- Have an online presence to market your practice.
- Create a well-designed website for online marketing.
- Gather your patient’s email address.
- Send email newsletters.
- Use social media and have a Facebook page.
- Engage your existing patients regularly.
The online testimonial is the new word of mouth, and email marketing with a virtual tour for potential patients is the new open house.
It can be intimidating trying to catch up with these digital trends and not know how your marketing strategy is faring overall.
In this blog, we propose a unique marketing plan that assesses each strategy and evaluates its overall value by asking these three questions.
Does your marketing plan result in:
- Better care for your patients?
- Smarter spending?
- Healthier people?
For you to answer these questions, you must do these three steps for each.
Stop. Look. Listen.
Three Steps to Promote Your Practice
STOP.
When was the last time you’ve stopped to look into your marketing strategy? Are you still depending on the traditional way of handing out pens and notepads?
How much do you spend on these marketing strategies? Do you monitor the return on investment? Is it adding value to your patient’s healthcare? Have you thought of handing out a notepad with a checklist that says, “Don’t eat this, eat that,” instead?
Have you stopped to look at your patient demographics and data analytics? Do you have more millennials? Do the younger generations prefer to use apps to set up phone reminders and monitor their diets and blood sugar on their smartphone?
Check these blogs to gain insight about today’s patients:
- How Well Do You Understand Your Target Audience?
- How Effective Is Your Business Digital Marketing Strategy?
- The Digital Era and Its Effect on Patient Relationships
LOOK.
Do you know how to best look at your current practice?
See it through the patient’s lens.
Try searching for your website using commonly-used search engines like Google. Type words or questions that your patient would most likely use. Does your website appear in the search results? You can add your location and see if this will make your website appear on the first page. If not, you may need to talk to your digital marketer to improve your search engine ranking.
Here are our top posts that can help you with search engine optimization (SEO):
- Three Effective SEO Practices for Healthcare Marketing
- SEO: Why Long-Tail Keywords Will Rank Higher
- Get More Business with These Local Search Ranking Signals
- Are You Up to Speed? How to Plan Your SEO Strategy for Your Business Website
Have an effective website
Take a look and pretend you’re a patient looking for a provider. What would you be looking for on a professional website– one that would convince you of the provider’s authority?
Do your photos look appealing enough, and does your staff look friendly and approachable? Can you easily navigate through the pages, and are your fonts easy enough to read for anyone?
What about the speed of loading new pages when you click on a link or button? Is it fast enough for a busy mom or a tired executive?
And of course, put a priority on the quality of your content. Do you have engaging, informative blogs and FAQs that add value to your patients’ health care and experience?
Do you have widgets that make sharing easy on social media to their friends and family?
Read the following blogs to find easy ways to make your website patient-friendly, stress-free, and professional:
- Is Your Website User-Friendly?
- 5 Signs It’s Time to Redesign Your Website
- Creating a Mobile-Friendly Website
- Why Healthcare Marketing Should Include Custom Websites
Look at recurring themes and rules that we emphasize in these blogs. By not following these rules, your website’s functionality and value will diminish.
LISTEN.
Have your spouse call your clinic and inquire about your services. Did someone pick up the phone immediately?
How does your staff sound? Are they accommodating and patient? Do they sound empathic and compassionate? Or did they sound hurried and annoyed at the phone interruption?
All these add to the overall patient experience. Your employees carry your brand too. And you may need to remind them of this through yearly performance improvement and team-building activities.
Here are blogs that can help you define your brand:
- Six Steps to Defining Your Brand
- 5 Essential Blueprints for Your Brand’s Story
- Finding Your Unique Brand Voice
Listen to what your patients are saying about you. Look into Yelp reviews, patient testimonials, and survey feedback. Plus, take a look at our post on the Net Promoter system and healthcare.
Make a SWOT analysis based on these feedbacks:
- List all the good reviews under your Strengths.
- List all the bad reviews under your Weakness.
- What can you do to help you address the weaknesses and boost your strengths?
- Ask everyone in the team and list the answers under Opportunities.
- What will happen if you don’t address the weaknesses and don’t capitalize on your strengths?
- List those answers under Threats.
Plan your marketing strategy
From the above, you can move on to planning your new marketing strategy using the same questions as guidelines.
For any strategy, consider if it will:
- Result in better care for your patients
- Result in smarter spending
- Benefit your patients’ health
Don’t go about your digital marketing strategy without any direction. Use it strategically to promote and market your practice and benefit your patients’ health as well.
After all, you are a healthcare provider first. Marketing is just a tool for you to reach your patients. It may be a secondary priority, but an essential tool, nevertheless, so your practice will thrive.
When you use strategic marketing efforts, you can be more and do more for your patients.
We Can Help
We can help promote your medical practice to boost your business and get more patient leads. Schedule your FREE review here to see how we can help.