Attracting Ketamine Infusion Patients: Mistakes To Avoid

Since the opening of our ketamine infusion clinic in 2018, we have learned a few things about marketing. Nobody is teaching marketing to you in medical school, nor in residency. In fact, you don’t even learn how to open your own private practice. Today, we are inundated with so much information, ads, emails, etc . As individuals who want to take care of patients using an effective novel medication like ketamine, how are we able to cut through all the noise and attract patients to our ketamine infusion clinic?

In this blog, we’re going to share with you insights we have gained from marketing our clinic. Hopefully you can learn from our mistakes, and get quicker results in reaching and caring for more patients.

Hopping on to the latest marketing trend just because it’s a trend may backfire if it doesn’t fit in with who you are as a brand.

Mistake #1: Being like everyone else

This is the marketing equivalent of “keeping up with the Joneses.” Hopping on to Instagram Reels or joining TikTok to make dancing videos, but for what and to what end? At the time, we did what everyone did. We made sure we posted about meeting our new staff member, or featuring our favorite holidays because that was what was popular when we started. And therein lies our mistake: we did what was popular. We were not clear on who we were at a branding and marketing level. We knew in our hearts what our mission was and what we stood for, but not how to share it on the popular social media platforms. We learned that if you just follow what’s popular, you will be creating generic and skippable content.

How to avoid this Mistake #1:

Be you and utilize the social media platforms to showcase it. This also involves knowing your WHY and why you’re marketing in the first place. While we don’t like dancing on Tiktok, maybe you do and it is on brand for you. So do it. Do what you enjoy and love, share what you love. Don’t follow a social media trend to promote your ketamine clinic just because it is a trend. BUT! If the trend fits with you and your WHY, well then by all means do it and ride that popularity wave!

What else is the importance of having a good WHY? Read our blog to find out.

Inasmuch as we want to be available to every single person, sometimes it’s best to be specific with the type of patients we want to serve to help us understand our marketing voice better.

Mistake #2: Being unclear on who you serve

We know you want to be busy and take care of any and all patients. You probably want to be successful and have patients flying from across the country or even from around the world to come to your clinic. We do too, but if you try to aim for this at the start, you are going to end up serving no one. You need to be clear and as specific as possible on who you are going to serve. Sure this is less of an issue if you are in an area where there are no ketamine clinics plus you know there is a demand for this treatment there. However as more ketamine clinics begin to open, differentiation is key and one way to do this is by having clarity on who you are serving.

How to avoid this Mistake #2

Start off by taking time to decide on your “ideal patient.” An “ideal patient” just doesn’t mean someone who is a good candidate for ketamine infusions, meaning they have no medical contraindications for receiving ketamine infusions. You should also look for individuals who would be best served by you and your past training, experiences, and interests. Often, our ideal patient at our clinic is someone who has similar interests or past experiences to us. Beyond getting physically or mentally better, patients want to be listened to and understood. And by having similar values, interests, and experiences to these patients, you will be able to understand them much better. Being clear on who you’re serving can help you decide. Now, we’re not saying that you should discriminate against anyone who does not fit your “ideal patient” profile. We see plenty of patients who aren’t our “ideal patient.” So why bother doing this exercise anyway? Well, from a marketing perspective, it brings focus on who you are trying to speak to.

With limited resources on our hands, traditional marketing efforts like billboards and TV ads are both expensive and not very effective. 

Mistake #3: Wasting time, money, and effort on traditional marketing and outreach

Now this is not a mistake if you have an unlimited supply of time and money. But chances are that you don’t.Traditional marketing avenues such as TV ads and billboards are both expensive and, to be honest, a waste of resources. Will you get some potential patients calling your office if you market on  billboards, TV ads, and other traditional marketing efforts? Yes, but so will your competition who has better search engine optimization (SEO). This is especially true for us. Our SEO is so strong that how we actually learn about competition is when we get a call or email for a consult request stating they saw our latest TV ad or billboard, when we never had one in the first place!

Learn more about this mistake at our blog 3 Ketamine Infusion Marketing Mistakes To Avoid.

How to avoid this Mistake #3

Starting out and getting your stride requires focus. If you are not familiar with how today’s marketing machine works – which you probably aren’t because you’re too busy saving lives and helping your patients – you can easily make this mistake. However, now you won’t, because you know you need to focus on the essentials which is now the new “standard” for marketing your business. And this marketing must-have is a strong website with good SEO. Instead of pouring money into billboards, and TV or newspaper ads, hire (or learn yourself) how to build a user-friendly website that pops up first when someone is searching “ketamine infusions” in your town.

If you aren’t completely established yet, it may be difficult to get patients solely from referrals.

Mistake #4: Solely relying on traditional referrals 

This mistake was what gave us the opportunity to really learn about marketing. Why? Because this mistake caused us to be really slow for the first six months of our opening. Seeing just a couple patients a month scared us, which then lit a fire under us to learn about SEO, content marketing, and more. This mistake is highly dependent on how open your potential referring colleagues are to psychedelics and non-traditional use of ketamine. If they are open and even demanding for ketamine treatments, then this is not a mistake at all. However if they are reluctant or don’t believe in this, you won’t be getting any patients from them.  Plus, even if they were slightly open or very much onboard with ketamine treatments, if you aren’t completely established yet, they may be a bit hesitant at first. So, chances are that you still won’t be getting that many referrals if you are only relying on this source.

How to avoid this Mistake #4

Learn or hire someone to help you with the marketing online. In other words, take what we shared in mistakes #1-3 to heart and take action. Also, and most importantly, provide professional patient-centered ketamine infusions. Be there for your patients and help them have the best experience possible. Care about your patients. You see what happens is that your patients then go back to their doctors and tell them all about you. Then those doctors start sending you patients. Or when you reach out to referring providers, they will be more apt to talk with you because they already heard about you from your shared patient. 

Diving into the world of marketing as a ketamine clinic owner can be challenging but undoubtedly rewarding when you get it right.

Unleash The Marketer In You

Many of the mistakes we committed before were a result of us just following what everyone else was doing and relying on luck to get patients. We didn’t bother at first to see what actually worked because we were physicians completely new to the world of marketing. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We made mistakes, and we’re grateful for these mistakes. 

So as seasoned ketamine clinic owners and, dare we say marketers, we hope that you take the lessons in this blog to heart. At the end of the day, no one’s going to find your clinic if you don’t think like a marketer. 

Was this helpful? Want to learn more about marketing and specifically marketing ketamine infusions? Sign up here for our next free ketamine marketing webinar or check out our other blogs

The world of marketing is an entirely different world for physicians, and we’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way as ketamine clinic owners. In this blog, we talk about these mistakes and the lessons that will help you choose the right marketing strategy for your clinic.

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