November Marketing Ideas for Your Medical Practice

A new month has arrived and its time to roll out new marketing efforts. This is a big marketing season for many retail stores, with the upcoming holidays, so it can be easy to get buried in all that is going on. You want to make sure you stand out in your end-of-year marketing programs, and should strive to be entertaining and not overly promotional - after all, your goal is to establish and nurture the "like-know-trust" factor to bring patients through your door.

Stand out in marketing your practice with these ideas:

1. Food drive. Ask patients or their families to donate a non-perishable food item for the local food bank. This serves a couple of functions, obviously you are helping families in need, but you are also building your like-know-trust factor with your patients and prospective patients in the community.

2. Buy-back-candy. Many practices have successful candy buy-back operations. Kids bring their candy from Halloween to your practice and trade it in to "shop" for healthier prizes. These prizes can be as simple as coloring books and crayons branded with your practice information.

3. Flu shot clinics. Many practices are offering Saturday flu shot clinics. While this is a practical need for patients, you can jazz it up by creating a health fair of sorts, or hosting the flu shot booth somewhere other than your clinic.

4. November is National Diabetes Awareness Month. It is also National Epilepsy Awareness Month, Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, and Lung Cancer Awareness Month just to name a few. There are tons of activities and promotions around disease prevention, support, and wellness, depending on your specialty. You can even work with other practices and businesses in your community to support these campaigns.

5. Fall favorites. Social media in November can center around 30 things your practice is thankful for or 30 fall favorites. Make sure you are keeping your posts 80 percent fun/entertaining/inspirational/motivational and only 20 percent promotional for the best engagement online. Don't forget to let your online community know about any dates you are closed over the holiday this month.

What are your favorite November marketing ideas?