HEALTHCARE MARKETING KEY STRATEGIES

There is no one size fits all marketing strategy for medical and other healthcare professionals because each area of healthcare has a different target market, and each practice stands out in their own way. But healthcare marketing plans share some common attributes.

Healthcare Marketing Begins With Your Growth Objectives

  1. Do you have as many patients as you can handle and simply need to keep the calls coming or are you looking to grow your practice?
  2. How many calls are you getting today from your website?  What about your social media?
  3. What are your most profitable types of patients?  What would you like more of?  How much is a new patient worth to you?  These are important to assess your marketing budget.
  4. Does your practice have a focus?  Are there particular health issues you specialize in?  In which wellness areas do you typically see the most impressive results based on your protocols?  Do you focus more on prevention, on acute or chronic health issues?

Healthcare Marketing Fundamentals

  • Adwords:  Most healthcare practice areas are highly competitive.  If you Google how you would like to be found and see your competitor’s ads then you’ll need to be there too.
  • A Website That Converts:  Your website needs to load in 2 seconds or less, look great on mobile and make it very obvious what you do and why you’re different from other medical practices.
  • Local SEO:  Your practice needs to be on the map.  This is accomplished by creating keyword rich listings in hundreds of online directories.  It is one of the most cost effective and fastest ways to be found and should definitely be part of your strategy.
  • A Newsletter & Blog:  Find a way to regularly connect with your patients, prospective patients and fellow professionals by sharing a monthly newsletter with your blog excerpt, upcoming events, pictures of members of your practice in the community or with patients (always get permission) and health tips.  Remaining top of mind will help with professional referrals and being the healthcare professional a patient will call when they have a healthcare need.

Next Level Healthcare Marketing

  • Are you or your practice manager networking for referrals?  Do you take full advantage of the handfuls of business cards you collect or do they sit on your desk?  A CRM system is a perfect tool to automate nurturing those leads.  Send customized emails that look like you fired them off from your account personally.  Ask for referrals and testimonials, automate aspects of your new patient onboarding.  Did an initial consultation not convert to a patient?  Send an automated check in.
  • Social Media Visibility:  Do you have Healthgrades and LinkedIn profiles?  Do they have positive reviews?  Are you active daily on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Instagram & Twitter?
  • Social Media Engagement:  Visibility is the first step but you want to network online the same way you network at events.  Join wellness and community online groups, comment on posts, share and make connections.  Out in the community?  Share pictures!  Can you profile patients with their permission, or describe cases without names?  Share testimonials?
  • On Page SEO:  This involves optimizing the load speed of your healthcare practice’s website (like an untuned car it will slow down over time), making changes to the code to be more search engine friendly and optimizing your content for target healthcare keywords.  A proper healthcare SEO strategy will help your Adwords campaign to perform better and cost you less per click.
  • Online Reviews:  People really do care what others think, even when it comes to choosing a healthcare professional.  The more 5-star reviews you have on Healthgrades, Facebook and Google, the more confident a patient will be to work with you.  Even if they find out about you elsewhere you can be certain they are checking you out online.
  • Videos and Photos:  On your website show professional photos of you working with patients.  Shoot 1-2 minute videos for your website and social media of you providing wellness tips, sharing a story of a patient who did or didn’t do something that either saved them or caused issues, or of a patient saying nice things about you.  Visitors to your website or social media should get a feel for what it would be like to work with you.

In the enlightened words of Yoda: “Do or do not, there is no try!” You folks just DO a great job! Like he said, there is no try.”

 

Dr. Michael Newman,

DC, PA

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