How to Host a Virtual Open House to Get New Patients

Marketing your private practice in 2020 and for the foreseeable future will take some creativity, ingenuity, and technology. These days, most people prefer to do things via the internet instead of face-to-face. With that in mind, one of the best ways for a doctor to acquire new patients is by hosting an online Open House and Q&A session.

Why Host a Virtual Event?

Right now, it’s unlikely that you’re out and about in your community. A virtual open house is a great opportunity for you to promote yourself. It’s also a great way for prospective patients to learn about your practice and the services that you offer. When you put yourself “out” there, people will feel a lot more confident about becoming your patient.

Virtual open houses provide the opportunity for you to show prospective patients what to expect when they come into the office. It’s similar to an open house in real estate! The seller lets buyers explore the property.

Fortunately, it is easy and affordable to organize and hold an online open house. And fielding questions from prospective patients is a great way to relieve their fears while demonstrating the quality of service that sets you apart from your competitors.

Investing a few hours of your time into creating an engaging virtual open house can really pay off when it comes to attracting new patients. We’ve got a few great tips to get you started marketing your private practice in this virtual world!

Organizing Your Virtual Open House

To start planning your online open house, first, you need to decide which platform is right for your audience.

For many doctors, the best way to reach new patients is by hosting their virtual open house on Facebook. If your practice has already grown a substantial audience on your Facebook Page, it’s easy to schedule an open house and have your followers notified to sign up for your Facebook Live broadcast. Facebook has a wide range of tools that make it simple to conduct your virtual open house, followed by a Q&A Session with attendees.

You may, however, prefer to conduct your virtual open house via a different platform. Since the pandemic arrived, Zoom has become one of the most used apps, making it a familiar choice for many of your potential attendees.

Other popular platform choices include Google’s YouTube, which has live broadcast and Q&A options, and Microsoft’s Skype. In addition, some content management systems (CMS) allow for live video broadcasting directly from your website. Any of these platforms would be excellent for marketing your private practice. Simply select the one you are most comfortable with.

Mixing Pre-Recorded Video into Your Live Event

Although the best strategy is to host your virtual open house live and “in person,” it is always a good idea to integrate some pre-recorded video material.

For instance, you can film the walkthrough of your office ahead of time. This will allow you to add some professional editing and a voiceover. If you have access to video equipment (most smartphones have high-quality cameras), you should add an office tour. This is a great way to highlight the patient experience and show off your space and equipment.

Another good idea is to include some interviews with patients, allowing them to tell their story in their own words. Nothing sells better than “word-of-mouth” advertising, and authentic patient testimonials are worth their weight in gold. Other good ideas for pre-recorded segments include interviews with team members and a walkthrough of your office’s patient handling and safety procedures.

Take the time necessary to make your pre-recorded video look professional and engaging, and you will greatly improve the response to your virtual open house.

Scheduling Institute has always produced exciting videos and dabbled with online events. But since the pandemic hit, we’ve made HUGE strides with our virtual live events – especially with our exciting Results Creator Bootcamp Virtual Workshops. Now we include pre-recorded video segments, live polling, interactive games, multiple feeds, and who-knows-what’s-next from our creative minds in the studio! The most important tip from our experts? HAVE FUN and your audience will, too!

Your Introductory Remarks

When hosting your open house, it is a really good idea to start with some live introductory remarks and then segue into the pre-recorded video.

Be sure to identify yourself and welcome viewers to your open house. Then explain what viewers are going to see. If you plan to conclude with a Live Q&A Session, explain to the viewers how and when they can submit questions. It can be as simple as typing their questions into the chat feature on Zoom, or the comments section on Facebook Live. As soon as you’re ready to start answering questions, you can open the comments or chat feature and begin.

Promoting Your Event and Getting New Patients

We can’t emphasize this enough – promoting your virtual open house ahead of time is absolutely critical to its success.

Once you have chosen your platform and scheduled a date and time for your open house, let your community know!

Send emails to your customer base and encourage them to invite others. Use your social media following to pass on the invitation links as well. You can also invest in digital advertising for marketing your private practice in order to reach potential local customers. Other ideas include direct mail marketing or inserting flyers into new home buyer’s mail packages.

Other good ideas include holding a referral contest and encouraging existing patients to share the link with friends and family. Consider offering discounts or other rewards for anyone who refers a new patient to your practice.

It’s also absolutely essential to include a way for viewers to reach you directly during the online open house event. On the day of your event, make sure you have enough people to answer the phones! And also, be sure to include your email and other digital contact information.

Remember that people are spending a lot more time online than previously, so any event that is enthusiastically advertised and looks interesting could possibly garner quite a large audience!

Attend Scheduling Institute’s Q&A Session on September 16th for More Ideas!

Unlike you, Scheduling Institute does not need to provide prospective clients with a tour of our World Headquarters because they will likely never see it. So, instead of sharing video content, we will simply be conducting a Call-In Q&A Session on September 16, 2020.

Our team of experts will be present to answer your questions about growing your practice. They’ll be discussing a blind spot that costs 97% of private practices $10,000 to $50,000 every month.

Join us on Wednesday, September 16th, get your questions answered, and walk away with some new ideas for marketing your private practice by conducting an engaging open house yourself! No questions? No problem. Call-in anyways because someone else will likely ask a question that you’ll want the answer to!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER. All Q&A Session Call-In Details will be sent to you via email upon completing registration.