While we want to focus on giving our patients the best services we can offer, the medical practice is still a business. And like other trades that are helped by growth, we need to employ specific marketing techniques to promote it. Those who specialize in hearing health care might decide to put up audiology websites, while those who practice psychiatry may decide to invest in sponsored ads. There are several methods you can explore once you decide to get into marketing.
At the moment, you might already be satisfied with the pool of clients you have, but it’s not a matter of why a patient might decide to switch to a different service provider. It’s a matter of when. You need to prepare for this eventuality by keeping your brand at the top of recommendations when people come looking for options.
Medical Website
Your website is your virtual profile that will introduce you to prospective patients. There is a real need here to create a good impression. If you already have one, you have to ask yourself if you have put up quality content that will impress your brand in the minds of patients.
If you don’t have a website yet, here are two features of the website you need that will help you grow your medical practice. Later, these are the same content that will lead more patients in your online direction.
- Blog
A weblog or blog is not exclusive for the use of today’s up and coming social media influencers. Now, even businesses can use blogs to better inform their clients about their services, share announcements, and talk about innovations. This can help you start a conversation with patients or plant information in their minds that can prove helpful to them.
Blogs are stamped with the dates of when you post them. And once you start this practice on your website, you will want to keep adding web pages to signal constant activity.
- Educational Videos
More often than not, patients will want to get a better idea of procedures and treatments that can be made available to them. Before they even get to choose the healthcare brand to avail, they will do their best to research online.
One way of giving patients a good impression is by investing on medical videos that you can show on your website. This will give clients an opportunity to see inside your office without them having to be physically present. You will also be able to educate casual visitors who might keep a mental note of your brand should they need the same services in the future.
Search Engine Optimization
Now that we have tackled content, it’s time to talk about how to take your content up a notch through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Medical businesses must obtain quantitative and qualitative data through market research and medical seo services.
SEO marketing is about familiarizing yourself with the keywords entered in Google by patients. Once you are aware of these keywords, you will want to make sure that your website and other marketing content contain these phrases so that your profile is pulled up much faster in results. Using this approach will help you harness unpaid traffic to your website that you can convert into real clients.
Paid Ads
The downside with SEO marketing though is even if you continually churn out the best content, you will still be outdone by paid ads on Google that will be placed even before the first search result. And that’s understandable, because this is a service that they have paid for. You also have the prerogative to use this method.
Aside from Google Ads, there are also YouTube Ads that you may want to look into so that when potential patients are already researching treatments, you can be promoted as a healthcare option. According to a study, one out of eight patients watch videos from websites (42%), Youtube (29%), and other sources. Investing in paid advertising can help you connect with patients who are already in need of your help.
Social Media Marketing
According to Statista, people spend an average of 145 minutes daily on social media. Today, it’s no longer enough to maintain a website to keep a profile on the internet; it is also essential to build a social media presence on the most popular platforms. Maintaining a presence on Facebook, for example, means that you will be able to engage more with clients on a regular basis. It is also another way of providing more immediate customer service to the pool of patients you already have.
Your current clients can write reviews on your page or make posts mentioning your services, introducing you to their circle of peers. The more familiar you are to a community, the higher legitimacy this can bring for your brand.
These are just some of the common marketing practices that are already being employed by thousands of medical businesses in 2021. Don’t let your healthcare brand get left behind!
