The Inside Scoop on Outsourcing Marketing for a Private Practice

We all know marketing is important if you want to get more patient leads and grow your practice…but often times, practices get too busy to do it well.

This week on the Medical Marketing Podcast, we’ll explore the pros and cons of outsourcing marketing for your practice and help you figure out which strategy makes the most sense to help your practice grow.

Welcome!

Hello everybody, and welcome to the Medical Marketing Podcast – the show where we give you actionable tips and advice to help improve your practice marketing, grow revenue, and take patient experience to the next level.

I’m your host, Crawford Ifland, and this week we’re looking at the topic of outsourcing your practice marketing: the good, the bad, and everything you need to consider. Because outsourcing isn’t the right fit for every practice in every situation – so today, we’re going to help you understand what questions you need to be asking yourself and we’re going to help you decide if outsourcing to an agency could be the right move to help you grow.

Let’s dive in.

The Advantages of Outsourcing Marketing

So today we’re going to talk about a balancing act every medical practice faces: attracting new patients while providing exceptional care to the existing ones. It’s a challenge familiar to both large and small practices, and the solution often lies in the realm of marketing—a crucial yet frequently overlooked aspect when the demands of patient care take precedence.

For many, the question arises: should marketing be handled in-house, or is outsourcing a more viable option?

Now, outsourcing often gets a bad rap – it brings to mind images of low-quality work done done overseas in some cramped call center…but that’s not what we’re talking about here. When I refer to outsourcing, I’m talking about finding a marketing agency or trusted partner who can come alongside your practice – whether you have an in-house marketing team or not – and help you grow.

Outsourcing in this context just means that you’re not hiring another employee or bringing someone else on your payroll – you’re going outside to a contractor who has expertise in this area, someone who can help you grow.

This can be a valuable strategy, but as I mentioned before, it’s not the right move for everyone.

Today, we explore the benefits and potential drawbacks of outsourcing your marketing efforts, helping you make an informed decision tailored to your practice’s unique needs.

Outsourcing your marketing can deliver several key benefits, particularly for practices feeling the strain of limited time and resources:

Outsourcing Saves Time

For solo practitioners and small teams, marketing often falls to the bottom of the priority list. You have patients to care for, and changes are you’re wearing multiple hats. Outsourcing in this case can liberate your time, allowing you to focus on patient care and the management of your practice. But the time savings can benefit larger practices, too – often times, their marketing team is stretched thin with different campaigns and initiatives, so having a helping hand can go a long way. Even having an external partner who can take an outside perspective can help your team get clarity on their marketing and help them discern what’s working and what’s not. So in that way, an external agency can provide the much-needed support to enhance your team’s focus and efficiency.

Outsourcing Can Enhance Quality

Specialized marketing agencies can bring a level of dedication and expertise that can significantly boost the quality of your marketing campaigns. This focused approach often results in better visibility, more qualified leads, and an overall improvement in campaign effectiveness. Again, having an external partner can help your team see the forest for the trees, so to speak, and can help you gain a valuable perspective on your marketing efforts. They can be a sounding board, a partner who can catch mistakes or oversights before the final product goes out the door, which makes your existing campaigns much higher quality.

Outsourcing Brings Access to Deep (and Sometimes Niche) Expertise

Marketing is a complex field that requires specific knowledge and skills…and chances are, if you’re a solo physician or a small practice, you didn’t learn this in medical school. Outsourcing to an agency ensures your marketing strategy is both crafted and executed by experts. This can allow you to benefit from their deep understanding of marketing strategies and principles. Plus, if you choose an agency that specialized in healthcare, they can offer individualized insights and tailor their advice and strategies to your practice’s unique needs.

Not only that, but an agency’s experts may specialize in different aspects of marketing, such as website tracking and tagging, or conversion rate optimization – and in that case, you’ll be able to dive much deeper into specific tactics than you likely would be able to on your own.

Outsourcing Brings Cost Efficiency

Engaging with an agency can be more economical than managing marketing in-house. There’s just so much you don’t have to pay for, including payroll, software subscriptions, training, and the added expense and overhead of hiring another employee. Not only that, but the expenses associated with outsourcing are tax-deductible, so outsourcing can offer additional financial benefits.

Outsourcing Leverages Advanced Tools and Insights

Marketing agencies have access to state-of-the-art tools and analytics, which can provide you with detailed insights into your campaigns and patient engagement strategies. You might have some of this software in your business, but having experts who not only use it every single day, but are able to compare results across clients in the same industry can lead to valuable insights that make your marketing efforts more targeted and effective.

So those are some of the benefits of outsourcing marketing. But, as with everything, there are also some potential downsides and drawbacks of outsourcing. We’ll take a look at those next.

Considerations and Potential Downsides

While outsourcing offers numerous advantages, there are also considerations to bear in mind:

Control

Outsourcing may lead to concerns over losing control of your marketing messaging and your brand consistency. Because of this, it’s essential to work closely with your chosen agency to ensure they understand and adhere to your brand guidelines. This is just something to keep in mind: you might not have any problems with consistent messaging, but you do need to be aware that this is a potential concern. Having an upfront conversation with any potential marketing partner about the messaging you want to use for your brand will go a long way to mitigate against this.

Communication

Effective collaboration with an external team requires clear and regular communication. Too often do good plans break down because something wasn’t communicated well – and this gets that much harder when you’re working with an external, remote team instead of an employee you see in the office every day. Establishing a structured check-in routine from the outset can mitigate potential communication issues and ensure that you’re aligned on goals and strategies.

Expectation Alignment

It’s absolutely crucial to set clear, realistic goals with your marketing partner. Transparent discussions about expected outcomes and the strategies needed to achieve them can prevent misunderstandings and ensure both parties are working towards the same objectives. This seems like cliche advice, but you wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve seen issues arise with practices when their old marketing agency didn’t communicate what was possible and realistic within a certain budget or other parameters. Nothing good results from this, so if you want to be a success, you need to make sure you communicate your expectations and make sure they’re realistic.

Choosing the Right Marketing Partner

So, now that we’ve covered the benefits and considerations you need to think through before choosing to outsource, let’s answer perhaps the most important question: what should I be looking for?

Selecting an agency that aligns with your practice’s needs involves careful consideration of several factors:

Consider Experience

Look for agencies with a proven track record in healthcare marketing, as they will be better equipped to understand and address the unique challenges of your practice.

Ensure Quality Communication

Ensure the agency has a clear communication protocol, offering regular updates and easy access to your point of contact. There’s a lot of variance here – many larger agencies offer an account manager, but sometimes these account managers are spread too thin amongst multiple clients. Smaller agencies may have a dedicated point of contact, such as a founder, and choose to take on a limited number of clients so they can better serve each one, so you should decide in advance what’s most important to you.

Discuss Goals and Strategy

Discuss your practice’s objectives upfront and explore the agency’s approach to achieving these goals. Your agency may not have all the answers up front, but they should at least throw out a few ideas of campaigns or marketing messages to test and help you achieve your goals.

Consider Pricing

Consider the cost in relation to the value and results the agency can deliver. While budget is an important factor, the cheapest option may not always provide the best return on investment. Keep in mind that even the more expensive agencies are often times less expensive than hiring and training a new employee – and even if they aren’t, they’re often able to deliver far more than an individual marketing employee would be able to produce.

So, we’ve seen that outsourcing your marketing can offer significant benefits, from saving time to accessing specialized expertise.

The question then becomes: should you outsource your practice’s marketing?

And unfortunately, that’s not a question I can answer for you. Many practices see additional benefit from outsourcing over hiring another employee, but it’s not the right fit for everyone.

It’s crucial to approach this decision with a clear understanding of your practice’s needs and a thorough vetting of potential partners. Hopefully, this episode has been helpful in providing you with the information you need to make the right choice and take your practice to the next level.

Next time…

Well, that’s all for this week’s episode of the Medical Marketing Podcast – thanks for tuning in.

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If you want more practice marketing resources, check out our website at www.messenger.md. We’re always sharing helpful tips and know-how to help you improve your practice marketing, grow revenue, and take your patient experience to the next level.

That’s all for today’s episode – I’m Crawford Ifland. See you next time.