How One Audiology Center Turned Up the Volume on Its Digital Strategy
// By Lisa D. Ellis //
When an audiology practice wasn’t growing at the desired rate, the owner turned to the experts for help sharpening its online presence and marketing efforts. The results have been impressive, with a steadier stream of new and repeat customers now coming in. This success was recently recognized by the eHealthcare Leadership Awards.
The Need to Establish a Stronger Digital Presence
Audiology First is a private hearing center in Columbia, Maryland. It has been in business for the past 13 years and the staff prides itself on taking a personalized approach to meeting the needs of each patient. Yet when it comes to marketing its services, until recently its efforts were strictly generic. This mismatch led to a lagging customer base that needed to be addressed.
“We were getting customers, but not as many as we wanted,” explains Diana Wagner, an audiologist and owner of Audiology First. She says there were two significant areas she wanted to strengthen. The first was attracting new patients. The second was keeping existing patients coming back for repeat business.
Identifying a Two-Pronged Need
“Unless people came from physician referrals or patient referrals, I wasn’t seeing the number of new patients I needed to help grow my practice,” Wagner recalls. “Further, when existing patients hadn’t been to see us in a while, they had often forgotten where we were,” she adds.
Wagner was also aware of the growth in internet use among older age groups. She feared she was missing some of these potential patients, losing them to competitors with more developed online presences.
She initially tried to do some Google and Facebook ads on her own to increase visibility of her services, but she quickly realized this was not her area of expertise. She also didn’t have the time needed to run a comprehensive digital marketing campaign on her own while also running her practice.
On the advice of a business colleague, she finally reached out to ReachLocal for assistance.