How Positioning Can Help Boost Your Neurology Practice and Drive Business Success

Abstract

At capacity, but need to improve your case mix? Want more self-referred consumer business? Or to increase your ability to build the right practice with the right patients? Positioning can help you achieve these goals and more. Positioning is a proven method for distinguishing a business in its market. Well-positioned medical practices reliably attract and retain the best, most profitable patients. This article will help you understand positioning, how you can explore and evaluate strong position options, and the first steps you can take in building your own strong market position. Today, consumers are bombarded with more than 3,000 marketing messages a day, and that number is on the rise. Yet the average person is only able to absorb 100 of those messages.1 That calculation is the crux of a fundamental problem facing all businesses: How do you differentiate your offering and attract the customers that are best for you? Physician practices are no different, and whether we consider consumer or referring physician audiences, positioning can empower you to break through and build your desired patient base. Positioning was first postulated in the 1970s by Al Ries and Jack Trout, pioneers in the use of branding in modern advertising and marketing. The theory behind positioning is that consumers are bombarded with thousands of messages every day, from hundreds of business categories and industries, and thousands of products and services. There is no way to process it all, so consumers subconsciously filter and prioritize those that they trust, those that are familiar, and those that are prevalent. Positioning is a strategy whereby a business focuses on a single core aspect of its offering to establish a unique brand in a market. For example, Domino's Pizza was built on a position based on fast delivery (as opposed to a position around …