When you’ve just opened a new hearing clinic, you’ve spent a lot of time and resources investing in hearing examination equipment, decorating the office and hiring new employees to get started. However, you are now faced with one big issue.

How are you going to get people to come to your practice?

If this is your second clinic, you have the leverage to market your new clinic. You’ve developed a marketing system and know which activities you can execute to attract new clients for your new clinic.

But if this is your first clinic or you are just starting a new business, starting from scratch brings many challenges.

So, what kind of marketing strategy is needed to get you started?

Strategy #1 – Spend less time on transactional and go for informational content.

People are actively searching on the internet. More and more people use Google every year, and younger generations use social media and other AI tools like ChatGPT for information.

One can hypothesize that people do not get the information they need from their immediate network of friends, coworkers, and family. There is an opportunity for your clinic to fill in the information gap.

People repel ads and dislike being sold to. It’s like meeting someone for the first time; all they do is ask you for money without getting to know you. People click less on ads, and with the limited number of people to target to buy hearing aids, you need to provide more than just ads.

Tactics: Write evergreen content that is relevant ten years from now and demonstrates experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness for the things you do.

Strategy #2 – Plan for the long game.

It’s easier to go right towards advertising to generate quick sales. Advertising is like a one-night stand; there are no foundational relationships or getting to know the other person intimately.

You will get immediate gratification, but people don’t stick around in the long term. Other competition clinics will spend the time and effort to build relationships and they will be the first on the list when someone needs hearing aids.

It’s easier to choose someone you know than to go through the timely process of researching a clinic. This is equally important when you are dealing with high price items.

Most of us won’t jump to buy a new car from a brand we never heard of before when we are ready to buy a new car. The same goes for purchasing hearing aids. People will opt to go to a place they are familiar with.

Over time, your authority will snowball, and more and more people will recognize your clinic. When you complement with advertising, marketing will get easier, not harder, to attract.

Expect sales to be slow initially, but it will increase over time if you are on the right path.

Tactics: No more than 20% of your marketing budget should go towards advertising, and use the rest to invest in long-term tactics.

Strategy #3 – Use social media to help reinforce your SEO strategy.

Just focusing on one marketing channel is not a winning strategy. Searches or performing search engine optimization (SEO) has been good for local advertising. However, you’ll waste resources because what you learn on one channel can be easily transferable to another.

As mentioned, the younger generation is not using Google as much. They are searching on social media for information. However, the problems and information they seek will most likely fit evergreen content.

Tactics: You can repurpose your website content for multiple channels and leverage the tools available on social media to help identify what people are searching for in your topic area.

Strategy #4 – Use offline local marketing

So much effort has been put into digital marketing. Very few clinics are changing their efforts for offline marketing.

Direct marketing campaigns and any other offline marketing campaign can work effectively if they are well-targeted and personalized. However, you can do plenty of offline marketing beyond the common direct marketing campaign in the past.

The challenge with offline marketing alone is that it can get expensive if you are marketing to everyone without clearly understanding who you are targeting and how they see you as a solution to their problems.

Yet, marketing offline and having your business at the top of the local community’s mind will also help support your online marketing.

Tactics: Engage in offline marketing that supports relationship building and people getting to know you as the local business in town.

Strategy #5 – Be intentional about reducing stigma.

Often, I see marketing either perpetuating stigma or not addressing it head-on. The more you advertise to reduce stigma, the better you can build trust and attract customers.

A huge pool of customers is not addressing their hearing loss but should be doing something about it. That’s an untapped market that could help bring you the needed business.

The key is getting them to leap avoidance to enjoy the satisfaction of what hearing aids can bring. You can’t speak to them like you can speak to others who are not stigmatized by hearing loss.

Too many people in the hearing care industry speak to people who are content and less stigmatized and missing out on an opportunity for new clients.

Tactics: Be intentional with your content and copy. Choose words that don’t stigmatize people and leverage people with similar experiences to show everyday people with hearing loss who are not the stereotypical views associated with hearing loss.

So, what kind of marketing strategy will you start today?