With patient care at the center of your practice, you may not think about marketing all that much. But for those new practices looking to have a strong launch, or established ones itching to increase patient volume, revisiting practice marketing strategies and creating a medical practice marketing plan is essential to reaching these goals.
You may be wondering what the best way is to market your medical practice to attract new patients. What kind of website do you need? How do you ensure you have the same visibility as the competition in search results? Where should you begin with all this? You start by forming a medical practice marketing plan to cover all your bases.
Why Your Medical Practice Needs a Digital Marketing Plan
The more ambitious your growth goals are, the more likely it is that you will need marketing to reach your target patient capacity. The more crowded your market is, the more you need marketing to differentiate your practice from the rest. Medical marketing strategy is about planning carefully so you invest wisely.
Traditional Vs. Digital Marketing
Traditional advertising, such as direct mail, blankets a whole region indiscriminately, whereas digital marketing can target a more precise audience by specific attributes. So rather than end up in the waste bin with the other mailers, with digital marketing you will get in front of eyes where the activities of most people have shifted to – spending time online.
Another key difference between print advertising and digital advertising is the cost structure. For example, when you pay for a print ad, the cost is based on the assumed size of the audience. With pay-per-click (also known as Google ads) you only pay when someone interested clicks on the ad.
Essential Elements of Any Marketing Strategy in Healthcare
Practice marketing consists of all those channels and methods you deploy to connect with your ideal patient. The more you learn about marketing, the more aware you become of all the different ways that exist to get the word out – traditional print versus digital, SEO versus paid digital ads, which social media platforms to engage, and more.
Our proven medical marketing strategy consists of these elements:
- An interactive website optimized for new patient appointment request captures.
- Website also optimized for search engine optimization (SEO) with blog content to support SEO gains.
- Google Ads and Facebook ads to get in front of your ideal prospects as they spend time online.
- Social media management to bond with patients and nurture your brand.
- Online reviews management to promote consumer confidence in choosing your practice over others.
- Online listings management to be found in as many places as possible.
Building Your Healthcare Marketing Plan to Attract Potential Patients
Identifying who your target audience is and how to connect with them is the key to cost-effective digital marketing. An audience that is too broad can lead to wasteful spending. For example, if you have a practice in Norfolk, Virginia, you only want to market to those within that geographic area.
However digital advertising platforms like Facebook can get very granular with audience attributes as far as demographic information and interests. While social media data collection has been the subject of controversy for some time, this function is mainly used to customize the ad experience for users. For example, a pediatric practice running a sports physical promotion could target parents of teenagers who show interest in high school football and equipment purchases.
Our Medical Practice Marketing Plan Template: A Closer Look at the 6 Key Tools
As mentioned earlier, practice marketing essentials include a user-friendly website, SEO, Google Ads, Facebook ads, active social media, online listings coverage, and online reviews management. Having all of these channels activated in your medical practice marketing plan maximizes your online exposure so that patients – the right patients – can find you online.
The medical practice marketing plan template is only a starting point. You make it your own by infusing your practice brand, what makes your practice different, your patients’ pain points, and how your providers have the best solutions.
A Website Turns Site Visitors into New Patients
Have a website that facilitates the patient journey, meaning that you give the visitor all the information they need to take the next step, including ease of submitting a new patient appointment request.
A modern healthcare website design should be mobile-friendly, meaning that a patient has the same ease of use on a handheld device as they would on a personal computer. Responsive design enables this compatible functionality. Also related is click-to-call enabled on your phone number and having your number listed at the top of the page. That way if they would rather talk to a live person, all they have to do is click on your phone number and hit send.
The more complex your area of medicine, the more questions patients will have. The better you can provide information on your website in ways that help patients understand, the more positive a patient’s experience will be. This leaves your prospect with a great first impression.
Finally, your site should make it easy to become a new patient. Having the new patient request form on the main page rather than buried somewhere in a “Contact Us” section of the site turns a site visitor into a patient within minutes.
Search Engine Optimization: Let New Patients Come to You
Have a website that Google deems valuable and relevant to users so this search engine will pick yours up in search results.
You can have the most beautiful and well-functioning website in the world but without playing by Google’s rules, it will not come up in search. For this, we integrate SEO best practices.
Is your site crawl-friendly? Google’s automated bots need to be able to understand what your site is about. Site structure allows these bots to gather all the information they need to understand how your site is relevant to their search engine users. That way your site will come up under select search terms.
Does your site have the right keywords? Keyword rich content on your site also informs Google’s algorithms as to who your site is relevant to. The content of the website needs to include keywords that match the search intent of your audience, including regular publishing of blog articles.
Paid Advertising on Google, Facebook, and More
Consider running paid search advertising campaigns to have prime placement in search results.
Is there another way to be found in search? Yes. The pay-to-play method of online search visibility is Google Ads, also referred to as pay-per-click (or PPC marketing). Campaigns appear in search results alongside other parts of the search engine results page (or SERP).
The upside of Google Ads is that you only pay for the clicks you generate. The downside is that this can add up quickly, so you should carefully budget how much you spend on this aspect of digital marketing.
As mentioned earlier, social media advertising (Facebook in particular) can run ads that are seen by the audience you have customized for your campaign. This is very effective in getting in front of the right patients.
Rule of thumb – if your competitors are running paid ads on high traffic platforms like Google and Facebook, it is in your best interest to do so as well.
Social Media: Why You Should be on Facebook, Twitter, and More
Social media for medical practices is a dynamic digital marketing tool because of how it builds connection with the local community and nurtures your brand. It allows you to connect with your patients outside of office visits and thus has the potential to secure patient loyalty.
It also captures patient satisfaction that will, in turn, convince prospective patients to book with your practice. Having a solid following, helpful social media content, and positive engagement signals to healthcare consumers that you provide an excellent patient experience.
Reviews Management: Maximize Your Practice’s Online Reputation
Be proactive in improving your ratings and monitoring your reviews so that patients are at ease about booking with you.
Word of mouth has been a reliable source of referrals for many decades. Online ratings and reviews are like word of mouth, but on a larger scale. Patients can find out about a clinic on demand from dozens of current patients.
Close to 90 percent of patients refer to reviews before booking that initial appointment, so from this we can gather that patient feedback is highly influential.
However, getting the star rating you want takes some effort. The more positive reviews accrued, the better your average will be. Asking for reviews consistently helps build up your online profile and star rating. Reputation management for doctors will make your practice more attractive alongside the competition.
Online Directory Listings
Be listed everywhere with updated and accurate practice information.
Nearly half of patients use online directory listings to gather information about providers. Wherever online your patients go and where your competition is, you should be there as well. For this reason, you should update your listings on every directory site you are suited for.
In addition to Google My Business, and general healthcare provider listings sites like Healthgrades, WebMD, and Vitals, you should look into what specialty listings are available. Having consistent information on your listings provides a better patient experience and is good for SEO health as it sends consistent signals to Google.
Bringing These 6 Elements Together to Increase Your Practice’s Visibility
A complete medical practice marketing plan is one that engages all marketing channels as to maximize the chances of your ideal patients find you during their time spent online. To many modern patients, if a local establishment is not online, it is as though it does not exist (sometimes even if they drive by it every week).
Digital marketing meets patients on their care journey at multiple points, and each touch point builds trust with prospective patients.
Patient Journey Meets Digital Marketing
Because the internet has become part of our daily lives, it also helps us make major life decisions such as where to go for medical care. Here are the ways patients connect with their healthcare options along their journey through several digital marketing touchpoints.
Awareness phase: Through searches for symptoms and treatments patients will encounter blogs, frequently asked questions pages, and other online content that helps them understand what help is available for their health concerns. For your resources to be found, you need healthcare SEO and PPC.
Evaluating phase: When the patient is considering care, they will weigh options. One of the most common ways to do this is to read online reviews about practices.
A patient may ask their social media connections to recommend a provider on Facebook. If a friend mentions a practice in a comment on a recommendations post, Facebook will attempt to match the practice with a link to its social media page. From there the patient can click on the practice’s Facebook page to learn more about them, even see where they have great engagement with existing patients.
Opt-in phase: The patient is now inclined to take the first big step in their healthcare journey by booking that initial visit. Free consultation offers or appointment request forms capture patient interest before they slip away.
Influencing phase: After becoming a patient and having a great experience with a practice, a patient then becomes the one to leave glowing reviews online and endorse your practice on social media.
Meeting patients at these crucial points on their personal journeys simply builds trust and interest in your practice.
iHealthSpot Makes Healthcare Digital Marketing Planning Easier
Your goal is to see consistent growth and welcome new patients throughout the year, and this is our goal too. Our all-in-one digital marketing solution for practice growth begins with a unique-to-you medical website design. We aim to capture your practice’s personality and design your website around what your patients want to see.
Once we have your website up and running, we can engage all marketing channels that help patients find you: SEO for your website, PPC ads, Facebook ads, social media management, online reviews management, and online listings management. We do all of this with a multi-tiered service plan to fit your goals and budget.
Marketing is more than a line-item budget business expense, it is an investment, and a solid medical practice marketing plan sets you on the right path. Get a free online presence assessment or a no-obligation consultation from iHealthSpot today!
