Building your DPC brand
Your brand distinguishes you and your direct primary care (DPC) practice from other healthcare providers in your area. Building your DPC brand will help you build your practice, attract new patients, and sustain an image that reflects who you are and the healthcare services you provide.
The first step is to establish your DPC brand. A brand includes your values, your healthcare delivery style, the “personality” of your practice, and how you want people to feel when they interact with you and your clinical team. The brand needs to be consistent across all platforms and in every touchpoint so that it becomes intrinsically associated with your practice.
Have you decided on a name for your practice? A color scheme for the office and for any patient materials? Do you have a logo? These are all part of your brand and should reflect the image you want to project to attract potential patients, to retain existing patients, and to develop positive relationships in the community as a whole.
Once you have established what you want your brand to be – whether that’s conservative, fun, reserved, outgoing, warm and welcoming, family-focused, or any other image you want to establish and maintain – you will need to promote your practice while staying consistent with that brand.
Optimizing your DPC practice is an easy and efficient process with Elation’s electronic health record (EHR) solution that enables you to seamlessly manage your clinical records, membership recurring payments, and patient relationships.
Some options for building your DPC brand include:
- Engaging with the local media, positioning yourself as a subject matter expert in a particular healthcare topic. During the pandemic, especially, people are looking for factual information that will help them in their daily lives.
- Encourage current patients to help spread the word about your practice. Ask them to write online reviews and to let friends and family know about what you have to offer as a DPC provider. If someone refers a new patient to your practice, follow up with that person or organization with a handwritten note of appreciation.
- Creating a practice website that provides options for current patients to communicate with you securely as well as the opportunity for potential patients to gather the information they need to make a decision about seeking care with your DPC practice.
- Maintaining an educational blog on your website that provides quality information on healthcare topics of interest to patients and potential patients.
- Regularly posting on social media channels with tidbits about your practice and your clinical team as well as helpful tips on general healthcare topics. Use care when responding to comments on social media, keeping your posts generic and HIPAA-friendly.
- Developing relationships with community groups that may need a guest speaker for their meetings or special events. Participate in organizations that align with your brand and your goals as a healthcare provider.
As you move forward with marketing your DPC practice, keep track of which methods are most effective for building your brand and attracting new patients. One of the best ways to do this is to ask patients how they found out about your practice. You can include the question on your new patient questionnaire or simply have one of your team ask the patient as they are checking them in for their appointment. As you learn how each new patient found your DPC practice, enter the information into a database and review the results on a regular basis so you’ll know which strategy is the most effective in building your DPC brand.
