With so many options to choose from, healthcare patients are no longer restricted to their local health facilities, so the right healthcare marketing strategy can help you draw in patients both near and far. With the help of online information, they can reach out to healthcare facilities beyond their locality with ease. As a result, most of them no longer default to the closest health facility. For the healthcare center, this requires planning and budgeting for marketing strategies to entice new and current patients.
By correctly implementing healthcare marketing, you can gradually grow the patient volume in your facility. Most importantly, you can make your brand stand out from the rest. While you may be content with your current patient volume, keep in mind that they’re not going to last forever. After all, the goal is usually to treat patients and help them recover so that they no longer need constant treatment.
Remember, there’s more than one reason why your patient may want to switch to another facility. These include negative experiences due to waiting time, health insurance changes, or even relocation. Fortunately, with the following 10 best healthcare marketing strategies, you can get more healthcare patients:
What’s healthcare marketing?
These are marketing strategies specifically for healthcare networks, doctors, healthcare providers, caregivers, and health practitioners, among others. It’s a strategic process of reaching new patients and engaging and guiding them throughout their healthcare journey in your facility. An effective marketing plan for your healthcare facility should include various channels with a combination of online and offline campaigns. When you put this plan into action, it can help your facility:
- Generate qualified leads that can boost its revenue
- Stand out in a competitive marketplace while attracting more patients
- Retain current patients longer than usual
- Reach out to prospects, engage them, and guide them throughout their healthcare journey
10 things your healthcare marketing plan must include:
1) Strong and consistent branding
You may be an expert in your field, but when patients first spot you in your white coat you’re just like any other doctor. When you develop a powerful and consistent brand, your facility will stand out from the rest. To get this right, identify what patients love about your facility and maximize on that. Through branding, you’ll earn your patients’ trust and loyalty.
Integrating advanced behavioral health technology into your practice not only enhances patient care but also reinforces your brand’s commitment to innovation and excellence. This adoption of cutting-edge solutions will clearly differentiate your facility in a crowded healthcare market.
2) Evaluate your patient experience
Patients often change hospitals due to poor service or bad experiences. Therefore, it’s important to evaluate their experiences once in a while and identify where you need to make improvements. For instance, patients may be dissatisfied with your facility due to long waiting hours or poor customer care.
3) Develop a responsive website
Over 10 years ago, having a healthcare website was enough to stamp your authority and credibility in this industry. That’s not the case anymore. Nowadays, people want to interact with your website and learn more about your health facility before visiting. Therefore, you need a responsive website that makes this easy no matter which device they’re using. That means your site must be able to adapt to various devices and screens, whether it’s a phone, computer, or tablet. Additionally, ensure you test the loading speed of your site on all these devices.
4) Enhance site speed
Studies have shown that prospects have the least patience when it comes to the loading speed of a site. If it takes more than 5 seconds, they may navigate to other options available. Therefore, with the help of PageSpeed Insights from Google, you should test the loading speed of your site. If it’s slow, instruct your web developer to boost the speed. It’s also important to monitor the loading speed of your competitors’ sites.
5) Employ SEO
The best way to ensure your marketing efforts pay off is through search engine optimization (SEO). That means applying SEO strategies for your site to rank first or among the top results on search engine results pages (SERPs). Since this strategy is a little bit complex, professional help may come in handy.
6) Use paid ads
Even with the best SEO, failure to boost your online presence with paid ads might still reduce your impact when it comes to ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). However, if you employ a combined approach that includes paid ads and SEO practices, your rank on the search engine results pages will be perfect. This approach will not only improve your facility’s online visibility but also give you access to high-quality leads.
7) Establish an active presence on social media
Social media provides a reliable marketplace for digital marketing. By sharing posts and insight into various treatment plans, you can stay in touch with your patients. Additionally, interacting with your target audience on social media allows you to attract prospects to the platform. Just as with Google ads, you can also leverage paid ads on social media. With paid ads, you can reach out to clients who are not following your page. In order to use this strategy effectively, you should have accounts on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, among others.
8) Encourage your patients to review your services
According to recent studies, over half of the participants claim reviews are vital when choosing a doctor or medical practitioner. This is because they want to know the experiences other patients have had in your practice. As such, it’s vital to generate positive reviews in your facility. To make this easy, employ an automated system that allows patients to review your services after you’ve treated them. Keep in mind that positive reviews can only come through if you provide satisfactory services.
While you can share patient reviews on your website, keep in mind that reviews on external platforms are more powerful than reviews that you publish on your owned media. After all, you have full control of your owned media and a curious patient knows that you can post whatever you want on your website and pass it off as a legitimate review.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t post any reviews on your website at all – if a patient gives you a good review, having this on your website can warm potential patients up towards you. However, you need to encourage patients to post reviews on independent platforms like Google as well – these will be seen as more credible by a patient who is exploring their options.
9) Get the attention of traditional media outlets
Traditional media outlets still have a strong influence when it comes to marketing services. Even so, you need to be decisive when choosing which media outlets to work with. Whether you’re going for a billboard advertisement, TV placement, radio placement, or newspaper placement, traditional media is a major investment that needs careful consideration to get results. Make sure you work with your marketing and media team to ensure you choose the right media to work with.
10) Track your marketing campaign
Lastly, it doesn’t pay to blindly hope that your campaigns are working positively. Instead, you need to track each campaign and identify which aspects need improvement. With the help of tools like Google Analytics and Google Adwords, you can accurately measure the success of your marketing campaigns and compare the campaigns to see what approaches are working better.
The medical field is a specialized niche. In a world of options, you’re sure to find a healthcare digital marketing agency that’s effective, trustworthy, and ready to tackle all of your advertising needs.
Over to you
With so much to do in your healthcare center, it may be hard to focus on marketing campaigns. While these strategies are effective, most of them require continued dedication to get results. If you need help with your healthcare marketing, you can employ the services of PR and marketing experts such as the ones at Pressfarm.
Pressfarm is a PR agency that helps startups and established companies create memorable content to capture attention in the media as well as among their target audience. Their PR experts and writers work with companies to help them understand what it takes to stand out in their niche and create quality content that makes heads turn. With a professional press release, some compelling feature article and a creative media kit from Pressfarm, your brand can make a splash in your industry.
By submitting your brand to the right media outlets and startup directories, Pressfarm can boost your online presence, ensuring you rank in relevant search results. With a custom media list as well as a database of 1 million+ bloggers, journalists, and influencers, you can connect with the best storytellers and thought leaders in your niche. One of Pressfarm’s affordable PR packages could be exactly what you need to take your healthcare facility to the next level.