Struggling to attract new patients or retain existing ones? You’re not alone—but the good news is, there are proven strategies that can help. In this guide, we’ll walk you through 10 effective healthcare marketing techniques that will boost your visibility, increase patient trust, and drive long-term growth.
From social media marketing, SEO, and patient referrals to local events, data analytics, and paid advertising, we’ll show you exactly how to stand out in a competitive market. Plus, we’ll reveal how traditional marketing methods still hold power and how referral programmes can turn happy patients into brand advocates.
But here’s the key—knowing these strategies isn’t enough. You need to apply them the right way to see real results. Keep reading, because we’re diving into practical, actionable tips that will transform how you market your healthcare practice.
Introduction
Let’s face it—without new patients, your clinic won’t grow. And without retaining existing patients, your business won’t expand. That’s why healthcare marketing isn’t just important—it’s essential.
A strong marketing strategy can put your practice on the map, making it the go-to choice in your community. It also boosts brand awareness, helping you stay top-of-mind for potential patients when they need care.
Beyond that, providing valuable content—like actionable health advice—positions you as a trusted authority among other doctors and healthcare professionals.
Ready to level up your marketing as a dental practice or pharmacy? Here are ten creative strategies to help you craft a winning campaign.
Using your existing patients
Whatever happened to the glory days, when the clinic was busy, patients were happy and now things are slow. Not for long.
Pharmacies and dental clinics that have been around for a while now generally tend to have what we call a "dormant patient list". A dormant patient list is one that has been created over a period of time that lists patients who used to see you. Of course you still have a list of active patients too but the dormant one is the fun one, so let's go with that.
You need to revive the dormant list.
Action step: Allocate a team member to consolidate this list, and start calling everyone on there or emailing them. You can use this draft below:
"Hi [patient],
I hope you are keeping well. We last saw you in the clinic [x years ago]. Time flies. We are just updating our records and wanted to ensure that you still live in the area?
A lot has changed since your last visit so I just wanted to keep you up to date with our latest service list.
Service 1
Service 2
Service 3
If you have moved, please do let us know. Otherwise, if we can be of any assistance to you at all, feel free to call in or drop by and speak to our reception desk.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Wishing you a happy and healthy day.
Best Wishes,
[Name]"
Similarly, you can also do this on the phone. The benefit of this exercise is that you are reminding the patients that you are still around. If they have moved homes, fair enough. If not, then why not try everything you can to get them back in? Bad experience? See how you can fix that. Unable to get to you? See how you can fix that. The world is more relaxed than we think, be creative, have a little fun and add some personality!
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
X 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.
Respectively, you can do this with other social platforms too.
Your message can be delivered to a targeted audience using social media. Ads can be tailored to specific demographics, interests, and behaviours. Location and language can also be targeted. The time of day and device type (such as mobile or desktop) can also be targeted.
You can advertise your brand and grow your audience through social media advertising. You can do so on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Similarly, LinkedIn ads can help you get new customers. Still, they aren’t as effective since they are mainly used by professionals looking for work and business opportunities rather than consumers looking to buy products and services.
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!
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