We throw the term around a lot here on our own site, let alone the hundreds of other providers out there to choose from. Are you feeling overwhelmed? No need to! Healthcare marketing & medical marketing are interchangeable terms used to describe marketing efforts that help practice owners in the healthcare field to bring in new patients and referrals. Its a collaborative effort leveraging multiple disciplines.
All marketing jargon aside, healthcare marketing exists to help practice owners better their businesses and increase their bottom dollar. Without a solid ROI (return on investment) your marketing plan does nothing but cost you money.
In this post, we will break down for you some of the current trends and efforts being used in 2018 to help owners gain an edge over the competition in the digital space. Digital marketing is important in any business, especially new ones, whether you do it yourself or use a marketing team like ours to help out.
Digital Marketing
No conversation on marketing is complete without talking about digital. It is the bread and butter of internet-age marketers. If you are trying to compete on Google, Healthgrades, Yelp, or any other digital platform, you need it (or a working understanding of it) to draw patients in your local community who are searching online for “healthcare providers near me.” There is too much competition out there at this point to wing it and hope for the best.
What makes up a great digital marketing package?
Any solid digital marketing budget will be split into a few different areas.
Content Marketing
Ever hear someone say “content is king?” It is more like “core” than it is “king,” but it isn’t far from the truth. A content marketing plan is important in healthcare more than many other fields. Healthcare information is known to be the second most searched for topic on search engines like Google. Creating well written, to the point, informative content for your users will help you to cultivate a following of loyal subscribers who you can convert into patients (or retain as patients).
This is what we talk about when we say conversion rate in marketing. It’s just a fancy way of saying “users who converted into customers.”
Your content should be the core of everything you do with your digital presence, but there are a few other things that factor into taking good content and making it rank.
Social Media
Some of the biggest providers in the country are spending millions on social networks to increase brand awareness. It is a channel you should pay attention to whether you plan to put a budget into it or use it just organically (not paid).
Social is a great channel for connecting with people in your community, groups, and current patients who want to reach out. People are on social networks all the time. Having a presence on the platform where your target market lives is a no-brainer. With a couple of brief finger motions a week, you can have a fairly active social media presence. The extent to which you take it depends on how well it works in your area and how much time you want to spend.
SEO
The other side of the content coin. Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short) is responsible for optimizing your content to be search-engine-friendly. Good content is important, but if it isn’t optimized for search, nobody will ever find it!
A good healthcare SEO plan is in itself a service and quite a bit of work, but it pays off when your phone starts ringing!
PPC
PPC or “pay-per-click” advertising is just what it sounds like. You can pay to have your ads displayed on search engines. It is a wise move when getting started while you are building an organic presence through the use of SEO best practices. PPC is instant gratification. You will begin to get calls and contact form fills right away, assuming you already have a great website to land your leads on when they click.
A Good Website
Last (but certainly not least) on the list is having a great website to back up your brand. There are hundreds of factors that go into web design and technical optimization, but we will break it down for you quickly. We know you’re busy…
Speed, Speed, Speed
Should we say it again? If you want to compete today in the digital world, your website not only needs to look good and read well, it needs to be LIGHTING FAST. Users have come to expect only the very best from websites that they use. If a page doesnt load within 2-3 seconds on average, they will hit the backspace and try another.
Symmetrical Design Approach
Your brand should be just that, branded. Whether you have a dedicated creative team you can call or not, you should actively be branding your business with symmetry. Just another fancy way of saying that everything should match and look modern.
Who is doing a great job of branding themselves?
CityMD Urgent Care is on our list of healthcare branding all-stars. Super-simple design sense and brand guidelines that ring true in everything they do, from the web to brick and mortar, you can see their simple aesthetic and color scheme in everything that they do.
Questions? We LOVE Questions!
If you have any questions about how you can get started with a digital healthcare marketing plan or want us to full-on run the show, we can help you out. Get in touch with us anytime for more information.