As a healthcare organization, checkups are a part of your daily routine. But have you considered doing a checkup on your digital healthcare marketing? Marketing plays an important role in helping healthcare professionals create, communicate and provide value to their target market. With roughly one billion health-related searches every day, a digital healthcare marketing strategy can help you bring in more patients, build trust and boost your authority. Read on for ideas.
Educate with content
Educational and informative content can be one of the best ways to build trust with potential patients. Costing 62% less than traditional marketing and generating about three times as many leads, content marketing can be a powerful tool. Consider creating a content strategy for the next six months.
Think about using a multi-channel approach—perhaps with weekly social media, emails and blog posts. Focus on your specialties. For example, a dentist might talk about gum disease signs and symptoms. Or an orthopedist could educate on how to keep bones healthy.
Make your doctors more approachable
Through your website and social media channels, introduce your doctors and have them talk about their professional knowledge as well as some personal information—their hobbies, family life and favorite foods. Consider doing a live Q&A every month, where people ask questions and get answers from your doctors.
To help get people to participate in live Q&As, offer healthcare giveaways to anyone who asks a question. Ideas include a kettlebell stress reliever, a sports towel or a first-aid kit. Showcasing your doctors on a more personal level can help build trust and authority with current and prospective patients.
Leverage local SEO
With 46% of all Google® searches looking for local information, optimizing your website and blog posts for local SEO could greatly help boost your leads. Here are just a few ways to do that:
- If you haven’t already, create a Google My Business page and ensure it’s updated with your contact information, hours and other pertinent information.
- Add location pages to your website—this includes your name, address, phone number, hours, parking/transit information, and other information that will help patients find and get to you easily. You’ll also get a big SEO boost if you include your Google Maps location.
- Make sure your name, address, and phone number are consistent across your website pages and your Google My Business page. In other words, if you use parentheses to denote your area code, they should be used across all channels.
- Optimize online directories including Yelp® and those specific to healthcare. Double-check that all spellings, abbreviations, suite numbers and phone numbers are correct and consistent.
Use multiple patient testimonials
Show potential patients you’re trustworthy, knowledgeable and credible by publishing patient reviews and testimonials. A whopping 90% of patients use online reviews to evaluate doctors. If you don’t currently have patient testimonials, consider asking for them. If people feel overwhelmed at the thought of writing a testimonial, help them out by outlining what to include, such as:
- How they felt before coming in
- How they felt throughout the process
- Why they prefer your practice
You can even offer healthcare giveaways, like an exercise band set or a steel water bottle, as a thank you for providing a testimonial.
Make use of video
Sharing video of your doctors, nurses, assistants and other staff can help build rapport before someone meets you in person. And video can be a deciding factor when people are choosing a doctor—83% of marketers who use video say it helps them with lead generation.
Consider interviewing a doctor and perhaps front-desk staff, as they’re the first contact for a new patient. Introduce them in the video and have them share a bit about their role and personal life. You can also do a video series on a specific topic. Choose an ailment and have your doctors talk about symptoms, treatment and options. This builds further rapport and can bring immediate value to viewers, making it more likely they’ll pick up the phone and contact you.
How’s your checkup going?
Is your digital healthcare marketing strong and healthy? Or does it need a little love? By using educational content, optimizing for local SEO, and producing video, your strategy can do wonders for your marketing health.