Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business. It is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal for influencing customer choices and decisions. By setting a high bar for quality you can make it so that consumers associate your very brand with high quality products or services. In healthcare, high quality takes the form of providing patients the healthcare they need, in an affordable, efficient and superior fashion.

Branding is more than just the medical practice logo or catchphrase associated with your practice. Sure, that is the first thing most will think of when thinking of the term ‘branding’, but there is so much more to it than that. Your brand represents the core values of your practice. It represents what your practice is and what you want it to be.

While establishing a strong brand early on in the life of your practice is good, it is also important to check in on how that brand is performing from time to time. These checks are essential to ensuring your brand continues to evolve over time, as you will sometimes find that the currently established brand is not performing up to scratch. When that is the case it is time for a fresh coat of paint in the form of a rebrand.

Rebranding is perfectly normal part of a business’ lifecycle. It is the reshaping and remodeling of your organization’s brand identity. This is how you restructure and develop new and improved marketing strategies that will help further develop your practice, creating a deeper and more meaningful connection with your patients.

Keep reading for 3 signs that it’s time to rebrand your medical practice.

When should your medical practice consider rebranding? Here are ways you can know when the time is right:

1.) Outdated website

Patients these days are heavily reliant on the internet in their search for healthcare services. For patients, social media offers the opportunity to connect with and speak medical experts and professionals, as well as others suffering the same conditions to share with. Research from PatientPop shows that 3 out of 4 patients turn to the internet in their search for a healthcare provider.

Your website will be the core of your practice’s online presence. The branding and design of your website will be critical to providing patients necessary insight into what your practice is like and what it can offer. This can be difficult to accomplish, however, as your web pages and the graphic design and photos contained within will begin to look dated in just a few short years, giving it an unpleasant and unprofessional look.

Blog marketing is another important aspect of digital branding. Through regular blog posts you can educate your patients, while also reassuring them the practice is filled with experts and is currently running. Blog marketing is the cheapest form of marketing and can provide a fantastic ROI.

2.) Doesn’t express your positioning

Competition among healthcare providers today is fiercer than ever before. With so many options out there for patients, your brand needs to reflect why they should choose you and what sets you apart and ahead of the competition. If your existing branding doesn’t do a good job of expressing your unique positioning in the healthcare space, it might be time for a rebrand.

Positioning is defined as how consumers perceive a brand in relation to its competitors. You need to establish an image of your brand in the minds of your patients that sets you apart from competitors.

3.) Your targeting the wrong audience

Before designing any successful marketing or branding strategy, it is important to know your audience. Without this knowledge you won’t know where to find your audience and, though your campaign is designed to perfection, your target audience will never get to see it. Designing the perfect campaign will also be nigh impossible as you won’t know what your target audience wants.

Take stock of all of your branding and marketing materials, and ask the following questions:

• Do they appeal to your target audience?
• Are these campaigns in being conducted in places or through channels that your target audience frequent?

If the answer to either of these questions is a no then you need to start developing a rebranding strategy.