3 Reasons Why Osteopaths Shouldn’t Rely on Word of Mouth Marketing

1. Lack of control

Whether you’re an associate, clinic owner or both, you’ve heard how important it is to let your hands do good work and patients will come. Be patient for patients.

While sage advice, with bills and other commitments looming, the need for money waits for no-one. What if you don’t have the time to be patient for patients?

And that’s it right there.

The critical issue with relying on word of mouth to grow your patient list is that you have no control over when someone will tell another person that you’re the best around and that they need to book an appointment with you.

So, even though it feels fantastic to have a patient refer someone to you and grow your list basically for you, word of mouth marketing tends of grow at a far slower rate than other marketing methods. This can make it difficult for you to sustain growth over the long term.

2. Competition

The world of osteopathy is only becoming more crowded. With more practitioners graduating and more clinics opening every year, the ability to stand out from the crowd will only continue to get harder.

Since word of mouth is a passive form of marketing, meaning that you have a lack of control over when its powers will come into effect, relying solely on word of mouth can make it difficult for you to effectively compete with other businesses that are using more proactive marketing strategies.

3. Social reach

The whole dynamic of word of mouth depends on personal connections and conversations between your patients and their social circles. This means that the potential reach of word of mouth is limited to the number of people that your current patients know and interact with.

This is ideal if you have a significant patient list, but what if you don’t? Also, this is great when you live in a tight knit community where word gets around fast, but what if you live in a big town or city?

3.1. Trust

Another layer to this is trust. Word of mouth marketing also depends heavily on trust because people must trust the person who is recommending you. If the person recommending you is not a good friend or family member, there is no guarantee that the patient will trust their opinion.

Summary

While word of mouth is undoubtedly a powerful marketing method, you shouldn’t rely on it to grow your patient list due to the lack of control over when its powers will come into effect, rising competition and limited social reach.