“Marketing Tips for Health Brands”
Estimated read time: 2 minute & 21 seconds.
NEWS
I’m testing out a new format for my newsletter.
Instead of hitting 3 points softly, I will nail one point HARD.
This will mean that every letter will be more focused and, hopefully, more impactful.
If you think this is a good idea, respond with a 👍.
If you think this is a shit idea, respond with a 👎.
If you don't care... well then you should go pound sand.
Just kidding... or am I?
Today's newsletter is about the biggest marketing mistake I made as an occupational therapist.
LFG
👇
While working as an occupational therapist, I was responsible for obtaining my own patients (sales and marketing, here we go!).
This was both liberating and terrifying.
It was liberating because I could market to whoever I wanted to. Terrifying because well... I didn't have a fucking clue what I was doing.
So... I did everything:
I even went as far as "sneaking" into doctors' offices to "drop by and say hello." It was always a bit awkward, but hey, I got to show face.
None of it worked (shocker, I know).
Not because they weren't all AMAZING marketing ideas… hell, I came up with them; they must be amazing?!
No no no… they didn’t work because I was scattered and inconsistent.
Which is odd because if you know me… I’m literally THE GUY people go to when planning and organizing trips.
Then one day, I noticed another therapist I was working with had a flood of new patients.
He was a newer OT, but he was kicking my ass in the marketing game.
“How could this be?!” I thought to myself.
It turns out he was getting really intimate with the rock-climbing world (not in a weird way).
He had a personal interest in rock climbing and decided to start attending various gyms and rock climbing events.
He quickly became “the hand therapist for rock climbers,” and before you knew it, he had more patients than he knew what to do with.
He didn’t have to compete for patients because he was the only one seeing those types of patients.
Clearly… I was looking at marketing all wrong. I thought marketing was about getting as much attention as possible.
I was wrong.
It’s about getting the right message in front of the right person (like hand therapy for rock climbers).
Not long after this event, I started attending more arthritis-related events and conferences.
I started positioning myself as “the hand therapist for arthritis” and as a result… more arthritis patients started walking through the door.
Here’s the lesson in all of this.
Targeted marketing will always outperform a scattered approach.
Marketing should never be about getting attention for attention’s sake. It should be about getting the RIGHT message in front of the RIGHT person.
Take home point…
You don’t need to be the BEST when you’re the ONLY.
✌️