The marketing landscape for medical practices is shifting. Every year, more people are searching for their doctor online, leading medical practices to invest more in digital presence and marketing strategies. In this article, you will find how a solid digital marketing strategy can help you attract more patients!
The Web Is Essential To Grow
It’s no surprise that with the number of smartphones and technology today, patients go on the web to do healthcare-related searches. This includes finding dentists, chiropractors, esthetic nurses, medical practices, and more near their area for any treatments they are interested in.
Having a strong web presence is critical to growing your practice. Without a digital marketing strategy, your healthcare or medical practice can quickly lose its momentum in the digital market.
Based on a most recent survey, about three in five people (63%) choose a medical provider because of its strong online presence.
Your online web presence encompasses a number of different strategies and channels which all create numerous touch points for potential patients.
It’s important that you have the right strategy for each channel that you choose for your practice. For example, make sure your practice is staying up to date and consistently posting on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and more. Offering consistently engaging and educational information will give potential patients the confidence to choose your practice over others.
A strong social media marketing strategy is more important than ever for your medical practice. There are so many social media benefits that you can’t ignore this channel anymore.
Similarly, having a strong presence on the search engine results page (SERPs) is imperative to your success. Most all patient’s begin their buyer journey by doing a search on Google or various other search engines. By having the right search engine optimization strategy in place for your medical practice, you can ensure that your website will be seen by potential patients when they do a search that is related to the services you provide.
Make sure your digital marketing strategy is taking into account your business reputation since you want prospective patients to know the consistent positive care you provide. Online reviews should always be taken into account in your strategy.
Negative online reviews can be extremely detrimental to your practice and your name. Here’s what you can do about negative Yelp reviews.
Think of your online web presence as the digital version of your practice. The same care and effort you take into ensuring patients have a good experience is the same care you should take with shaping your web presence.
Clients need to trust your practice and having that strong presence online is how you can earn that trust.
Targeting Your Ideal Patient
With innovations within advertising, targeting your ideal patient has never been easier.
And if you don’t know who your ideal patient is, here’s where you can learn to create a target audience persona.
Platforms such as Facebook and Google your medical practice can get very specific with who you want your services to be shown to.
For example, the benefits of Facebook ads platform is that it allows you to target age, gender, and various detailed interests all of which can allow you to create an audience of ideal patients that you want your service to be seen by.
Google paid search ads allows you to target specific keywords that are related to your services and have your website show up at the top of their related search. By placing your website at the top of their search you increase the chances of the user clicking onto your site and ultimately converting as a patient.
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See Our Growth StrategyUnlike traditional marketing channels like television and radio, your medical practice will know exactly the type of audience you are targeting. Since you can be so specific, this eliminates a lot of wasted budget that you might otherwise have with more traditional marketing channels.
These innovating targeting techniques also allow your advertisements to be highly specific to each individual patient’s needs and selling points.
The ability to be highly targeted with your advertisements is one of the biggest reasons that your practice should be thinking about your healthcare digital marketing strategy and investing into it.
Comparatively, these various advertising platforms are more cost-effective than traditional marketing channels which makes it a great investment for any small-to-medium medical practices.
Outcompete Your Competitors
We’re already well into the digital age, but there are still practices out there, many of them being your competition, that don’t have an online web presence and have not thought about their digital marketing strategy.
By getting onboard now and working with a digital marketing agency to create the right strategy for you, you’ll be better equipped to grab a piece of your market share that your competition is lagging on.
Having the right digital presence in the first place can propel your business above other medical practices that lack one. While they’re figuring out who their audience is and solely relying on referrals, you already know who your target audience is and are actively promoting your services to them.
By consistently being in front of your target audience through various platforms and channels, you are effectively outpacing your competitors. This can allow your practice to become an authority in your specific medical niche.
The more you are present online, the more likely it is to increase high-quality traffic to your website. Before you know it, your brand awareness has skyrocketed, and new inquires will start coming in.
It’s an Effective Way to Communicate To Customers
Having the right digital marketing strategy allows you to effectively communicate your message to potential new patients and current ones as well.
If you have an upcoming deal or want to showcase a new service you are providing, a digital marketing strategy can communicate it to your patients through a number of cost-effective strategies.
With your current patients, email marketing and text messages offer a simple, affordable, and effective way to communicate that great new offer you have.
According to Hubspot, email marketing generates $38 for every $1 spent achieving an incredible 3,800% ROI.
For new patients, your digital marketing strategy gives you the ability to communicate in numerous ways for each individual potential patient. Platforms such as Facebook ads can give you the ability to display a number of different advertisements all of which hit a different pain point for the patient. Having this type of effective communication increases the chances of gaining them as a patient.
Similarly, many potential patients may seek to ask questions through various social media platforms, review aggregators such as Yelp, and even your website. Having the right tools and digital marketing strategy allows you to efficiently communicate with them and answer their dire questions.
By communicating to current and new patients, your practice is able to get the right message out there about what your services are, why they should choose you, and what your practice represents.
The key is to be consistent and stay on top of their mind for when the time comes for the patient to inquire about your specific service. Communicating regularly with your patients makes them more likely to do business with you later in the future.
Conclusion
A digital marketing strategy is essential for growing your practice. The amount of people looking at their smartphones is continuously increasing. Position your medical company as an authority by knowing who exactly your audience is and target them effectively. Outcompete your competitors by raising your brand awareness and start driving high-quality traffic to your website.
It’s no longer an option to simply ignore having a strong web presence with the right digital marketing strategy for your medical practice. Doing so is only going to severely limit your opportunity for growth.
Here at Alecan Marketing, we have years of experience taking medical practices to the digital field. We provide services that lay the groundwork for your digital marketing strategy so that you can focus on the other points of your practice. From advertising campaigns to search engine optimization, our team will make sure your medical business gets a high ROI.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us!
