Opening a Second Clinic Location: The Marketing Checklist

Second clinic location marketing is the work done before the second doors open. The aim is a new diary with bookings in it from the first week. An owner who opens and waits for the first site’s reputation to carry across usually waits a year. That reputation stays at the first address. Reviews, the map position and the patients who recommend the clinic all belong to the building they know. A new site starts from nothing unless someone sets it up to start from somewhere.

The outcome an owner is buying is plain. A second diary that fills from week one. A second site that pays its way inside the year. Patients in the new town finding the right door on the first visit. Each of those depends on something put in place before opening day. A second clinic location marketing plan is the list of those things, in order. Each has a name beside it and a date it is done by.

This guide is for the owner of a longevity clinic or a private practice. The lease on the second address is signed and the second diary needs to fill. The eight checks are covered in the order a specialist makes them. First comes the one most owners leave until opening week: the profile that tells the new town you exist. Patients there have never heard of you, and that is the whole problem second clinic location marketing solves.

The second site sits inside a wider plan. Our guide to health and wellness marketing covers the wider plan second clinic location marketing belongs to. That plan is the positioning, the website and the patient journey the whole group shares. The eight sections below cover the second address on its own. They run from the decision the new diary depends on to the report that shows whether the site has paid.

1. The decision the second diary depends on

The decision is when the marketing starts. A clinic that begins on opening day spends the first quarter being unknown. The rent on the second site is paid from the first site’s takings while the new diary catches up. A clinic that begins twelve weeks out is different. Its profile is verified, its page is indexed, its patient list has been told and its number is answered on day one. The first quarter is decided before it begins. Second clinic location marketing is a timing decision before it is anything else. Only the owner can make it early.

What travels and what stays

The brand travels. Name, look and the way the first site talks to patients go to the new address unchanged. A patient who moved towns will recognise them. The reputation stays. Google’s local results rank the new address on its own relevance, distance and prominence. The first site’s reviews do not count for the second pin. A patient in the new town reads the new site’s reviews, which do not exist yet. She sees the new site’s photos, which show a building site. Good looks like an owner who knows which half stays. Second clinic location marketing is twelve weeks spent earning it again.

What twelve weeks of lead time changes

The change is visible on the first Monday. A clinic with twelve weeks of second clinic location marketing behind it opens with a profile that already shows the new address. Its page already appears for the clinic’s name and the new town. A dozen patients are booked by people who were told. A clinic without that opens to a phone that does not ring and a team on full pay reading the paper. Those twelve weeks cost nothing extra. The work has to be done either way. The only question is whether the diary is empty while it is done.

2. The second profile, owned by the clinic

The new address needs its own Google Business Profile, claimed and verified by the clinic. Never a second pin added under the first site’s listing. Google’s guidelines for representing your business say a profile stands for one real-world location. The name must match the storefront, and the phone number should be a local one that connects to that location. Google’s help page on adding or claiming a profile says the new listing appears on Search and Maps once verified. Verification can take weeks, which is why a second clinic location marketing plan starts it first. The profile is the new town’s first sight of the clinic.

What good looks like on the new profile

Good looks like a profile that could only describe the second site. The same name as the sign over the new door and the same primary category as the first site. The new address, the new town’s hours and a local number that rings the new reception. Photos of the new rooms, taken the week the furniture arrives, replace the architect’s render. The clinic’s own account is the primary owner, with the agency as a manager who can be removed. At Healthora, we have seen that clinics which verify the second profile early tend to fill the second diary sooner. Second clinic location marketing begins with that login.

The mistake that hides the new site

The mistake is adding the second address to the first profile, or copying the first profile and changing the street. Either way the new site shares the first site’s category, hours, number and photos. A patient in the new town rings the wrong reception. Google’s guidelines ask for consistent names and categories across every location, and one profile per location. Good looks like two profiles, both owned by the clinic. Each points to its own page and carries a number that rings the desk at that address. In a second clinic location marketing plan the pair is set up in a morning, twelve weeks out. Left to opening week, it is often still unverified when the first patient searches.

3. A location page that is its own

The second site needs a page on the clinic’s website that describes only the second site. Its team, its rooms and the treatments offered at that address. Parking, the way in from the station, and that site’s own proof as it arrives. Google’s documentation on duplicate URLs says copies are consolidated, and Google picks the version it judges best to show. The owner does not choose which. A first-site page with the town name swapped is a copy. Second clinic location marketing gives the new address a page a patient could use to find the door. Google gets a page it has a reason to show.

What a second clinic location marketing page carries

Good looks like a page written by someone who has stood in the new reception. The names and faces of the practitioners who will be there on opening day. A photograph of the room the first visit happens in. The treatments offered at that address, which may be fewer than at the first site, said plainly. Where to park, and how long the walk is from the station. The hours, the local number and a booking button that lands in that site’s diary. Our guide to health clinic website copy covers the words; a second clinic location marketing page uses them for one address. Nothing on it should be true of the first site.

The copied page, and what it costs

The copied page costs the second town. Google folds the two pages into one and shows the first. A patient searching in the new town sees a clinic twenty miles away. The flagship’s reviews sit on the copy, so she reads about practitioners she will never meet. Every enquiry the copy does produce lands at the first site’s desk. Our guide to city pages for multi-location clinics covers the full version for groups of three or more sites. For a second site the second clinic location marketing rule is shorter. One page, written for that address, with its own proof, linked from the new profile and linking back.

4. Proof for a site with no reviews yet

The new site opens with no reviews. The patient in the new town wants the reviews of the clinic she will walk into. Pew Research Center found in 2016 that 82% of US adults at least sometimes read online reviews before buying something for the first time. Some 40% always or almost always do. A first appointment at a new address is a first purchase. The first site’s five hundred reviews sit on a different profile. Second clinic location marketing plans for the new site’s first twenty reviews before the first patient arrives. By the end of month one the new profile has proof of its own.

The first twenty, and where they come from

The first twenty come from the first patients, asked at the right moment by the person who treated them. Second clinic location marketing builds the review ask into the new site’s first visit from day one, so every early patient is invited. A named person at the new desk replies to each review within a day. Patients who moved from the first site, and practitioners who moved with them, are the first to be asked. The replies matter as much as the reviews, because the patient reading in week three sees how the clinic speaks. Where a reply could touch on a patient’s care, a specialist drafts it. This article is marketing guidance and never medical advice.

Proof that is not yet a review

Until the reviews arrive, the page carries other proof. The practitioners’ names and qualifications, written as the receptionist would say them. Photographs of the finished rooms, taken the week before opening. One line on the first site’s history, placed where a patient looking for reassurance will find it. The first site’s reviews stay on the first site’s page, named as such. They do not move to the new profile. A specialist checks every claim and image before it goes live. Second clinic location marketing treats proof as the thing the new site has least of and needs first. The first quarter is built around earning it.

5. Telling the patients you already have

The cheapest patients for the second site are the ones the first site already has. Some live nearer the new address than the old one. Others have a parent, a partner or a colleague in the new town. A few have been waiting for a practitioner who is moving. A second clinic location marketing plan tells all of them, by name, before opening day. Each one gets a reason to book or to pass the news on. The first site’s patient list is the one asset the new site inherits in full. Most clinics open without using it. Three ways to spend it: the email, the referral between sites and the practitioner who moves.

The email and the referral between sites

Good looks like one email to the list six weeks out: where the new site is, who works there, how to book. A second goes out in opening week with the first available slots. The first site’s front desk mentions the new address to every patient on that side of town, and books them in. A referral card at the first desk, handed to patients with family in the new town, does the same job. Our guide to dental practice marketing covers how a practice works its own list. In second clinic location marketing, the second site is the first thing that list hears about. The new diary’s first fortnight is usually filled this way.

The practitioner who moves

A practitioner moving from the first site to the second takes her patients’ trust with her. Some of her patients will follow. Good looks like her name on the new location page and the new profile from the day they go live. A personal note from her to her own list. Her first weeks at the new site booked before the doors open. Her move is also the new town’s first reason to trust the new site. The patient reading the page sees someone with a history. Second clinic location marketing puts her where the new town will see her. A site that opens with unnamed staff has thrown that history away.

6. The opening-radius spend

A small Google Ads budget around the new address for the first weeks tells the new town the clinic exists. The profile and the page are still earning their place. Google’s documentation on targeting ads to geographic locations says a campaign can target a radius around a location. The radius must be at least 1 km, and the Presence setting reaches people physically in that area. For a clinic, that is the right setting: the patient who can walk in. Second clinic location marketing uses the opening radius as a bridge. Switched on before opening day, reviewed when the diary says it can come down.

What the opening campaign looks like

Good looks like one second clinic location marketing campaign: one radius drawn around the new address. The searches it pays for are the treatments the new site offers. An ad that names the town and the opening date, landing on the new location page, never the homepage. Its call button rings the new reception during its hours. The budget is small and the period short. The spend covers the weeks before the profile and the page rank on their own. A specialist sets the campaign to count bookings, so the owner sees cost per booked patient from week one. Google says very small radii may show ads intermittently. The circle is drawn to match how far a patient will travel.

When to turn it down

The campaign is turned down when the diary says so. Good looks like a weekly read of three numbers. Bookings from the ad, bookings from the profile and the page, and the new site’s cost per booked patient. When the profile and the page bring most of the bookings, the radius spend has done its job. Kept running at the opening level for a year, the spend buys patients the free channels would have brought anyway. Second clinic location marketing treats the opening campaign as scaffolding. Once the proof, the profile and the page are up, the building stands and the scaffolding comes down.

7. One diary and one number per location

Every booking path at the new site must land in the new site’s diary. Every call must ring the new site’s desk. The profile’s link, the page’s button, the ad’s call button and the email’s link all point to the second site. None of them lands on a shared form that asks the patient which clinic she means. Good looks like a number used only for the new address, so the owner can count the new site’s calls. And a diary only the new site’s team can see. Second clinic location marketing fails quietly when the paths cross. The new town’s patients book at the old address and nobody notices for a quarter.

The booking path that lands in the right diary

At Healthora, we have seen this pairing work in a longevity programme whose website strategy we directed. Good looks like this for a second site. A patient taps the new profile’s booking link and lands on the new location page. She sees the new team’s next slots and books one in two taps. The confirmation carries the new address and the new number. The same path runs from the ad and from the email. No step asks her to choose a location, because every door already knew which site she wanted. A second clinic location marketing plan tests that path on a phone from every door before opening day. Whichever door lands in the wrong diary is fixed first.

The report that shows each site’s new patients

The report is one page a month, with a line per site. New patients, bookings, enquiries, calls to the site’s own number and cost per new patient. Good looks like the owner reading the second site’s line on its own. The first site’s takings then never hide the second site’s silence. At Healthora, we have seen that owners who count each site’s new patients separately make the second site pay sooner. The empty weeks are seen in time to act. The report is also what tells the owner when the opening radius can come down. Without a number per site and a diary per site, the second clinic location marketing report cannot be written.

8. What a second clinic location marketing plan changes in 90 days

With the Opening Day Eight in place, a second site shows its effect in the first quarter. The numbers are the ones an owner already watches. The new diary has bookings in week one from the patient list and the practitioner who moved. By the end of month one the new profile is verified and showing reviews. The location page appears for the clinic’s name and the new town. Opening-radius spend brings the patients the free channels have not reached yet. The report shows cost per booked patient per site. What second clinic location marketing changes is the first quarter, which is the one the lease is judged on.

What the first quarter looks like

Week one: bookings from the list, the practitioner’s own patients, the first reviews asked for. Month one: the profile verified, the page indexed, the first twenty reviews in, the radius spend counting bookings. Month two: the profile appearing for the new town’s searches, the page ranking for the clinic’s name plus the town. The referral between sites produces a steady few a week. By month three the owner reads one line a month per site and decides whether the opening spend comes down. The second clinic location marketing plan is a one-off; what remains is the monthly check the first site already has. A site that reaches month three like this pays its way inside the year.

What opening and hoping costs

Opening and hoping looks like this. The lease starts, the team starts, and the diary is empty because nobody in the new town knows you exist. Patients who search the new town see the first site’s profile and the wrong address. The page is a copy and Google shows the old one. Nobody told the patient list. The first reviews arrive by accident in month four. Each month in that state is paid for from the first site. The owner who meant to open a third site waits another year. The eight second clinic location marketing checks cost a few weeks before opening. Hoping costs the first quarter, and often the year.

Second clinic location marketing in practice: the Opening Day Eight

Second clinic location marketing in practice begins twelve weeks before opening day with the profile, because verification takes longest. Then the location page is written for the new address and linked to the profile. A review ask and a reply desk are set up for the first patients. The patient list is told, the practitioner who moves is named on the page, and the opening radius is drawn. Every booking path is tested from every door on a phone. One number and one diary for the new site are the last check before opening day. The report depends on them.

Bookings arrive first and the report second. The new desk takes bookings in week one from patients who were told. By the end of the first month the profile shows reviews. The page appears when the new town searches the clinic’s name. Our case studies show what that looks like in engagements we have run. By month three the owner reads one line a month per site and knows whether the opening spend can come down. A second site opened this way pays its way inside the year. And the next lease is signed with the same second clinic location marketing list in hand.

The eight checks, in order

The recap below lists the eight checks in the order a specialist makes them, twelve weeks before the doors open.

Why a specialist opens the second site faster

The eight checks can be made by the clinic’s own team, by a specialist, or by both. The difference is order and timing. A specialist has opened enough second sites to know the profile goes first because it takes longest. The booking paths are tested last because everything else feeds them. The work is done while the owner fits out the building and hires the team. Our services page sets out the engagement that builds the second clinic location marketing plan. Our guide to health and wellness marketing covers the plan it sits inside.

A specialist in health understands that a patient in the new town is choosing someone to trust with her body. The first site’s history means nothing to her until she can see it. Claim the profile, write the page, earn the first twenty reviews and tell the list. Name the practitioner, draw the radius, land every booking in the right diary and read one line a month. Then second clinic location marketing is the reason the second diary is full on the first Monday.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

More for the owner opening a second site. Three guides on the clinics and pages a second clinic location marketing plan depends on. From the longevity clinic finding patients in a new town to the page every booking path should land on: