid off for Patenaude several times. She wrote a monthly column for costless in a health insert that was office of a large urban newspaper. "My byline led to referrals," she says. She also hosted a biweekly spot for a call-in radio program, which was "neat, free marketing."

Social Media
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and blogging are incredible ways to gain exposure, establish proper noun recognition, and gain publicity. The biggest investment is your time. It's piece of cake to become sucked in, and earlier you know it, hours take passed. So analyze the diverse options and be strategic as you lot determine how all-time to use social media to promote your business.

Rebecca Scritchfield, RD, ACSM HFS, who has all-encompassing social media experience, suggests yous "await at your business goals and inquire, 'How can social media help?'" You'll be able to determine whether a blog, a Facebook fan page, or a Twitter account is the all-time use of your time. Once you step into the social media realm, however, you tin can't "just abandon your social media presence. Your intention should exist to stay involved for the long booty," Scritchfield says.

Marketing your practice is a necessary, ongoing process to build and abound your business. "One of the best things I learned about a growing exercise is to not just constantly build and get new patients but to nurture the relationships y'all've already built with existing patients by continuing to offer them services that could benefit them," Quantz says.

"The bottom line is marketing is essential for simply nigh any type of business concern out at that place," she adds. "Consumers demand meridian-of-heed awareness about you and the services you lot provide. When they're thinking of nutrition and nutrient, you desire them to remember of you lot equally the good."

— Faye Berger Mitchell, RD, LDN, is coauthor of Making Diet Your Business concern: Individual Practice and Beyond. She's helped thousands of dietitians nationwide start their businesses through her workshops, speaking engagements, and Be Your Ain Boss Starter Kit. She's the recipient of the 2011 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' Excellence in Practice Award.