It may seem wrong or even crass to formulate a marketing plan for your medical practice but more and more, as we move into this modern technological age, the need for a strong marketing plan is essential to creating a thriving practice. Word-of mouth, and then good service, are essential for creating a thriving service but with Google, YouTube and Facebook advertising in full flow engaging and persuasive advertisements will be able to sway even the most the loyal of patrons from your practice.
While it is important to run a successful medical marketing campaign, it all comes down to the quality of the patient experience you provide. Understand the needs and expectations of your patients when creating your medical marketing content so that you are able to appeal to your ideal patient population and have a focus on a desirable retention rate that results in improved treatment outcomes.
Focusing on patient experience and quality of care will keep existing patients and attract new patients by word-of-mouth. Your patients will notice, appreciate and reward the quality of your patient experience by sharing your practice with their family and friends. Integrating this marketing strategy into a doctor's office will help you welcome more new patients to your door over time.
To get a good deal, you need to realise how spectacular a service you are offering to your patients. These services need to be listed in different online directories, built into an online presence, connect with other healthcare professionals and much more. These and other marketing efforts will help you get patients out there, but if you want them to stay and recommend you to others, you need to make sure that every aspect of care is of the highest quality. In other words, your real-world service needs to always match your online campaigns.
Using the Telephone
Telephoning your patients to understand their general experience and get online reviews is a great way to provide exceptional service and enhance your online reputation. Inviting patients to an open day in your practice is an even better way to build a line of communication and show patients that you value their business. An open day is not only a good reason for you to keep in touch with patients you have not seen for some time, but also allows you to share new services and procedures unique to your practice.
Social Media
Social media marketing for medical practices offers an important opportunity to reach potential patients and existing patients on a personal level. Using social media content on platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn to build a reputation for your practice can help you attract patient contacts and express your expertise in the industry. As a digital agency, we believe in the importance of having a strong online presence to drive leads, which can lead to phone calls extended to your practice and appointments, so it is important to make an effort to talk to patients and to make their experience more personal.
Social media marketing can no longer just stop at content marketing. Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have begun to understand the value of their platforms and, as a result, are throttling the reach of many of their business pages. These platforms have now essentially become pay-to-play but this also presents a very unique opportunity for medical practices who are willing to be early adopters. In the multitude of medical practices that we have interviewed and consulted with, over 90% of them do not quite understand the opportunity that is available for them using social media marketing. Never before has an opportunity existed where medical professionals can engage in ethical and educational marketing campaigns as they can now using social media. If you'd like to find out more, click here
An Online Ecosystem: Website, Landing Pages & Blogs
With so much information available online, healthcare patients no longer feel the need to visit a closed hospital or doctor's office near to where they live or a multi-site practice in the community. You may be satisfied with your current patient volume, but that could be under threat without a well-planned medical marketing strategy that keeps your health brand at the forefront of people's minds. Gone are the days when a simple website would suffice for a medical practice. A website is ultimately a glorified brochure and is only useful when patients are in the consideration phase when seeking out medical services. It does very little to create awareness around your practice as it offers very little value to the patient who is simply looking for answers to their problem. By creating online tools, landing pages that provide resources to patients and even webinar portals through your website you will be able to engage with patients at every stage of the buyer cycle, from awareness to consideration and, ultimately, conversion as a patient within your practice.
To promote your medical practice and showcase your expertise, you can also write articles for medical publications or guest posts on recognised medical blogs. By writing this type of content, you are introducing your practice to potential patients. Another effective method for specialists is guest blogging, which can lure patients into your practice by researching their condition.
Potential patients will form an opinion about your practice before the website is loaded and many users, based on your website design, will determine the credibility of your doctor's office. Our team designs interactive websites and effective landing pages that are optimised for SEO, easy to navigate and user-friendly to ensure you make the best possible impression on patients while being able to add value to them and engage meaningfully with them.
Ethical Email Marketing to Patients
Email, as part of your medical marketing strategy, is a great way to connect with patients and reach out to new patients who expressed interest in a specific procedure or treatment. Use email marketing to create a point of contact between your practice and site visitors by sharing new promotions, special blog posts and the latest practice news. Expand the email list of your practice' patients by encouraging website visitors to sign up for a newsletter.
Newsletters help you share monthly content about your medical practice and keep an eye on your practice for patients. Create custom content on your website to attract patients looking for specific procedures or services. Custom content can be created to inform patients about your practice qualifications, procedures and services.
Another powerful piece of technology to investigate is a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM). This is a piece of online kit that will allow you to create automated email sequences, as well as give you detailed insights as to how patients behave and what types of content they engage with. It can even assist you to ensure that patients attend their follow-ups, as well as integrating into your social media and Google Ads campaigns to provide a personalised experience to new patients who are discovering you. Examples of some of the best CRM's out there, according to us at Social Medical, are Active Campaign, AWeber, ConvertKit, MailerLite and for those looking to control every aspect of their practice, Infusionsoft by Keap.
Google My Business & Local Listings
Unfortunately, and quite possibly naively, most practices rely heavily on word-of-mouth referrals as their largest source of new patients. Though this is very important, one cannot afford to be over-leveraged in this area. In the absence of recommendations, most potential patients will turn to online reviews to find the best medical practice in their area. Ensuring that your practice is listed in relevant online forums, online directories and rating sites is the key to getting more traffic into your practice.
Google My Business is by far the most powerful directory that you should focus on in your practice. Claiming your Google My Business listing is the first step to ensure that you can be found through a geographical search for services like yours. It is a quick way that you can rank on the first page of Google without having to create an authoritative website. If you would like us to send you a FREE Google My Business audit for your medical practice, simply click here.
We live in a world where patients have more choices about medical care than ever before. While health marketing is a necessity for physicians, it can be difficult to achieve it when you are busy caring for patients on a daily basis. However, if your medical practice' website is a living, breathing, documented mothership, you can attract and hold more patients.
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