Introduction
First of all, healthcare marketing strategies are important for attracting new patients and retaining existing ones.
You can’t grow your clinic without new patients, and you can’t expand your business without retaining existing customers.
As a result of healthcare marketing, you can make your practice more widely known among potential clients in the community and increase brand awareness.
Also, creating content that gives people actionable advice on how to treat ailments and anything else related to health care will help you establish yourself as an authority figure among other doctors in the area!
Here are ten unique strategies to help you develop a successful healthcare marketing campaign.
Using your existing patients
Taking advantage of social media is an easy way to reach new patients since your existing patients will share their experiences with friends, family, and colleagues.
As a result of their word-of-mouth advertising, referrals will be made, which is the most cost-effective marketing strategy.
Also, because they have already had an experience with your company, they will be honest about it (even if it wasn’t great).
Social Media Marketing for Healthcare Businesses: Social media marketing is one of the best ways to stay connected with your customers.
It can also be a great way to attract new ones. You can start building a following by creating a Facebook page and establishing yourself as an expert in your field (or at least someone who knows what he or she is talking about).
You may even want to create specific brand pages for each speciality in your practice (such as gynaecology, neurology, and more).
Getting involved in healthcare advocacy
Healthcare advocacy is an integral part of your healthcare marketing strategy. Healthcare advocacy means speaking out and taking action to improve the health and well-being of patients, families, and communities. Includes:
- Gathering information about issues that impact the people you serve
- Sharing that information with others in your organisation
- Working together with other organisations to solve problems
Organisations like yours need to participate in health advocacy because it helps improve access to care for all people, including people who lack insurance or have pre-existing conditions.
Healthcare marketing opportunities at local events
In addition to promoting your services, educating patients about health issues affecting them, and even raising awareness by hosting charitable events, events are great ways to engage with your audience.
Participating in local healthcare events in your community is an important part of being a healthcare provider. The events can be a great opportunity for you to meet other doctors and nurses who work in your field, resulting in the formation of new relationships and a growing sense of trust between you and them.
In addition to educating people about health issues that affect them, you can also use these events to introduce them to simple ways they can reduce their cancer risk and take charge of their health.
Feature your services on the right social media platforms
Additionally to posting content on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram, you may also wish to consider posting on LinkedIn or Pinterest if you have many older clients interested in wellness programs.
Make sure you use the right hashtags when posting to ensure that your posts are seen by the right people. When people find something useful on your page (like an article on knee injuries), this will help them find their way back to it. If you use ads, be careful not to overdo it because it can look spammy if not used correctly.
Make sure you don’t post everything at once on social media platforms if you’re trying to build a healthcare marketing strategy. Stick with the platform you know works for you so those who follow your content know when it’s new!
The best way to build trust with your audience and provide them with the tools they need to make better health decisions is to create a blog so that you can post more detailed information. It would be a good idea to write posts about common muscle pains and how to treat them if you run a physiotherapy clinic, for example.
Publish unique content on your blog
Blogs offer you another way to stand out from the crowd by offering something that other healthcare providers do not. You will be able to educate potential patients on the latest developments in healthcare.
It is also possible to boost your search engine optimisation (SEO) by writing an interesting blog post, enabling people to find you when they search for the services or information you offer on Google or Bing. If your website offers unique content and helpful information when people land on it, they will be more likely to stay.
Keeping a blog gives you the chance to connect on a personal level with your audience and consequently, with potential patients.
By blogging, you can develop connections with other influencers in your industry. By cross-promoting each other’s blogs, sharing links on social media, and commenting on each other’s posts, you can network.
Spreading the word about what makes your practice unique will help you reach a wider audience.
Have a strong SEO strategy
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the process of optimising your website to increase its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO can be an effective long-term strategy for healthcare providers because it helps them find new patients.
Search engine optimisation can be broken down into two parts: on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation. On-page optimisation refers to the changes you make directly to your website, while off-page optimisation refers to how others interact with your website.
The more visitors you get to your website, the more likely it is that Google will rank you high in its search results. If your website has a lot of backlinks—links from other reputable or high-quality websites—this also helps with search engine optimisation.
The goal of search engine optimisation is to get your website ranked high in Google’s Search Engine Results Page.
Improve outcomes and patient experiences with data analysis
Using data analytics in healthcare can improve more than just patient outcomes and experience.
- Reduce costs and increase productivity to improve efficiency
- By providing real-time feedback on staff practices, safety protocols, and policy compliance, you can increase their performance
- Standardise processes across multiple departments to ensure the quality of care
Digital platforms that engage and educate patients can improve the patient experience.
Monitoring and predicting trends in patient populations can also be done using analytics, enabling the organisation to take proactive actions.
Improvement of patient safety can be accomplished by identifying and preventing adverse events across multiple departments, identifying improvements in all aspects of care delivery, and measuring the effectiveness of new policies and procedures.
Old is still gold when it comes to healthcare marketing strategies
Legacy options for marketing still exist, in fact, for healthcare they are still very strong assets to have. See the traditional ways of marketing outside of digital marketing:
- Flyers
- Offer and promotion leaflets
- Print advertising
- Billboards
- Direct mail
- Stamp and rewards
Understanding your demographic plays a crucial role at this point. Old-school marketing strategies still work when you’re looking for ways to attract more people to the clinic. A pharmaceutical group we work with they are still going very heavy and strong using print and flyer campaigns. The ROI of using print today for the group has increased in-clinic revenue by 50%. And this is just one channel.
Pro Tip: With advancements in technology and the web, you can easily track your campaigns by creating QR codes and dedicated landing pages for your campaigns; your metrics should be reported on Google Analytics if you have this setup.
Develop a referral program as part of your healthcare marketing for current patients
With a referral program, you can generate new patients and increase patient satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue by incentivising them to refer their friends and family.
Here are some tips on how to build a referral program that works:
- You can offer gift cards, discounts on services or products, and other incentives for successful referrals. In addition to rewards, you may want to create tiers of rewards based on how many referrals you get (for example, 1 = £25 Amazon gift card, 2 = £50 Amazon gift card, 3 = free teeth whitening).
- Keep it simple – don’t make patients work by giving them too many options. The goal of the program is to have as many referrals as possible, so limiting options to just one: “Email This Person” will ensure that more people are referred. It’s fine to ask politely if they would mind sharing their email address with you before they share their friend’s email address with you, but don’t make it feel like they’re being forced into doing something they didn’t want to just because they are motivated by the prospect of receiving money back.
Using paid advertising
Paid advertising, along with social media, is not unique as much. Though we’re all aware of them, very few take full advantage of using paid advertising mediums such as:
- Facebook Ads
- Google Ads
- Local Google Ads
- Instagram Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- Snapchat Ads
- Twitter Ads
- TikTok Ads
It’s important to note that there is never a need to be advertised in all of these areas. Establishing a platform where your content works the best is where it’s better to advertise.
For example, As a dental practice, you may find that posting before and after videos on your TikTok is what’s bringing a lot of attention to your business. It will be worth creating an affective ad solely targeted at TikTok users.
Healthcare businesses have a lot of competition these days
- There are plenty of healthcare providers in town, and you’re not the only one.
- Whether it is in your local area or online, new healthcare providers are constantly popping up.
- In today’s world, everyone has options, so they want to know what makes them different from everyone else.
- In order to stand out, you must be unique.
- A targeted healthcare marketing campaign is an effective way to achieve this. Targeted healthcare marketing campaigns can help you attract the right patients while also getting rid of those who aren’t your ideal patients. Marketing to specific demographics and geographical areas is possible with this type of marketing campaign.
Conclusion
With so much competition in the healthcare industry, it’s crucial to use all of the marketing tools available to you and to stand out from the crowd. The marketing of providers and their services can be done in a number of ways, from print ads to social media ads.
Develop a plan that targets existing and potential patients in new ways (like participating in local events) so that you can reach every type of patient!
