Unscience Your Lab’s Marketing (1 Hr Professional Development)
OK, you were sick of working for someone else, didn’t like relying on someone else for your paycheck, and finally decided to start your own lab. Awesome! You got a business loan, bought all the equipment and pans, got a lease on your new location, slapped the Ortho Lab tag after your last name, borrowed a generic prescription form you found online, and now you are waiting for the phone to ring…only it doesn’t. No doctors, no assistants, not even the dude looking to talk about your car’s extended warranty. What happened?
YOU FORGOT TO MARKET YOUR LAB!
But how? What’s your marketing plan? Don’t you need a business degree for that? After all you aren’t a salesman, you only know how to fabricate an appliance, not a marketing campaign. Make a logo…with ClipArt? Create a website…is MySpace still around? Custom lab scripts…can we use NotePad? Product videos…will my iPhone work? What??? We are lab geeks, not graphic designers!
Don’t worry, it can be done. Yes, business is considered a science…but it doesn’t have to be rocket science. All you need is some motivation, a little vision, and a willingness to think outside the box…your box. After all, not everyone can afford a full-time marketing manager or even contracting a marketing firm.
The purpose of this discussion is to help bring your marketing focus down to a few details that you can handle on your own…along with a little insight to what has worked for some other labs.