How To Increase Revenue The Low Cost Way?

Clinic owners are often so focused on attracting new customers that they miss out on the huge amount of revenue that’s available through re-engaging with and nurturing existing customers.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that existing customers constitute the greatest missed opportunity by clinic owners in terms of increasing sales and getting more revenue into their business.

Bold claim but this article goes some way to explaining why.

Why are existing customers so important?

It’s natural for clinic owners to be focused on attracting new customers – after all, the nature of our work is such that we can expect a sizeable churn rate at times. It follows, then, that a significant part of our marketing strategy needs to be dedicated towards topping up our ‘bucket’ of customers, as I like to call it.

However, getting new customers into the top of that bucket can be costly, and if that bucket is full of holes and leaking, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to increase your cash in the business. It’s much better to try and engage those that already like you, know you and trust you, than to spend more and money trying to get new customers.

Are you nurturing your existing customers?

So, instead of focusing all of our energy on looking for new customers all of the time, we want to make sure we’re also focusing on nurturing the customers who have already bought from us.

This starts as soon as they raise their hand to say that they want to work with you, to the minute they walk into your clinic, to the minute that they leave your clinic, and then disappear.

If you’re not nurturing that whole sequence, you’re missing out on a huge revenue opportunity. Nurtured customers are happy customers. Happy customers are going to visit your clinic again and purchase other services that you offer. And happy customers will refer other people to you time and time again.

Ongoing communication is absolutely crucial for nurturing your customers. At the beginning of the journey it might be telling them where best to park, or a welcome video introducing yourself before their consultation and letting them know what to expect.

When offboarding it could consist of some sort of automated one month check-in, or perhaps an invitation after six months to have an MOT checkup.

Remember, there are a lot of choices out there for our customers. If you’re not remaining in their minds and failed to properly establish that emotional connection with them, don’t be surprised if they end up going elsewhere at a later date even if the treatment they received was a great success.

Are you listening to unmet needs?

It’s all well and good shouting about the latest great testimonial you’ve received, but almost as valuable is getting to grips with those 1-star, 2-star, even 3-star reviews. Listening to the unmet needs of your customers is a massive opportunity to diversify your solutions and service offering.

Making sure to request such feedback, even when that feedback is hard to hear, is a really useful tool for improving things. It’s going to help you to see things from a different perspective and to identify the shortcomings in your current service.

And by identifying such shortcomings and addressing them, you should in turn see an increase in referrals, word of mouth, and ultimately sales.

Are you leveraging your first party data?

In this instance, ‘first party data’ is just a fancy way of saying email addresses and phone numbers. It’s not exactly glamorous but I can’t stress the importance of this enough.

Think about it, if you’re not collecting such information, then your business is almost totally reliant on the likes of Facebook or Google. And were one of these large conglomerates to make a big change to their algorithm, or touch wood if one of your ad accounts or social media pages were hacked, then your potential for attracting sales for that given week, month or year could be slashed in half, if not much worse.

But how do you grow your email list beyond those that have already purchased from you? Well, an example from my own clinic is that we have a very active Facebook Group for our Women’s Health Service and one of the questions when people ask to join the group is would they like access to a free masterclass. To access this, they then need to provide us with their email address (after first agreeing to our Privacy Policy, of course).

Are you rewarding loyalty?

Lastly, loyalty schemes are everywhere nowadays but so often done poorly. This is your opportunity to both over-deliver in the hearts and minds of your current customer and possibly even attract new ones through such things as incentivised referral schemes.

You might like to reward loyalty through a special offer, exclusive release of content, or commission for referring others, but whatever you decide to do make sure it’s something that actually feels rewarding and in turn values them as a customer. Remember, people come back because of how you make them feel, not necessarily what you do.

How are you going to fix your bucket?

Hopefully this article has gone some way to convincing you that often it’s much better to try and engage those that already like you, know you and trust you, than to spend more and money trying to get new customers.

Of course, there will always be a percentage of spend, energy and focus dedicated towards attracting new customers due to our inevitable churn rate, but existing customers constitute the greatest missed opportunity for growing sales and revenue for most clinic owners.

The question follows, then, what’s going to be your next step towards fixing your bucket and better engaging and nurturing your current customers?

For help deciding upon this, schedule a call and audit with the Thrive team today. These calls are completely free and provide you with lots of actionable steps for growing your business income, as well as allowing you to work fewer hours and create more time for the things you love to do.