The marketing industry has been evolving since its inception, and that evolution has always been driven by technology. Whether it was the birth of radio in the 1920s or the emergence of the internet in the 1990s, technological advances have constantly been driving marketing techniques.
That drive continues today, and in 2020, technology has driven marketing to be digital and personalized. The healthcare space is no different. In order to successfully market your practice, it’s no longer enough to have a digital presence. You need a digital marketing strategy.
Prospective patients have more information at their fingertips and a greater choice of providers than ever before. Growing your patient population in this environment requires improved search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, content marketing, and online reputation management.
Why Digital Marketing Is Critical
What makes your digital marketing strategy so urgent right now? In order to engage prospective patients, you need to meet them where they are looking for you, and that’s online. Eighty percent of people have used the internet to make a healthcare-related search in the past year, and 77 percent of patients used a search prior to booking an appointment. If your practice is not coming up in these searches, you’re losing out on patients. This is why location-based SEO must be a key component of your strategy.
Keep in mind that these numbers are referring to individuals conducting a healthcare-related search. This does not mean that the other 20 percent of people are not online researching practices, it just means that they are not conducting a Google search. Most of them are still online analyzing their choices. In fact, 94 percent of healthcare patients use online reviews to evaluate providers. This is why online reputation management needs to be part of your strategy.
It’s important to also consider how your potential patients are conducting their research. Think about how you might research something online? Are you using a desktop? A tablet? Your phone? Yes, yes, and yes. Potential patients could be using any number of devices to find your practice, so you need to be sure your website is fast, interactive, and mobile-friendly. In fact, a few years ago Google adopted a mobile-first indexing strategy. This means that it’s the mobile version of your website that is used to determine rankings. That is why a high-quality website and web experience need to be part of your strategy.
Components of Your Digital Marketing Strategy
In 2019, healthcare companies are expected to spend a total of $36 billion on advertising. The portion of that whole going toward digital advertising continues to rise, and in 2021 is expected to surpass TV ad spend for the first time. Digital advertising will account for 46 percent of the healthcare advertising budget in 2021.
As you consider your own advertising budget and how much should go toward your overall marketing mix, think about the components of your digital marketing strategy. What should be included? (note: There is too much to a digital marketing strategy to cover in one article. Here are some bare bones components to start learning about.)
Website Optimization
As was mentioned above, your website must be fast, interactive, and mobile-friendly. Be sure to make all of your treatments and services visible and easy-to-find. This means going with an agency that knows how to design a professional medical website with clean navigation and optimized for local search. You may want to provide a short lead form for those wanting more information via phone. Your goal is to turn website visits into conversions.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Develop a local SEO strategy. Did you know that the top three search results receive 50 percent of all clicks on Google? Get yourself in the top three with a professional medical website design. You’ll want to invest in content (see next point) for the site in the form of service descriptions and blog posts. The more content pages you have the better long term value you’re building for your site.
Content Marketing
Content marketing costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads. Not only are potential patients searching for providers on the web, they are also researching symptoms, medical concerns, and wellness information. Content marketing helps more people find answers, helps more people find you, and positions you as a leader in your field.
Social Media Marketing
Your patients are on social media, so you should be, too. Thirty-two percent of U.S. users post about their friends’ and family’s health and medical experiences on social media. This is a great opportunity for patient engagement, but you can’t take advantage of it if you’re not there. You need to utilize both paid advertising and organic posts.
Video Content
Create videos for your website, advertising, and social media. People love videos, and with the technology available in everyone’s pocket today, there is no reason not to include video as part of your digital marketing strategy. Fifty-four percent of consumers want to see more video from the businesses they support, plus, it’s a great way for potential patients to get to know your providers.
Online Reputation Management
Even if a practice has done nothing, they still have a digital presence. Patients are leaving reviews whether or not you’re paying attention. These reviews matter. Ninety-one percent of consumers say that positive reviews make them more likely to use a business. Utilize a service like Patient Promoter for reputation management to generate positive feedback and turn your best patients into promoters. These authentic reviews have untold value in your marketing strategy. You can leverage these in every channel you’re using for marketing.
We haven’t covered paid advertising channels like Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Spotify. These channels have a rich contribution to your marketing but require ongoing investment beyond hiring a professional to manage everything, a professional medical website, and developing content for your channels.
Focusing on Your Ideal Patient
You need to know your patient. This might sound obvious, but the clearer picture you have about your ideal patient, the better you’ll be able to serve them, and the better you’ll be able to provide a value proposition that speaks to them.
Your ideal patient needs to be just as three-dimensional as your real patients. Include information including geography, demographics, psychographics, and behavior when creating this persona. Once you do this, you can answer the questions, “Why should they choose our practice? What is important to them? What are their pain points?”
Creating buyer personas, or ideal patients, has been proven to help marketing efforts. A case study from MarketingSherpa found that buyer personas increase length of online visits by 900 percent, marketing-generated revenue by 171 percent, email open rate by 111 percent, and number of pages visited by 100 percent. Patient personas can provide insights that you likely wouldn’t otherwise get, and they make marketing decisions much clearer.
Get Help from Professionals
A digital marketing strategy might sound like a lot of work, and in truth, it is. Just as medicine improves and changes, marketing moves at a rapid pace. I would never go to a marketing expert for a health concern. Similarly, you shouldn’t try and develop a digital media strategy for your practice by yourself. Not because you couldn’t, but because it takes time, energy, and knowledge of current marketing trends. You don’t have time for that.
Choose a partner that offers full-service marketing services for medical practices like yours. Net One Click can provide marketing solutions that give you a competitive advantage. To learn more about our strategic, results-focused approach, request a free consultation today.