healthcare-marketing-strategy

The Anatomy of a Successful Healthcare Marketing Strategy

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In the United States, the healthcare industry brings in roughly 1.67 trillion dollars in revenue on an annual basis. It’s a pretty astounding figure when you consider it.

However, this figure is divided among the roughly 785,000 healthcare companies, leading us to believe that some businesses are performing better than others.

The healthcare industry is competitive, no doubt. And if your practice is looking to compete locally, nationally, or even internationally, you’re going to need to step up your marketing game.

Make sure that your practice gets the attention it deserves. Read on to learn the anatomy of a successful healthcare marketing strategy and how you can create one for your business.

Educate Yourself

Let’s be clear about this, no one expects you to become a marketing guru overnight. As is the case with medicine, it takes years to become a marketing mastermind.

However, exposing yourself to even a slight bit of marketing lingo or learning about the latest marketing practices can take you a long way.

Spend a few minutes of each day learning about the world of digital marketing. There’s a lot to take it, so start with what interests you.

Even if you intend to outsource your healthcare marketing strategy, learning the basics of a successful strategy can make you a more well-informed consumer.

Search Engine Optimization And Healthcare

The crux of today’s healthcare marketing strategy involves search engine optimization, often shortened to SEO.

SEO deals with complex algorithms that determine a site’s ranking on popular search engines.

Make no mistake, your site’s ranking matters more than you may believe. The first search result alone tends to garner roughly one-third of all search traffic.

Therefore, your practice will need to utilize the fundamentals of SEO to improve your website’s traffic.

There are several ways a practice can boost their SEO score, including:

  • Posting quality content
  • Using strong keywords
  • Creating a user-friendly browsing experience
  • Implementing mobile design
  • Linking and sourcing content
  • Using the correct site architecture

SEO itself is maybe the trickiest aspect of marketing to implement. Don’t hesitate to seek a bit of help for your practice when it comes time to optimize your site. SEO is an ever-changing process and one area you should probably leave to a specialist. Doing it wrong can actually harm your site’s ability to attract visitors.

Use Your Web Presence to Inform

There’s a high likelihood that if a customer stumbles upon your website, they’re after a bit of medical advice or are looking to schedule an appointment.

With this in mind, it’s recommended that medical practices use their sites to inform patients.

Predict patient behavior and search queries and create content based on the results.

It’s certainly tricky to predict search queries, but if nothing else your site will have more great content. You can even field patient questions and answer them in a blog post.

With that in mind, create your content with the patient in mind to stay ahead of the curve. Put yourself in their shoes and create content based on what you’d like to see if you were the patient.

What are their most common questions? What symptoms may a concerned patient ‘Google’ before visiting your practice?

You may even want to look into medical marketing trends to find leads on great content.

Ideally, your content should be tailored to your specific area of practice. Say, for instance, you’re a chiropractor. You can create content that answers some of your patients’ most commonly asked questions about chiropractic care, back pain or preventative measures.

The more tailored and specialized your website’s content is, the better it is. Write about what you know first and foremost, and you’re sure to improve your site’s output.

Generate Reviews

The internet is a great place for medical experts to inform their patients, true. But it’s also a great place for patients to inform other patients through online reviews.

People put a lot of stock into online reviews. In fact, some even equate an online review with a personal recommendation from a peer.

Therefore, generating as many high-quality reviews as possible should be a staple of your healthcare marketing strategy. One idea is to simply ask patients to give you an online review. You can include the link on their statement or on an appointment reminder card.

Hop on sites like Google Business Profile, Facebook, Yelp, and more and create official business pages.

Make sure to include your NAP (name, address, phone number) so patients can contact you directly.

The sooner you embrace the power of online reviews, the sooner your marketing strategy takes off.

Embrace Social Media

For better or worse, it would appear that social media is here to stay. While many businesses seem skeptical to dip their toes into the digital water, they’re only hurting themselves by avoiding social media.

But why exactly is social media so important to a healthcare marketing strategy?

It’s simple, really. Statistically speaking, your audience is already on at least one social media platform. In fact, social media is so popular that 40 percent of the world’s population is part of one network or another.

That’s over 3 billion people that you could potentially reach!

If your practice is struggling to bring new patients to its site, go to your patients instead.

Cross-post content to boost your SEO score and interact with patients. You may even want to embrace the power of video and host a Q&A session on Facebook Live.

Your audience is already on social media, so why aren’t you?

Check-Up on Your Healthcare Marketing Strategy

Simply utilizing these strategies isn’t enough to garner a successful campaign.

Think of your healthcare marketing strategy like a patient. You’ll need to check in on a regular basis and ensure everything is going smoothly.

And like the medical world, if a certain strategy isn’t working, you can tweak it as needed to get better results. Look into your campaign’s analytics and see how you’re performing. Don’t be afraid to make a few adjustments if needed.

Final Thoughts on The Anatomy of a Successful Healthcare Marketing Strategy

Marketing, and healthcare marketing specifically, is quite tricky. If you simply don’t have the time to craft your own campaign or want some help from the experts, get in touch with Engaged Digital Marketing today.

Engaged Digital Marketing is here to help your medical practice with all types of digital marketing and lead generation, so get in touch today!

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