From the category archives:

Marketing and Media

Video Blog:
UCA-video-still

Transcript of Video Blog:

Today, we’re going to talk about how to differentiate yourself from every other natural health practitioner in your community.

The bane of all business owners is a public who sees their product or service as generic. This phenomenon has certainly not eluded the natural health care field, as practitioners struggle to set themselves apart from the ocean of alternatives available to each patient.

Think about some of the phrases that you hear out there.

  • “You ought to see a chiropractor.”
  • “Have you tried acupuncture?”
  • “I think I need a massage therapist.”

Where in these statements do you hear anything about the unique offerings that one practitioner offers over another? The task of differentiating you and your practice from everyone else in the market is fundamental to your success.

The first step in the differentiation process is the development of what I call your Unique Competitive Advantage, or UCA. Before I tell you what that is, I want to focus for a moment on the word “unique,” which is often misused. Unique doesn’t mean extraordinary, or amazing, or exceptional. It means “one of a kind.” So when we talk about a Unique Competitive Advantage, we’re talking about something that nobody else offers.

The Unique Competitive Advantage is the distinguishing benefit you hold out in all your marketing, advertising and sales efforts. It is the philosophical foundation of your practice, and its essence should pervade everything you do.

To help you determine your Unique Competitive Advantage, I’m going to ask you one thing. Master this question and you take a quantum leap in your ability to create success as you’ve never imagined it. This is the single most important question because the right answer to it, as I’ll demonstrate, is the key to the marketing vault. It doesn’t just marginally increase things, it multiples them far beyond the ability of most people to even conceive. It’s that important.

Here’s the question:

  • “Why should I, your prospect, choose to do business with you versus any other option available to me?”

And, when you have a great answer to that question, you can absolutely dominate your market.

Your Unique Competitive Advantage is a forceful statement that succinctly describes why a person should favor you with their patronage. Your UCA is what you say to your past, present, and future prospects and patients that is compelling, that is magnetic, that cannot be ignored, that must be responded to, that draws them to you like a moth to a hundred-watt bulb.

Once you develop your UCA, you must then incorporate it into every aspect of your marketing so that every point of contact contains the opportunity for your public to associate that unique offering with you or your practice.

I’m going to give you an example to consider, a model of one of the best UCA’s invented in maybe the last thirty years. What you want to do with this model is you want to take it home and lay it down next to your own Unique Competitive Advantage and see how they compare, and if they don’t compare very well, then it’s a good time reconsider your marketing message. [click to continue…]

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Video Blog:

VideoBlog


Transcript of Video Blog:
Today we’re going to answer a very basic but important question: Just what in the world is “marketing” anyway?  When you think of marketing, what comes to mind? An advertisement? A direct-mail letter? Yellow-page listings?

If I mentioned “public relations,” you would probably agree that that was marketing, too, right? How about your printed materials, or the sign in front of your office? But if these are all different aspects of marketing, if marketing encompasses such a wide variety of disciplines, then how can we define what it is?

If you type the phrase “definition of marketing” into Google, you’ll get some interesting results. Here’s one:

“Marketing is an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities discover that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others.”

Wow. That’s a mouthful!

The American Marketing Association says that “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Well, that’s a little better. . .

Here’s one that’s simpler still: The Chartered Institute of Marketing, defines marketing as “The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”

There’s nothing wrong with any of these definitions, except that they’re a little bit hard to carry around in your head for easy reference as you’re planning your activities. So here’s my definition of marketing,  which is as practical and fundamental as I can make it: [click to continue…]

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Only 1 in 12 doctors would receive a passing grade on a standard marketing evaluation. Here’s how to avoid being among the 11. . .

September 21, 2009

I’m not a doctor and I don’t pretend to know the first thing about what doctors do. But I have spent my life studying marketing and to be frank, that’s something not many doctors know much about. So we’re going to have some fun exploring the wonderful world of marketing and in the process, we’re [...]

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