Marketing for diagnostic imaging groups
Growth in imaging is won at the practice desk where the request is written, so the work is built around referrers first and patients second.
Where the money moves.
Volume arrives on a referral pad. A GP writes the request, names one or two providers, and the patient books where they were pointed. That makes the buying decision a professional one, made inside a six minute consult by someone weighing wait time, report quality and whether their last request came back clean. Marketing that talks past the referrer to the patient is spending at the wrong end of the chain. The work sits closer to sales support than to campaign work, and the number that matters is referrals per referrer, split by site and by modality.
The National Law rules out the easy proof. Testimonials in advertising for a regulated health service are prohibited, so a wall of five star reviews does nothing for you here. What replaces it is operational evidence: reported turnaround by modality, the subspecialty of the radiologist reading the study, current wait times at each site, machine specification, and a plain statement of what is bulk billed and where a gap applies. Published, kept current, and consistent with whatever your liaison team says at the front desk.
Modality mix decides the result. A practice can hold total referral numbers steady and still go backwards if the MRI and CT share slides, so the real growth question is which requests you want more of and which referrers are currently sending them somewhere else. Wait time is the lever a GP responds to fastest. Publishing it honestly, site by site, wins requests that a general brand campaign never touches, and it hands the liaison team something concrete to open a practice visit with.
We build the referrer-facing side and the patient-facing side as one system. Architecture per location and per modality, referral templates and pad ordering, directory and referral details that match the practice software your referrers actually run, education sessions filmed with your own radiologists, and paid search for the self-funded and patient-choice scans where the patient genuinely decides. It all sits in your accounts and your domain, and the report reads in referrals and revenue rather than impressions.
What we run.
The referrer site
A page for every site and every modality, carrying current wait times, the reporting radiologist's subspecialty, machine detail and billing position. Referral templates and pad ordering sit one click away, so a practice manager can restock without ringing anyone.
GP education
Case-based sessions run by your radiologists, accredited for continuing professional development, filmed once and cut into short pieces for the referrer inbox. It gives the liaison team a reason to book the visit and the GP a reason to take it.
Liaison support
Territory collateral, pre-visit and post-visit email, and referrer-level reporting, so a liaison manager walks into a practice knowing what that practice sent last quarter and roughly what it sent elsewhere.
Patient-choice demand
Paid search and local presence for the scans patients book themselves or shop on price, with any gap stated before the booking form rather than at the counter. The booking flow is tested on a phone, because that is where it happens.
Clinical sign-off
Every asset runs past your clinical lead before it publishes, and copy is written to the advertising provisions of the National Law from the first draft instead of being corrected after a complaint.
Questions we get asked.
No. Advertising a regulated health service under the National Law cannot use testimonials about that service, including reviews you gather and republish yourselves. It is not much of a loss. Referrers were never persuaded by star ratings anyway. Turnaround times, subspecialty reporting, published wait times and clear billing do the same job and stand up to scrutiny.
Because the GP usually names more than one option and the patient makes the final call, often on wait time, parking, opening hours and cost. Public channels also carry the self-referred and patient-choice work. The split we recommend is weighted heavily towards referrer engagement, with a defined slice for the requests patients really do choose.
We do not write into clinical systems. We make sure your directory entries, referral templates and site details are correct inside the software your referrers open every day, working with your IT team and the vendor to keep them that way. Wrong details there cost more referrals than most campaigns win.
Referrals by referrer, by site and by modality, tracked against the practices your liaison team visited, plus booked scans from public channels with cost per booked scan by modality. Activity numbers sit underneath as working detail. The first page is written in requests and revenue, because that is what the board asks about.
Talk to us.
9 services under one team, run against the numbers your business already reports on.
Contact the Ignis Team
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