WHO ARE THEY?
Elizabeth Cifers has spent the last 38 years working in compliance, coding, documentation and consulting for retina, ophthalmology and general medicine practices. Cifers Consulting has become one of the leading eye care consultation firms in the United States.
WHERE WERE THEY BEFORE WORKING WITH US?
She faced challenges in expanding her client base and optimizing service delivery for existing clients. The ophthalmology niche is very word of mouth heavy which meant there hadn’t been a need to do active marketing for the business. However, a drop in client numbers as well as a fear of relying only on word of mouth left the business vulnerable. She was doing everything for the business. Onboarding, delivery, marketing, sales which meant that taking on new clients was impossible without breaking.
WHY FRACTIONAL CMO?
Elizabeth Cifers realized she needed to implement marketing strategies that would allow her to increase the outreach channels and not rely 100% on word of mouth. Understanding that this would be unsustainable in the long run, she sought to implement marketing for the business to ensure growth.
Not knowing what the right approach was she looked for a Fractional CMO that could help her build the systems needed to grow sustainably. She had a lot of ideas about what she wanted to do but no roadmap to execute them.
WHY Recap
1. The business was relying heavily on word of mouth and had no marketing systems in place
2. The owner had a lot of ideas but no clear strategy in place
3. She saw a drop in clients and realized there were no systems to attract new customers
CHALLENGE
After the initial deep dive, we realized that Cifers Consulting was not only relying on having other ophthalmology and retina practices refer more business, but also even if she did acquire new business, there was no way she could fulfill the workload. There were no team members that could help with delivery, onboarding and marketing.
The lack of systems and people to execute meant that even with a clear marketing roadmap and execution strategy, acquiring new clients could mean more problems rather than growth of revenue.
We identified the biggest gaps the business had from lead generation to lead conversion and mapped out a clear customer journey. This allowed us to identify the key people we needed to implement all the strategies while ensuring client fulfillment was optimal.
This meant we had to break down the strategy into two different sections. One strategy for business growth, system implementation and people hiring. The other focused on implementing the marketing strategies.
CHALLENGE Recap
1. The owner knew that she needed marketing systems for the business to grow
2. We realized that we needed to hire different roles for the company to be able to successfully grow the business and implement marketing strategies
3. Building a marketing strategy was paramount to ensure we would not rely only on word-of-mouth business.
SOLUTION
1. We started by mapping out all the daily activities she was executing to find tasks we could delegate or automate. We decided on hiring a medical coder (to help with client fulfillment), a Virtual Assistant to take over client onboarding, email replies and creating SOPs, a Marketing Coordinator with SEO and Blog experience to execute website optimization, content creation to start organic lead generation.
2. We created a strategy focusing on creating multiple lead acquisition channels including: SEO Blogs, optimize the website, set up new lead capture systems (guide), LinkedIn content and YouTube videos (she wanted to start educating the audience, one of her passions).
3. We slowly started building the lead acquisition systems to ensure the organic traffic to the website could be captured. We created a lead magnet to capture them as well as a content calendar to create content for different social media platforms.
4. We came up with a content strategy focusing on Linkedin, and SEO. We agreed to post regular LinkedIn content and one blog article a week.
5. We talked about YouTube videos where she could start educating medical practices and other consultants on how to prevent
6. We implemented an email marketing system to nurture the current clients and create a welcome sequence for new opt-ins.
SOLUTION Recap
1. Hired a marketing coordinator to spearhead lead acquisition efforts. A Virtual Assistant to take over client onboarding, email replies and SOP generation, a Medical Coder for client fulfillment for increased clients.
2. Developed a strategy focusing on SEO, website optimization, lead capture systems, and LinkedIn content.
3. Gradually built systems to capture organic traffic, created a lead magnet, and devised a content calendar for social media.
4. Formulated a content strategy centered on LinkedIn and SEO, including regular posts, and weekly blogs.
5. Implemented email marketing systems to automate the nurturing process for existing clients and new leads.
BENEFITS
Hiring a Marketing Coordinator: Centralizes marketing efforts, ensuring a cohesive and strategic approach to lead acquisition and implementation of the marketing strategies to allow the business owner to focus on business growth rather than marketing implementation.
Developing a Comprehensive Strategy: Incorporating SEO, website optimization, lead capture systems, email marketing and LinkedIn content enhances online visibility, improves user experience, and increases lead generation efficiency.
Building Lead Acquisition Systems: Capturing organic traffic effectively increases the quantity and quality of leads, facilitating a smoother transition of prospects through the sales funnel.
Creating a Lead Magnet and Content Calendar: Attracts ideal clients and ensures consistent engagement with the target audience across social media platforms, building brand authority and trust.
Formulating a Content Strategy with LinkedIn and SEO Focus: Increases professional network visibility, drives targeted traffic, and improves search engine rankings, leading to higher conversion rates.
Partnerships with online magazines: Allows to showcase expertise and get our content on more platforms. This allows for prospects to read the content and be redirected to the website to capture them and nurture them.
Enhancing Website with Opt-In Sequences and a clear message: Improves lead capture and provides valuable insights into the audience's needs, enabling more personalized and effective marketing strategies and showing the lead we know what their struggles are.
RESULTS
We achieved a significant improvement in lead generation and client acquisition. We were able to close a “snow leopard” client that would bring in growth in revenue for the business.
Creating the SEO blogs with long tail keywords allowed us to rank quickly on Google. The content also allowed us to find partnerships and niche websites that asked us to write articles where we could provide value and generate traffic to the website.
The Virtual Assistant hire allowed Elizabeth to focus on partnerships and client fulfillment and remove the time consuming tasks of onboarding new clients, having missing information which was leading to a continuous back and forth and project delivery delays.
The Medical Coder was able to take on some of the existing clients which freed up space for Elizabeth to focus on the snow leopard clients.
TAKEAWAYS
1. Trust the process. It can take up to six months to begin seeing returns. But if you trust the process and make the changes we advise, you will see a ROI and growth.
2. You can’t do everything at once. We’ll help you prioritize what can be done and what fits in with your budget. We’ll also focus on hiring the right people for the different roles. This allows for more room to focus on partnerships, business development and continuous growth.
3. We hold you accountable. It’s the best way to get results. For example, we meet weekly with the team to see how the different projects are coming along and ensure we’re on target with the deadlines.
4. Be willing to attack your goals, get out of your comfort zone and follow our advice to ensure we can take the business to the next level.
