You’ve gone through the blood, sweat and tears that come with getting your practice up and running; now is the time to let your community know! Getting the word out can be a daunting project, but fret not; at White Coat Web, we have compiled the best strategies to implement marketing for medical practices. Learn how to promote your services online with these ideas.
Marketing for Medical Practices: The Why
Marketing is a critical component for the success and growth of medical practices. In today’s digital age, potential patients are increasingly turning to the internet to find healthcare providers and services. Effective marketing strategies help medical practices build visibility and establish trust within their communities.
By creating a strong online presence through
- a well-designed website
- engaging content
- an updated Google Business Profile
- and active social media profiles
medical practices can attract new patients and retain existing ones. Additionally, targeted marketing campaigns and SEO efforts ensure that practices appear in relevant searches, making it easier for patients to find and choose their services.
Ultimately, investing in specialized marketing for medical practices is investing in the future of the providers, ensuring sustainable growth and the ability to provide quality care to a broader patient base.
➡ Check out our short White Coat Webisode: Components of Medical Marketing
The How
While your main focus is your patients, if your practice isn’t thriving, it will be difficult to tend to them. Think of your online presence as being on the hospital’s bulletin board—a way to spread the word that your current and prospective patients will respond to.
Let’s break down how to enlarge your patient base by implementing the right marketing strategies for medical practices.
1. Design a Website That Conveys Your Uniqueness
You are the only one who does what you do the way you do it. Your website should reflect that! At the most basic level, people are looking to connect. And they are looking to connect with their providers. By presenting your services in your own, unique way, you have a higher chance of attracting the right patients to your practice.
Wondering what this looks like? When designing your website, you want to include:
- Descriptions of all the services available to your patients
- A Favorite Asked Questions section
- A bit about you and the professionals working with you
- Information about what your patients can expect from your practice
- Quality content about the most common ailments among your patients
- Quick-access appointment scheduling and call-to-action tools
- High-quality images that convey your practice’s essence
Now, on a more technical level, you should consider:
- Fast loading times
- Mobile optimization
- Easy navigability
- Responsiveness
Your website is your way into your patients’ system. A well-designed website reflects your professionalism, builds trust, and makes it easy for patients to connect with you.
2. Make Your Marketing for Medical Practices Count: Claim Your GBP
What do you do when you want to eat out and don’t know where to go? You probably pull out your phone and use the restaurant search tool on Google Maps or Google search “restaurants near me.” What pops up will be their Google Business Profile. That could be you for those looking for a healthcare provider.
Think of Google Business Profile as your listing in the local Yellow Pages. It is what Google shows when people are trying to find things within their areas.
When setting up your GBP make sure you:
- Choose the right category (“physical therapist,” for example)
- List the correct address and phone number
- Write a description that reflects your voice and uses the right keywords
- Add professional photos of the office and the team
Your GBP lets you update information continuously (you may add reduced hours during holidays, new service announcements, etc.) and lets your patients leave reviews, which is another great asset when it comes to marketing for medical practices.
➡ Check out our short Web Coat Webisode: What is a Google Business Profile?
3. Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
You have designed a stellar website with valuable content. Now it is time to tell Google so that it can brag about it to people looking for exceptional care in your area! That is when SEO comes into the marketing for medical practices picture.
SEO is the Internet’s EHR—it contains the information that search engines need to know in order to act (i.e., to take to the top of their results pages). To upload the information to these EHRs, you need to:
- Conduct keyword research. Identify relevant keywords that potential patients are searching for, like “physical therapist near me,” for example.
- Use those keywords on your website. Optimize your website’s content including those keywords in meta descriptions, image alt. texts, and title tags.
- Monitor your local listings. Manage and update your practice’s information across local directories and online listings like Yelp, Healthgrades, and Zocdoc.
- Build backlinks. Acquire high-quality backlinks from reputable local sources, such as local news websites, medical directories, and community organizations.
- Harness local SEO analytics. Google Analytics and Google Search Console let you regularly monitor and analyze your local SEO performance by tracking traffic, rankings, and conversions. As a result, you can adjust your strategy accordingly.
💡 Pro tip: Get to know your community so that you can cater specifically to them. Are there non-English speakers? How can you draw them in? You might want to consider translating the content of your website to attract an untapped demographic in your area (of course, provided your office can offer bilingual services).
➡ Check out our related White Coat Webisode: Tips and Tricks for Successful Keyword-based Content Writing
4. Socialize—Leverage Social Media
When it comes to marketing for medical practices, social media has much to offer. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are ideal to share the content that you are creating on your website, for example, or to explore other ways to communicate.
Captivating photos or videos can help you educate your audience and showcase the human side of your team, endearing your practice to current and potential followers/patients.
💡 Here are some ideas for content:
- Celebrate medically-related days/months with informative posts about the issue
- Share operational updates
- BTS pictures of the facilities and your team
- Health news relevant to your industry and your take on them
- Shared posts with local businesses. Are you sponsoring an event? Partner up with local businesses to potentiate each other!
- Organize giveaways to increase engagement
- Share patients’ success stories
- Debunk myths and react to popular health-related videos
- Create quizzes
Social media lets you interact with whoever may leave a message. By responding to them promptly you remain present and open to your base!
Don’t have the time to do it all yourself? Consider calling in medical marketing experts to give you a helping hand and lead you to social media success.
5. Build a Stellar Reputation
Your reviews are your prospective patients’ decision-maker and your current ones’ way of connecting with you on another level. A well-reputed practice enhances patient trust and makes it easy for potential patients to connect with you.
As part of your marketing strategy, implementing review management can do wonders for your reputation. Here’s a quick checklist for when managing your reviews.
- Encourage patients to leave comments—on your GBP, social media profiles, and other sites like Yelp, Healthgrades, and Zocdoc.
- Monitor and respond to your reviews. Whether positive or negative, your reply will always help build trust.
- Regularly monitor the comments left on listings and reply to them if possible.
A well-reputed practice enhances patient trust and makes it easy for potential patients to connect with you.
➡ Check out our related White Coat Webisode: Review Management, Why Is It Important?
➡ Want more? Healthcare Review Management: 7 Top Tips
6. Don’t Be Afraid to Advertise
Digital ads are a good way to directly target a specific audience and attract patients to your door. The advantage of digital ads is that they let you change your campaign while it is still up on the basis of how the audience is reacting to it and depending on the different metrics.
One thing to keep in mind is that the digital ad strategy comprises preparation, implementation, and follow-up. What does this mean?
Preparation
Of course, before advertising, you should make sure you have an already optimized website, an established GBP, and a social media presence so that prospective patients can check you out. Remember, ads charge per interaction, not conversion!
Implementation
- Define your target audience
- Crafting the campaign honing in on that demographic
- Decide where to place the ads
- Strategically place the ads and prepare to welcome inquiries
Follow-Up
The work does not stop once you run the campaign. Be ready to answer the phone, answer your prospective patients’ questions, and show them why they will become returning patients.
You might also want to consider including EHR integration solutions to streamline your operations and keep all aspects of the executive side of the business in good health.
Marketing for Medical Practices Made Easy
To wrap up, if the idea of implementing all these marketing strategies feels overwhelming, you’re not alone. At White Coat Web, we specialize in managing every aspect of medical marketing for you. From designing a standout website to optimizing your SEO, handling your social media, and running targeted ad campaigns, we’ve got you covered.
Our minimally invasive approach ensures that you can focus on providing exceptional care while we take care of amplifying your practice’s online presence and attracting new patients. Let us be your partner in making your practice the go-to choice in your community.