INDUSTRY DEEP DIVE CONT.
systems. And most of the businesses are small businesses, so they don ' t understand what exactly they need.”
It’ s also essential that your clients understand their risk.“ They have to know exactly what they’ re paying for,” says Magan.“ You don ' t want them to think that they ' re getting the full-blown HIPAA compliance package when they ' re not. It’ s about setting expectations and drawing boundaries from the beginning. This is the real deal: patient data and personal information. [ You want ] both parties are on the same page.”
Hamblen adds,“ A lot of it comes down to having to teach that niche what they need from the ground up. You’ re trying to tell someone they need to spend money when they’ ve never spent money before.”
How to Target Your Marketing
Healthcare is a tight-knit industry. Often, your clients will deliver leads just by talking to their peers— which means all you need to do to rake in referrals is provide stellar service.“ They roam in groups,” Magan says.“ When they get together for studies, they like to refer us [ to their peers ].”
“ When you get into that niche market, everyone tends to know everyone else,” agrees Hamblen.“ It’ s nice, because almost all of our marketing efforts are put back into working with the same group of people.”
To broaden your reach beyond referrals,“ identify organizations that you can get involved with and be vendor sponsors for, so you can get into those groups,” Farlow advises.“ Getting hundreds of likeminded, same industry professionals together in one place that you can speak is the best way to reach them, at least for us.”
He adds,“ It’ s great for exposure. Attending events is where we have the most success, because we ' re in the right environment with the right people.”
Some good events to attend include annual conferences for medical organizations like Medical Group Management Association( MGMA), Medical Society, and similar events for specialties like pediatrics or dermatology. In the dental field, the biggest events are the Greater New York Dental Meeting, Chicago Midwinter, ADA Annual Meeting, DSO Leadership Summit, and Hinman Dental Meeting. Dental groups to get involved with include the ADA( American Dental Association), AGD( Academy of General Dentistry), local and state dental societies, and DSO networks.
It’ s also important to know who specifically will make the final decision on whether or not to hire your MSP, so that you can target them directly. In medical offices, the decision makers are typically the practice administrator or manager, the COO, practice management consultants, or the doctors themselves. In dentistry, usually the owner or lead dentist acts as the final decision maker. In larger or multi-location setups such as DSOs, regional managers or directors are typically involved. Office managers often are the ones to research MSPs and bring their recommendations to the owner.
Finally, tailor your drip marketing campaigns to their pain points.“ We try to tailor our webinars, emails, and blog articles not only to healthcare, but all of our [ target ] industries. Using drip marketing like that keeps you top of mind, so when they have a need for your services, they know who to call,” says Farlow.
Premium Prices and Stickier Clients
Once you’ ve established yourself as an expert in the industry, you can command higher prices, says Magan. " If you want someone that specializes in your field and understands your language, then you’ ve got to pay for that.”
And if your service and support are excellent, your healthcare clients will be reluctant to change providers, says Farlow.“ The most important part is delivering on your promises. We maintain a 99 % client retention rate, year after year, without contracts, because we know we have to do a good job or the client could pick up and leave. So we make sure we always have a sense of urgency to do things right and knock out the problem the first time, not have repeat issues, and have fair pricing. When you do those things together, there’ s no reason for anyone to leave.”
Hamblen agrees.“ It ' s very rare that we have clients leave,” he says.“ We have stickiness across the board. A client recently told me that they have such a long-standing relationship with our company, they haven’ t even bothered getting other price quotes. They just take our advice. I find that’ s really valuable.”
Now, Take the First Step
The first step is simply getting your foot in the door.“ You only need one. That’ s the reality,” says Magan.“ I’ m not necessarily recommending this, but when we got our first [ healthcare client ], we gave them a discounted price because we wanted to get in [ the niche ] and try to get a testimonial.”
Do be prepared for a learning curve, however.“ It’ s definitely ambitious,” says Hamblen.“ You can ' t just walk in the door and expect to get up to speed right away. It takes time. It takes building large-scale relationships, across your area, to fully get [ embedded ] into that market.”
Stay tuned for our next industry deep dive, which will cover the ins and outs of the nonprofit industry.
Sarah Jordan is a staff writer at MSP Success. When she’ s not reporting on trends and issues pertinent to the MSP community, you can usually find her working on her novel’ s manuscript.
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