Managing a clinic database is a tricky balancing act. On one side, you’ve got all the client-focused tasks that are the reason you have a business in the first place (keeping clients), and on the other, you’ve got the marketing and publicity efforts that attract new people to your clinic (get new clients).
Also, there are only 24 hours in the day and you want to have some kind of social life and the house isn’t going to clean itself and those bills need to be paid…
Luckily, you can strike oil without having to spend a load of money on expensive advertising. Your existing client database is filled with people who either love you or are dying to fall in love with you. Here are some tips for getting the most out of your client database.
Plan
Everyone skips this one, and that is why most database engagement strategies fail. Good intentions are interrupted by clients, bills and trying to have a social life. So, the thing that ‘doesn’t really need to be done’ isn’t.
Make sure you have a schedule for communicating with your database. It should be very visible to everyone who works with you. Tell them to pester you to make sure it has been done. Make database management part of the conversation in the clinic, and empower others to do it.
Start with a calendar and map out the days you will communicate with your database.
Planning Tools –
Gather Data – Be Hungry for Numbers and Emails
Everyone who enquires, pops in, or expresses an interest in a particular treatment should be added to the database. How? When someone asks about a treatment, tell them you’ll send them some free info and grab their email address. At a party and someone wants to know where the clinic is? Great! Grab their name and mobile number and send them the details. When someone comes in and asks for a pricelist, tell them you send out specials now and then via text and get their mobile number.
Most importantly, put everything in the database.
Client Database Tools –
Segment
Marketers love fancy words. Segmentation is simply putting each person into a certain group based on an individual characteristic. Perhaps you could use how often they come in for a treatment :
- Premium Client (visits once a week)
- Awesome Client (visits once a fortnight)
- Great Client (visits once a month)
- Come Back! (has only come in once)
- Future Friend (has enquired but never had a treatment)
- Friends and Family
Now you can create offers for the whole database – 60% Off All Treatments! – or a particular segment – Premium Clients Get Free LED.
The more you can segment the better. Specific offers make people feel all warm and fuzzy. In other words, get to know your clients as much as possible and put it in the database.
Communicate
You know who they are and what they want and you’ve got some great offers planned, so let’s tell everyone!
But just a bit; we don’t want to annoy them.
What’s the best way to communicate? That depends on your group of clients and prospects. Email if you have an older demographic, or people who work behind a desk. Maybe text if your clientele tend to be more active, especially if you’re fitness and exercise centric. Perhaps both! Luckily, there are plenty of tools to make sure your clients and prospects are always thinking of you.
SMS –
Email –
Managing a database is, let’s face it, boring. But we know, as humans who have made and kept friends, that communication is vital to growing and improving relationships. So have fun with it and be yourself. Getting messages from a faceless business is dull and pointless, but fun messages from someone you like can brighten your day and even encourage you to make a booking.
