AHPRA friendly offers your clinic should be promoting

As you’re well aware, there are lots of rules around how you can and can’t advertise in the Australian health industry.

We’ve previously spoken about having passive-need offers suitable to a wider audience that don’t necessarily have an injury or need for your main service at this moment in time.

To be clear, when we say ‘offer’ we don’t mean ‘5 bookings for the price of 3!’, that’s going to get you in hot water real quick.

Assessments (whether paid or free) are probably the best way to make an offer to your existing audience.

For example, a physio/osteo clinic may offer:

• Running gait analysis
• Ergonomic bike assessments
• Ergonomic workstation assessments
• Injury screenings

When advertising to a new audience, on a platform like Facebook in which you’re advertising to an audience for whom may not need your service right now, but could potentially need it in the coming months,  or could potentially be convinced into a particular assessment relevant to them – it’s far more efficient to promote something specific, to a specific interest group, rather than a general ‘hey look at us, we’re a clinic too’ type of ad.

Which ad do you think a user would be more likely to respond to:

1. A general ad about your clinic, your friendly team and the services you offer, targeted towards people of a certain age group in your area
2. An ad for an ergonomic bike assessment, educating how this reduced pain on long rides, targeted towards users with an interest in triathlons, right before your local triathlon

I would think the second. Sometimes business owners get into this mindset of ‘I just need to have more awareness, and be in front of more people’. And that type of marketing definitely has a place, but there are things you should prioritise before you get to that stage, that can have a more efficient impact on bookings.

These passive-need assessments create real, face to face openings with potential patients to see if they may need a more formal appointment soon. And if they don’t? Well, you’ve still provided great value, expanded your database, and created a great chance of future bookings.

But what about discounts? From our experience, offers such as “$20 off your first consultation” can be an easy ‘in’ to get new patients across the line. There are some important considerations though if you’re going down this route:

• You’re not allowed to use any superlative or over the top language that pushes people to book immediately if they might not have an imminent health issue.
• Similarly, you cannot push bookings if the offer ends at a certain time, ie “Hurry and book now! This offer must end soon!”
• If you mention the discount in ads or on your website, you must include some clear terms and conditions about what appointments the offer applies to, the exact amount, and exactly who it applies to.
• You cannot simply raise the price of existing bookings purely to put a discount on them.

Keep these points in mind, and you will create easy to communicate offers that will station your clinic above competitors without getting you in hot water.

What are some passive-need offers that your clinic could use to future proof bookings? Email me at marc@newpatientflow.com.au if you’re not sure and I’ll let you know if I have any ideas.