Since the inception of Fertility Bridge, our Fertility Marketing System has helped dozens of fertility clinics and businesses across the world. Our proven system of diagnosis (Goal and Competitive Diagnostic), treatment plan (Fertility Marketing Blueprint), application of treatment (Execution, Oversight, Advisory), and ongoing treatment can be applied to any business in the fertility field.
On this episode of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin breaks down the Fertility Marketing System, outlining each step of our process, what is involved, and can help you decide which path might be best for your fertility clinic or adjacent business.
Find the Fertility Patient Marketing Journey here.
To learn more about the Fertility Marketing System and how to get started with us, visit us at FertilityBridge.com.
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Welcome to Inside Reproductive Health, the shoptalk of the fertility field. Here, you'll hear authentic and unscripted conversations about practice management, patient relations, and business development from the most forward-thinking experts in our field.
Wall Street and Silicon Valley both want your patients, but there is a plan if you're willing to take action. Visit fertilitybridge.com to learn about the first piece of building a Fertility Marketing System--The Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. Now, here's the founder of Fertility Bridge and the host of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin Jones.
JONES 0:55
On today's show, I break down the Fertility Marketing System for you so that you can apply it to your business whether you work with Fertility Bridge or not. I'm also going to explain how Fertility Bridge does it at each step. And that is going to get you results by just following that because you're going to be holding your people accountable.
Today's shout out goes to Dr. Carolina M. Sueldo. Dr. Sueldo is an REI fellow on the West Coast, has commented on some of our content in the past, attended virtual events that we've spoken at, and I just always appreciate when people reach out, say a nice comment. So I hope someone mentions that to Dr. Sueldo that she gets a nice shout out from today's show.
In today's show, I'm going through the system with you, I'm breaking it down how we do it. If you do this, it's going to be in the right order because your resources are going to be allocated properly and whoever is doing it for you is going to be accountable. And it's all aligned. So please enjoy this episode about the Fertility Marketing System.
Today, I'm going to share the Fertility Marketing System with you. I'm going to tell you exactly how it works, whether you work with us or whether you do it on your own. It always works in this order. I'm going to tell you why I built it. I'm going to give you step by step the way that it works, because I largely learned from you how to do it in order to have the most replicable success in order to not just be giving people things that they don't need. And that was followed for more from a fertility clinic model than an advertising agency model. But the reason for it is because you can see it's getting pretty binary. There's the Fertility Center that all the patients want to go to or the pharmacy that all the staff want to work for, the PGT testing lab, manufacturing companies that everyone wants to work for--and then there's the other one. So large corporations, private equity firms, they've consolidated the field, current generation fertility doctors are motivated very differently than those of the preceding generation. Patients today expect more than they ever did before. And then some fertility businesses are benefiting hugely from this. And then there's another side of the chasm of those that are getting squeezed at every turn getting squeezed by middlemen, losing profit, losing patients, losing staff--just making it difficult on every part of their modus operandi. These facts aren't either good or bad in and of themselves. But the contrast between winners and losers are becoming even more stark. I noticed that from even the seven years that I've been in the field, it's even more stark than it was in 2014. I'm curious thing to me is how it seems to happen so quickly--that you can be doing so well and then all of a sudden, it's like, well, we lost a couple staff and we are really having a hard time getting them back or this doctor retired, we thought this other one was going to become a partner and they went in a completely different direction. Most people are slammed right now. But remember, a year ago, when we were all shutting down, we didn't know what was going to happen with the economy. And we don't know what's going to happen with the economy here too, from now, so this is getting even more stark. And that's why we developed a system to help you come out of these changes without having to give up even one measly percentage point of equity in your business. You can if your goal is to sell later, but we don't take any equity. We can't do this with waving a magic wand. I'm not making any promises. I'm just sharing the methodology with you.
On the other side of the Fertility Marketing System, this is what awaits you: A tribe of couples and individuals that tell everyone in their region that doctor is the reason we have our children. It's that community that recognizes your center and your physicians, not just another one of many you're that place, you're in the center of the hub, you get IVF patients that are more ready to convert and move on to treatment. Have a more profitable practice or business that sells for hundreds of 1000s of dollars or millions more than it would have, you have new patients that let you lead and ask the right questions. As opposed to the other way around, you have engaged staff that feel rewarded. And you've got associate docs that leverage your abundance as opposed to being a drain, and they return their investment within six months. That's what happens when people go through the system and apply it correctly. Centers that don't have the advantage of the Fertility Marketing System, they're probably doing fine right now. But almost certainly one of these descriptors is true: They're losing recruiting power of patients and staff to big networks, they turn patients off, because they're too busy, they burn staff out because of patient expectations. They underserve patients because they're not converting as many to treatment as those who really do need treatment. They're draining profit. They're losing a piece of their market to every vendor who wants one, and then they lose hundreds of 1000s or millions of dollars when they sell, because private equity groups are viewing them as a distressed asset, like ‘Oh, you're not growing, you're not the place anymore. Sure, we will buy it,’ and you may even be happy with it. But it's a lower multiple--losing on that multiple. And then they're also breaking even or losing money on associate docs when they go elsewhere after two or three years.
The Fertility Marketing System is called such because the Fertility Sales, Marketing, Business Development and Patient Satisfaction System doesn't roll off the tongue. So I shortened it to marketing. And I do that little begrudgingly, because in many ways as you reference in our articles and podcasts about the four phases of the Fertility Patient Marketing Journey, it isn't just the traditional idea of marketing of just getting people in the door. It's every step of the way, linking sales and marketing, which in our field is conversion to treatment and collection by solving business challenges, generating more profit in ways that make the experience better for staff and patients. And we'll talk about how that plays out because it's very similar to the way you treat new patients. If someone comes to you, and they say, ‘I want this dosage of Gonal-F. I want to do this many cycles of IUI. I want to transfer this many embryos.’ It's like that's not how I can help you. Like, you come to me if you want a baby, you tell me how many babies you want, we do a diagnosis, we look at your prognosis, we do a treatment plan. And so as opposed to just approaching business development or marketing from I want what everybody else has, I want to do this because I saw Griffin speak about it, I want to do this because someone else told me it was a good idea, or I just think it's a good idea, follows the same steps that you do when you receive new patients to make sure that they're successful. That's diagnosis and prognosis at number one. Number two is treatment plan. Number three is initial application of treatment. Number four is ongoing application of treatment, if it's even necessary. Diagnosis and prognosis, treatment plan, initial application of treatment, ongoing application of treatment. And for us, we have names for each of those. And I'm going to run that with you of how we do it.
So that we start with the diagnosis, because that's what's going to determine if everything else makes sense to do and to what extent. Our diagnosis is called the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic, because this is what you're going to set up for success before you do anything else. On the clinic side, we don't usually use the word ‘sales’, but that's what getting paid for treatment is. Marketing is only an investment if it fluidly connects to sales and solves a business goal. So when people ask it, what's the expense? Or how much does it cost? They're viewing as an expense as opposed to this is what I need it to do. This is how much it needs to generate for me. So by doing your goals, first aligning that with your partners, making sure that one you're even committed to that is critical. And then just assessing where you're at in the marketplace at a high level and assessing, ‘Okay, if the stuff that we're doing right now, where can we tell off the bat that we're weak on two or three of these things that even if we just had an extra eye right here, they could help us with two or three things off the bat that would make us more profitable.’ So that's the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic for us. You should be doing that no matter what. It will help you if you're the owner of Fertility Center or the Chief Executive of fertility business, who's thinking of hiring a marketing person, a PL--which is a physician liaison--or a marketing agency. If you're concerned during a new brand or brand refresh, if you're prioritizing business development initiatives, if you're forecasting, if you're reviewing or revising the results of your current marketing strategy, or if you're planning one, if you're aligning your leadership and your staff, and if you're contemplating the sale of equity in your business--if you're doing any of these things, the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic will help you. Fertility companies that don't do this, they're getting in long drawn out commitments. They're not improving patient relations, and they're just wasting money because it's good money after bad, it's not going towards a business goal as why there's no commitment whatsoever to move from one phase to the next with Fertility Bridge. You get some of the insight and expertise, the same should you listen to our podcast, read our books, follow our articles. This time, it's applied to your business with your partners in a private consult. For many companies, the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic is enough. It's all they need to get headed in the right direction to meet their business goals. 50% of the people that we do go diagnostics with, don't do anything else with us. And I like that because the only thing that I'm really selling is the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. I do sell that because it's 600 bucks, it's so easy to return the value, it's so eye opening for people. And I know that I can return the value on that, in order to make bigger promises or have more forecasting or add more strategic value, I need to get under the hood and see things. So I can't do that off the bat. But I know that I can deliver on these five things for the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic and people love it. And I like that it's a snapshot of how your marketing stacks up against your biggest competitors. It's two marketing pillars that you need to account for immediately and what's behind them. That's what I mean by the one or two areas that is going to be the biggest for you. I can tell that just from the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic to monetize a goal up from which to build your Fertility Marketing System. This is the dollar amount that you're sending your people after not saying, ‘Hey, do this and see what comes back.’ No, we're going after $500,000 in new profit, 1.5 million in new profit, 5 million in new profit, whatever it might be--that's what it's being judged against--an annualized business development budget and then one big bizdev idea to grow your practice that you will leave inspired with and have some direction, whether you do the next phase of strategy with us or not. There's info about how to get started on this on the Fertility Marketing System page. And the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic on FertilityBridge.com. And it's a little bit different for businesses that are in the fertility field that aren't clinics. So there's a little bit of detail for you all on the page as well. So after the diagnosis, once you say we're going after a $600,000 new profit goal, or 350,000, or whatever it is, and this is what it looks like then you can build the plan of this is how we got here.
So the second part is the treatment plan. For us, that's called the Fertility Marketing Blueprint. And for us how we help build it--it's the cardinal service offering of Fertility Bridge. The blueprint is what Fertility Bridge does. We’re a consultancy first, and we're an agency second. We do execute on all of the things that we detail in strategies may make some recommendations of other things that we don't help with. But anything that we're detailing in the strategy, we do it ourselves video, baby reunions, Google ads, website, organic social, paid social, photo, Google listings, SEO, CRM, all of these things are done as execution that comes after strategy. And I'll talk about that when we get to execution. But this is what people are coming to us for because we know what to do. We know how much to spend out, we know where to run it. We know what the creative needs to be. We know exactly what part of the patient journey people are dropping off on. And if you fix that first, you're going to have the biggest return the most quickly. So people are coming to us for the strategy as opposed to deliverables. And third, it's a plan to connect sales and marketing within your organization so that you're always returning the investment. So depending on the size of your group and the scope of your needs, the Fertility Marketing Blueprint might be a complete business development plan. That's usually the case for centers with 10 docs and two labs or fewer. Or it may be one particular patient journey, or one phase of the fertility patient marketing journey, which is sometimes the case for multi lab 10 plus doctor groups.
Should fertility companies get a treatment plan, a business development strategy with little diagnosis and customization? I think that's a really good question. I imagine that earlier on in your careers that you did a lot more tests you took longer to diagnose before you made your treatment plan. And it could be that that's still just the case for us of our expertise. We're the only firm that savage specializes in fertility. And it could be the case that we're just still getting more efficient at that, and that we needed to be effective first, right now we have something that is 100% effective every time. Could it be more efficient? I think it probably could be. But the other thing is that fertility centers are so different in their workflows, they're so unique. And they also often just need so much help bring down to that level, that the deeper diagnosis, and the individualization of the plan, help them realistically execute what they need to do. So I do see us standardizing some more, we're seeing six to eight major problems from six to eight major profiles. So I do see a standardized strategy, but more so there's less diagnosis, and then the customization is really just the creative. But even then there probably will be diagnosis and customization because that further auditing, that further individualization guarantees that the blueprint is immediately relevant. It's not general advice, which is what you can get on the podcast and from our work and stuff. It is only what you need to do and how to do it. And it's not a duplication of anything that centers and businesses are currently doing. Because that's just something that people ask about or are worried about a lot. Well, how do I know this is going to be something that we're not already doing, because it's designed to be what you're not already doing. That's why. And so I think that it will be more customized.
In short, the Fertility Marketing Blueprint is a plan of concise recommendations about exactly what your fertility business needs to do in your situation and how to do it. If all you want is deliverables, there are 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of people who will happily sell them to you. That's not us. If you want to solve critical business challenges, earn hundreds of 1000s of dollars or millions of dollars more in profit, make life measurably better for your employees and patients, that all requires time, brains, effort, experience, and investment. And if you would like our time, brains, effort, experience investment, because we're the only firm that subspecializes in fertility, then those details are also on the Fertility Marketing System page. And they're on the Fertility Marketing Blueprint page as well.
**COMMERCIAL BREAK**
I would be a bad fertility doctor, because I only want to take on the cases that I know are going to be successful. I only want people to say these sorts of things about me and my company, like Greg in Chicago: "Our resources are not endless. And I think that with Fertility Bridge, there's a much deeper dive." Or Dr. Young in Iowa, "I've gotten more positive feedback from patients from anything in the last 30 years of practice." Or Brad in Seattle, "You have multiple experts on your team and for, you know, a very small price to get that level of consulting for just a couple hours would be really valuable." Okay, you get the idea.
So this is how we set you up so you are 100% guaranteed to be successful in your goal over time. It's not a magical wand. Until you do this do not pass go, do not collect $200, and definitely do not get in any long term commitments or launching issues.
You sign up for the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic at FertilityBridge.com. You fill out your Business Needs Profile, we establish your benchmarks and desired outcomes. Then we meet for our 90 minute consult. We provide you with business Intel revenue estimates and a competitive overview of the field to facilitate the prioritization of your goals between your partners and leadership team. Then we have a 30 minute follow-up, we tell you exactly what you need to audit and strategize to build your plan. I'll also give you one big marketing idea that will make you say, "Damn, that's good!" If we fail to do any of these things, we give you your money back because it's only $597.
And because I need you to be successful, because I need you to say all those really sweet things about me and my company, maybe even a gem like this one from Holly and Dr. Hutchison from Arizona, "If we didn't have Fertility Bridge, honestly, I think we would be getting closer to retiring."
There's no long-term commitment whatsoever and there's a 100% money back guarantee. Send your manager to FertilityBridge.com, have them sign up for the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. And I will see you and your partners on Zoom.
JONES
Okay, so you've diagnosed the challenge, you have a very specific business goal that you are going to solve that is going to make you a lot of money that is going to make life better for your patients and staff. You've built the plan to do that, because you've done even more diagnosis and the plan tells you exactly what to do and how to do it. And now it's time to execute this. So we've done diagnosis, treatment plan, now we're on to application of treatment, which for us comes in a couple of different ways. It can be us executing, us advising, us overseeing, or us training your team. So sometimes people want to skip right to this step. And I say if you really are able to skip to this step, then you don't need us. There's hundreds of 1000s of time and materials agencies, freelancers. If you really know exactly what you want to do, you can have anybody do it, we help with the strategy that impacts the business. It would be like having a nurse practitioner or a generalist come up with your treatment plan, and then going to the REI to execute, it just wouldn't be very useful. So I have a table on the site, we got a table for you to be able to see, to give you an idea of the things that we do, because people just want to see what does it look like, all of the things that we do, but I put it into two columns. The first is the strategy column. The second is the execution column. And the only reason I even put the execution column there is just so you get a better idea of how we bring some of these things to life. But if what you want--if you're coming for the second, the execution, that either means you've already done the diagnosis in this strategy. And if you don't want us to check that then then just go ahead and do it. Or you're skipping steps one and two. And I can't let my firm enter into skipping steps one and two, because it's not the guarantee for success. So we break it up, you could take a look at this on the Fertility Marketing System page. Strategy talks about the big business challenges that we help with increasing IVF conversion, maximizing new physician office capacity, augmenting fertility preservation, increasing particular segments of the LGBTQ plus population and other demographics. Those are the business challenges that we help with.
Now you've got your treatment plan. If it was us that did it in the form of the Fertility Marketing Blueprint, then it tells you exactly what you need to do and exactly how you need to do it. And you have a few different options if it was us that did it for you. At this point, you can implement it yourself or you can hire another vendor to do it for you. There's no commitment to having Fertility Bridge execute the plan, sometimes that's all people need. The second step is that you can hire us to execute it for you. And the third is kind of the Home Depot option: you can do it, we can help. That's where we oversee, train or advise your team's execution.
So the first plan is you execute the plan. The blueprint is a set of concise recommendations. It's not written in a way that an office manager who's got a million things on his or her plate, and no marketing experience can execute. But it is written that someone with marketing experience, if you have marketers that know what they're doing, the plan is written so that they can execute it, whether those people are in house that already work for you, or you want to use a vendor. Second option is that we execute it for you. By this point, we've got access to almost everything we might need: your Google Analytics, Facebook ads website, call source tracking. So we move right into execution if that's what you want us to do. And it takes us no less than three no more than nine months to implement that. It's important to note that for some of the marketing pillars, especially those in the later phases of the fertility, patient marketing journey, like postcards, follow up, for example, there is no option to available because they directly involve your team. So it's either one or three. Option three for your application of treatment is that we help you or your current vendors. One is advisory. Your team has access to our senior digital strategist, creative manager, creative team or operational marketing strategist. Those teams depending on the strategy, oversight is the other option. We put your team in our project management system, we hold them to deadlines. And finally train. We have formal training modules in paid media for fertility centers, social media for fertility centers, physician leads and outreach, welcome sequence, call center concierge service, post consult follow up and cancellation rate reduction.
You've applied your treatment, it's been successful. How do you know if one application of treatment is sufficient, or if you're going to need ongoing treatment? For some clients, it makes sense to execute or execute their plan in one application of treatment. Sometimes some clients have such big goals or such big challenges that it makes sense to start off at an annual and go right into it. But it can be done in a project. And a couple of different things happen, really one of two things happen. The first is that you zoom past your starting point, but you're not yet at your goal, either because it was just a really high goal, and it takes longer, or you hit your operational capacity first. So you're way past your starting point, but you're at some sort of operational capacity. And then we either work on the next part of the plan to help you remove some of those obstacles and continue toward the goal. You set a new goal like fertility preservation segments, something that isn't related to that capacity, or you're satisfied with that you realize, Oh, this, we're good here and we don't need to keep engaging. The second path is that you hit your goal in the first application, and you either set a new one, and we work toward that, or you're satisfied because you hit your goal. And we don't need to keep engaging.
I don't care if you never do any business with Fertility Bridge, the Fertility Marketing System works. It works because it came from you. Diagnosis, treatment plan, initial application of treatment, ongoing application of treatment, if necessary. Marketing and business development are so often just jumping into the ongoing application of treatment, some sort of commitment for the sake of deliverables, without the other three, I promise that in those three, you will have your staff committed to one place aligned to a goal with your partners. It has a plan, it has metrics for being completed, and you double down when it's working. And when you hit your goal or capacity, you've got the next things to work on. It always works in that order. We did it because I love when people, my clients, invite me into their homes, tell me that we change their business, introduce me to their kids. And that is something that I just can't settle for. I can't settle for anything less than that.
Next time, we're going to talk about the frequently asked questions that I get. But this is not just if you're working with Fertility Bridge. If you work in this order, you will be successful. And if you'd like our help doing it, our initial goal diagnostic is $600. It's two meetings and there's no commitment. And if you'd like our help, that's an easy way to get started. So hopefully this helps frame you for your planning for the next coming years. Whether the economy takes a total nosedive after the government funny money runs out, after the pandemic is released, whether there's pent up demand or not. If you follow this, it will help you and so thanks for tuning in, and look forward to sharing the frequently asked questions with you next week.
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You’ve been listening to the Inside Reproductive Health Podcast with Griffin Jones. If you're ready to take action to make sure that your practice drives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society, visit fertiltybridge.com to begin the first piece of the Fertility Marketing System, the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. Thank you for listening to Inside Reproductive Health.