Today, more and more medical practices have started to place emphasis on digital marketing. Medical providers can advertise their services, but they can also manage their brands better and unlike never before. This comes in handy when attempting to attract new customers as it provides doctors with an opportunity to expand their reach.
It is estimated that each month nearly 5 million consumers search for local doctors (Infographics Archive, 2019). For you to convert those searches into new patients, you must have a dominant digital presence through search engines, local directories, social media, email inboxes, and anywhere else your target audience spends their time.
Digital Competitive Analysis
The first step is to conduct a thorough digital competitive analysis. You need to find out what your competitors are doing to succeed in the digital sphere. Competitive analysis is key to improving your digital marketing strategy. A great strategy means nothing if you can’t ensure that yours is better than that of your competitor’s.
This can be done by identifying your practice or hospital’s strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities from a digital marketing perspective and actionable insights you can take to close any gaps and get ahead of your competition (Skyram Technologies, 2019).
Easy to Navigate Website
If you are planning on having an online presence then it is the most basic thing to have a website. Build a website and make it easy to navigate so that whatever the patient is looking for they will be able to find it quickly, whether it be a booking, an appointment, or reading a blog or knowing about various medical conditions. Does your website have scheduling capabilities? Is it mobile-friendly?
It should feature both qualities (Creative Bloq, 2020). 62% of smartphone owners use their device to look up medical information, and 75% of people have admitted to judging a doctor’s credibility based on their website design (Infographics Archive, 2019).
Content Marketing
Attract, acquire, and engage more patients by creating and distributing relevant and valuable content, including landing pages, blog posts, e-books, email newsletters, white papers, and more. Create videos that are engaging and informative. Audiences these days are turning towards visual content, so give them that. If, for instance, an orthopedic surgeon talks about bone health, you can share his or her expertise with the audience, the audience will find it interesting.
Writing blogs can also help increase your volume of patients by creating content that viewers want to read. You can also share various experiences of the patients that you have come across. If you are writing about some severe disease, make sure that you make it such that the patients won’t be scared or worried after reading it (Hubspot, 2020).
SEO & Directory Listings
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the best way to make your office’s website more visible in searches. Let’s say you think your website should be ranking for a phrase relevant to your office, like “physician in Toronto, ON.” A big part of SEO will involve looking for ways to place that exact phrase somewhere on your website because search engines won’t know that you are a Toronto physician unless you tell them.
So you might add that phrase to your homepage, in the titles of your pages, or in the body of an article about your office. For physicians, local search is a crucial part of any online marketing plan. Because nearly all of the people you want to reach will be in a specific location, your website needs to show up when someone searches for a physician in that location (TheSpian, 2020).
Google My Business
The very best way to do this is to set up a free Google My Business Page. This gives your office the chance to show up when someone looks for you. Displays your location on a map and enables other features like reviews, contact information, and even the ability to get directions from a mobile device.
By setting up and completely filling out a Google My Business page, you’ll be able to display all the relevant information a potential patient needs right in their search results. Once you have this page set up, you can then acquire reviews or accept photos submitted from patients to make searchers more likely to click through and learn about you on your website (TheSpian, 2020).
It is crucial to have yourself listed in all the local directories. Still, along with it, you should also be listed with medical directories like Practo, HealthGrades, DoctorsDig.com, and BookofDoctors, to name a few. This will help build a good presence, but you will be reachable from everywhere (Revlocal, 2021).
Email marketing
Patients are always in need of information and opinions. Email marketing is the best tool to keep them informed about various things. How much good is it if a patient finds a piece of information right in the inbox without even searching it?
Well, planning email newsletters twice a week can reap good results for the doctor or physician. It is also a wise idea to personalize emails based on the interest of the audience. This will make them receive the relevant information every time. Always plan the email marketing campaigns well in advance (Crystal Clear, 2021).
Social Media & Social Media Marketing
Social media is the key to promote any brand or face. If a doctor jumps into the pool of social media and creates a good impression on the audience then there are high chances of getting recommendations. Facebook makes it easy for the doctors to share information with the patients.
You can set up your Page for free, customize it with your logo and a header image, and add all your contact information. Then you can start asking your patients to like it and linking to the page from your website. All the clinic updates can be shared on Facebook.
According to Infographics Archive, around 60 percent of social media users are most likely to trust social media posts and doctors’ activity over any other group. So being a doctor, you have already fought the half battle of digital marketing. PPC ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Linkedin enable you to display ads only to those using the keywords you have targeted. This allows you to avoid the general public and target the right people.
Make sure to use the terminologies and search terms that your patients will use while searching (Think Expand, 2020). For B2B medical marketing, LinkedIn is the perfect platform. LinkedIn’s B2B audience has 2x the average web audience’s buying power, and 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions. (Infographics Archive, 2019).
Doctors usually attend many conferences, but no one knows what they are about except the medical fraternity. Therefore as a doctor, it is your responsibility to let people know where you went. Thus, provide proper coverage of the event or the conference through Facebook updates or blogs.
You can also start a Facebook live or Instagram live to give a direct message to the audience. Share the picture of the events on social media. This helps in building your reputation and trust among the audience. The audience also thinks that you are staying updated with the new technologies.
In Summary
A solid digital marketing strategy for a doctor is well defined when all the above factors come correctly. Marketing a hospital or a medical institution is different, and branding a doctor is different. So the strategies also differ here. Therefore, if executed properly, your medical practice will catch the attention of the audience with all the above pointers, and you will start receiving good leads. In today’s time, digital marketing for doctors has become a must (Practice Builders, 2020).
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References
- https://www.skyramtechnologies.com/blog/effective-digital-marketing-for-doctors/
- https://www.creativebloq.com/features/the-next-big-thing-in-web-design-7-trends-you-need-to-know
- http://www.thespian.agency/blog/search-engine-optimization-aka-seo-part-1/
- https://www.expandgh.com/how-create-social-media-marketing-strategy-for-your-business/
- https://infographicsarchive.com/
- https://www.revlocal.com/resources/library/blog/6-digital-marketing-tips-for-doctors
- https://www.practicebuilders.com/blog/7-reasons-you-need-digital-marketing-for-your-medical-practice/
- https://crystalcleardigitalmarketing.com/digital-marketing-for-doctors-why-is-it-important/
- https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/digital-marketing-in-healthcare