Overview
MarketVisory Group is a HIPAA compliant healthcare marketing agency. Over 90% of their agency’s client base is in healthcare. MarketVisory Group’s mission is helping independent practice owners stay independent.
The Challenge
Carl White, President and Founder of the MarketVisory Group, had a problem. His client, a podiatry practice, operates in a crowded market.
“In the city and surrounding communities, there are over a dozen podiatry practices. It’s hard for any of them to stand out. Even their practice names sound similar to each other. “
More than a dozen competitors are battling for patient attention, trust, and phone calls. Their client needs to outpace large hospitals, established clinics within a healthcare system, and independent clinics.
Reviews are the tiebreaker.
Research shows 50% of all Americans, an estimated 163.6 million people, visit Healthgrades before seeing a doctor; 64% of these prospective patients make an appointment within one week. Carl understood what was at stake for his client.
“In healthcare, patients want to choose a provider they can stay with forever. Reviews from other patients help convince prospective patients to call that practice.”
His client’s practice had several reviews in place already, but so did their competitors. The number, quality, and variety of their reviews weren’t enough to help set them apart from their competition.
“Before we started working with this client, they had 41 reviews with a 3.3 overall rating over 3+ years. 41 reviews didn’t set them apart, and a 3.3 rating, while not terrible, doesn’t really convince a prospective patient to stop looking for other podiatrists and call our client. They didn’t have any system in place. They got what they got.”
If his client’s podiatry practice was going to stand out, they needed to build a stronger review portfolio than their competitors.
The Solution
- He installed a “patient reviews” page on his client’s website.
- Then he created a reviews funnel focusing primarily on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Healthgrades. His client’s review funnel included a three message email and SMS autoresponder sequence.
- He completed a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Grade.us, and made sure his client also completed a BAA with Grade.us. Since email addresses and cell phone numbers are both ePHI, establishing a HIPAA compliant relationship is mandatory to protect his client and MarketVisory Group.
- MarketVisory Group worked with doctors and front desk staff to identify the best way to ask patients for a review. After looking at all options (ask patients in person, use kiosk mode, or have the practice upload patients in bulk), they decided that the best choice is having the front desk staff upload patient names in bulk on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
- Carl sends the client an automated Grade.us progress report at the end of each week.
The Results
Carl and his client gave his campaigns the time needed to generate results. Weekly progress reports meant they could monitor the campaign consistently to verify that their efforts were producing results.
“We started our review system using Grade.us with this client on July 22, 2019. In July 2020, we pulled the data from Grade.us for this client. Over 51 weeks, this client got 54 more reviews, and their rating climbed to 4.7. To reach these levels, they asked 700 patients for a review 3,166 times.
Overall, they more than doubled their review count and raised their rating in 1/3 the time. We think this is successful because now they have more reviews than any other podiatry practice in the area, and a 4.7 rating is very convincing to anyone reading it.”
What about patient response times?
Was patient follow up necessary or simply an optional benefit for a small minority of forgetful patients? Carl went through the data collected in Grade.us for the answer.
“We wanted to see if we could answer the question – do patients need to be asked for a review more than once? In other words, is a multi ask drip campaign really necessary and worth a higher price?
To answer that, we dug into the 54 patients who left a review and asked: how many of them left a review after being asked only one time? The answer is 5.
The other 49 needed the second or third email or text to remind them. If we didn’t use that feature in Grade.us, this client would have 46 reviews (not 95) with an overall rating still very close to 3.3 (not 4.7). For us, this reinforces the value of a multi-ask drip campaign.”
This means 91 percent of patients needed a reminder to leave a review. Follow up wasn’t an optional benefit; it was an essential and necessary component. The client’s review management campaigns wouldn’t have achieved the same stellar results without consistent follow up!
Why is follow up so important?
Smart Insights found sending out a simple follow up SMS message, “have you read your email?” increased email open rates by an additional 20 to 30%!
With the Grade.us platform, MarketVisory Group maximized reach and response with patients who were eager to share their experience on review platforms.
It’s made Carl a believer.
Here are the three features Carl lists as most valuable:
- “The multi-ask drip campaign using emails and texts. I use it with every client, and now I talk about the podiatry client experience to reinforce how critical this is.
- How easy it is for patients to be asked for a review – just put in the first name and an email and/or mobile number, and that’s it. Grade.us has options to ask a patient for a review. We work with each client to figure out which way works best for their daily workflow.
- The fact that Grade.us is HIPAA compliant. Grade.us makes it very easy for us to set up new clients into our own HIPAA compliant environment.”
Carl used the Grade.us platform to help his client pull ahead of their competitors in a crowded market in the middle of a global pandemic. Building a strong review portfolio gave his clients the competitive edge they needed to continue to grow regardless of market conditions.
