Image source:
The healthcare industry is growing and this is due to innovations in standards and tools that practitioners and manufacturers are using to keep themselves relevant on the market. Clinics, for one, are using a range of solutions that simplifies patient care processes.
Medical technology is evolving quickly. And as the healthcare information technology industry is expected to reach $441 billion by 2025, it’s understandable that digital transformation is taking over the field.
That said, practitioners will have to upgrade their marketing strategy as well. After all, they can’t use these brand new tools if they don’t establish a brand presence online.
If you’re a healthcare professional, you might as well invest time and resources in coming up with better means of attracting clients. Here are a few things you might want to take note of.
1. Assess the market
Indeed, you can’t take a dive without testing the waters first. That said, make sure to take ample time researching the competition and identifying what it is the local market wants. Competitor analysis and social listening are just some of the best methods for gathering the intelligence you need to draft out a winning marketing strategy.
2. Establish a social media presence
To some, social media is not a suitable marketing platform for healthcare professionals. Recent statistics show otherwise. According to Referral MD, 41% of online users agree that using social media affects their attitudes towards finding the right professionals for their medical needs. No doubt, social media acts as a sort of force multiplier that broadens your online reach. You just have to be consistent with your social media postings and create content that educates and engages your audience.
3. Create a blog
Modern healthcare is complex and practitioners will have to make sure that their patients know a great deal about the work professionals in the industry do. You will want to make your audience understand the terms and concepts that only people in the practice know. Sure enough, writing a blog is a strategy you wouldn’t want to ignore. Creating content that effectively explains diseases, processes, and treatment solutions is a great way to educate and establish trust with your audience.
4. Form your very own marketing team
You will have to admit it, managing your practice is demanding. Apart from organizing day-to-day operations, you also have to deal with medical billing and facility maintenance, all while making sure you have a stable online presence. Then again, you can always reduce the workload by installing the right software and building a dedicated digital marketing team. No doubt, you will need content writers, social media marketing specialists, and web developers who can help you shape your audience engagement strategy from the ground up.
5. Keep track of your gains
Regular monitoring is crucial to the success of your digital marketing campaign. Before that, you will need to set benchmarks that let you gauge your campaign’s performance and see if you can make improvements towards hitting these targets.
6. Make use of Facebook Ads
At the moment, medical practitioners also have the option of promoting their services through social media advertising platforms. Sure enough, Facebook Ads provides a relatively cheap and straightforward experience for practitioners who have yet to establish their digital marketing campaigns. Regardless of how much you are willing to spend to run your own advertising campaign on the site, you can still invite a large volume of clients over by giving engaging and attractive offers they can’t acquire anywhere else.
7. Come up with effective offers
Healthcare services can be costly to some, which is why people won’t simply pass up on freebies and discounts. Nothing could attract potential clients quite like these ideas for great offers. For instance, if you’re managing a dental clinic, you can offer free checkups for children below 9 years. You may also run your very own referral program where patients get discounts on implants and other services if they refer their friends and family to the clinic. This will really get the ball rolling when it comes to generating high-quality medical leads.
8. Build your very own brand kit
Being an independent practitioner, you will have to compete with other doctors in the local healthcare sector. That said, you will need to differentiate yourself from others in the same field as you. Crafting a unique voice for your practice is a great start for improving your visibility online. You should begin by building a brand kit. This should include color schemes and a well-designed logo that’s catchy and clever. Aside from that, you should also pick the appropriate typefaces you will use for all your marketing content. Take your time developing your brand identity. You will need to consider every possible factor for letting your medical practice resonate in your field.
9. Join industry events
Do you often join conferences, seminars, and symposiums outside your state? If that’s the case, then you’re doing what you can to broaden your medical practice’s reach. Your attendance at these events can help you open up opportunities for improving your brand voice. Other than that, your participation in these events allows you to generate advocates for your practice. So, whenever you’re running a content marketing campaign, it helps if you are able to mention your part in these events to add social proof to what you do.
10. Automate and personalize your messages
There are a plethora of tools that doctors and practitioners use to help them with their marketing campaigns. And considering the fact that we live in a world of big data, you will be hard-pressed to deliver personalized information to each and every prospect. This entails a high risk for errors as you need to craft each message carefully — unless you use marketing automation software that lets you simplify your campaign and helps you allocate your resources as you reach out to individual clients.
Considering the competition your practice has to deal with, it’s important that you get ahead by building a marketing strategy that delivers the results you want.
