Today, everyone needs personalization – and so do your patients. If you are looking to improve your online presence and healthcare marketing effectiveness, adopting a one-size-fits-all strategy doesn’t work. Thus, you cannot put your patients and consumers on one platform. Rather, you need to perform targeted marketing.
Why target your marketing strategies?
Targeted healthcare marketing plans such as messages and strategies, along with improved healthcare practices, are the best ways to reach your audience. They must target patients – elderly, baby boomers, consumers – and all your target audience. For instance, you might opt for Internet marketing that reaches teenagers and Internet-savvy patients who are looking for new physicians, but what about senior citizens who have limited or no access to laptops and smartphones?
Here are different healthcare marketing practices to reach your target audience, garner positive reviews and expand your reach and scope of practice.
#1. Have a user-friendly website
Millennials and GenZers believe in searching everything online. They are Internet-savvy and prefer comparing healthcare providers. Thus your website should:
- Be easy to search. Optimize your website with keywords in your page titles, headings, etc. with SEO for doctors.
- Be pleasing to the mind with intuitive design and easy to scroll.
- Offer simple access and fast uploading.
- Be updated with relevant information about services offered and doctors.
- Include an FAQ section with answers to commonly asked questions.
- Be linked y with other related websites and vice versa for more informative content to refer to by consumers and patients.
- Contain uploaded video and photos related to treatment or services offered that will assure consumers.
Healthcare marketing plan to improve online presence should come with a strong message to hold the customers and emphasize empowerment. Generally, healthcare is approached by people in case of emergencies like when they have to locate an emergency room or search for the closest hospital. Also, since healthcare brings a feeling of fear to many, you won’t be able to target consumers who haven’t selected you as a healthcare provider. Thus, holding a high SEO ranking for doctors and maintaining a good website should be the top priority.
#2. Go online
With existing patients, you already have a repo build as they already know you and have used your service. But to build long-term relationships with existing patients, you need to provide convenience to them with healthcare marketing services to improve online presence with services such as:
- Access appointments online for confirmed meeting.
- View records online to stay free from worries of losing documents.
- Access to discharge instructions and related details online for no more last-minute confusion.
- Regular posts on social media platforms related to general health tips.
- Email appointment reminders.
We all have the habit of discussing good and bad services with our friends and family. Plus, word-of-mouth marketing is the most trustworthy and strong marketing tool. So these activities will influence existing patients who will benefit your practice in the future by referring you to new patients. This is especially effective for senior patients who believe in word-of-mouth more than online reviews.
#3. Get a mobile app
Not everyone loves to stick to their laptops all the time and search online for doctors and their practices. There is a large segment of Americans who are at their retirement stage, i.e. born between 1946 and 1964, or senior citizens who are more prone to ailments and require healthcare more than the other generations. And they prefer mobile over any other device such as laptops, etc.
Have your mobile app created using services such as SEO for doctors for high ranking of your website and practice, or else you won’t be found online and will lose customers who are mobile-friendly.
source: https://getreferralmd.com/2015/08/mobile-healthcare-technology-statistics/
#4. TV commercials and print media
Not all your consumers or patients will be Internet-savvy or techno-friendly. For such a segment, here are some healthcare marketing tips to improve your presence:
- Short television commercials.
- Ads in popular magazines or newspapers.
- Publishing general health articles or specific to your practice in newspapers or magazines.
For this segment, honesty is the only way to win their trust. Speak about the real benefits of medicines. Prescribe only the required medicines and give them suggestions about the treatments they actually need.
#5. Work on online reviews
Since many people prefer to use online reviews to choose their doctor, create accounts on ZocDoc and Yelp to get online reviews from patients. Such sites offer information related to patient experience and satisfaction with the treatment offered by your practice. This helps you:
- Improve the quality of the service provided by your practice.
- Highlight the key benefits of your practice.
- Opt for new technologies and trends in healthcare practice.
- Retain existing patients and acquire new ones.
source: https://www.inboundmd.com/how-is-your-medical-practice-handling-online-reviews/
#6. Benefit from WOM marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing is the best way to acquire more customers, leveraging positive reviews from your existing patients, especially seniors. This strategy encompasses the following:
- Discussing the services offered by you to friends and family of the patient.
- Offering personalized services to the patient that makes their near ones feel comfortable and establishes you as the preferred doctor.
- Following good healthcare marketing plans to improve online presence that is passed from one consumer another.
- Providing SEO services that increase your popularity both online and offline.
Integrated Healthcare Marketing Plan
Integrate the above-mentioned healthcare marketing plans to improve your online presence. Compiling these tips and tricks will address all categories of audience, like consumers, seniors, baby boomers, patients and so on. And, along with SEO for doctors, you will be able to attract more customers for yourself.
It is important to understand that for benefiting from your practices, getting positive patient reviews and successful word-of-mouth marketing, you need good online reputation management. If you need assistance in stepping ahead of marketing challenges and building a good online reputation, myPracticeReputation can help.
myPracticeReputation offers easy monitoring of reviews, valuable information related to staff, procedure and patient perception, reputation scorecard, hassle-free review generation and smart publishing for positive reviews of your healthcare practice. Contact us today to create a healthcare marketing strategy that reaches your target audience.