Healthcare Practice Marketing
When promoting your medical practice, you must promote several things to connect with your community’s target audience. Promoting the name of your medical practice, the patient reviews of your services, and your location is key!
What should I focus on when promoting my medical practice?
When promoting your medical practice, you must promote several things to connect with your community’s target audience. Promoting the name of your medical practice, the patient reviews of your services, and your location is key! If your target audience does not know where you are located, what the name of your location is, and how excellent your services are, it will be an uphill battle to market your medical practice. Fortunately, there is a path forward to accomplishing these tasks without stressing out too much about it. The experts at PatientGain.com can help you manage the following to help promote and grow your healthcare business.
Promoting Your Name: Getting Listed In Important Directories
Your website is not the only place where the name of your business should be found. You need to create business listings on several essential websites with direct links back to your site. The most important directories to create a business listing on are:
- Google – Add your clinic listing on Google my business
- Bing – Add your clinic listing on Bing places
- Yelp – Add your clinic listing on Yelp
- Facebook – Add your clinic listing on Facebook
- Foursquare – Add your clinic listing on Foursquare
Steps: How to create a medical practice business listing
Creating a listing on these websites is reasonably straightforward. Some require additional verification in the form of an automated phone call or a postcard with a code on it sent to your business. Be sure you can take phone calls or receive mail; otherwise, you can experience delays in getting final verification of your location on these directories. When creating a listing, you may find that it already exists! If your medical practice has been operating for a while, a happy patient may have already created a listing. Instead of creating a new one, claim this listing. Again, you will likely have to verify who you are before you can acquire full control. During this time, you should look for any duplicate listings. Before a profile is officially created or claimed, it isn’t uncommon to have one or two rouge listings. Claim, close, or merge these listings into the one you control.
When creating multiple profiles in different directories or claiming profiles that already exist, the accuracy of your information on there is vital. Every profile should have the same information as your website does. Ensure these details match in every profile:
• Name
• Address
• Hours of Operation
• Phone Number
• Location Pin
• Website Address
Your organic rankings will hurt if different information appears in different directories or does not match your website. Many directories allow users to submit updates to profiles. If your profile is claimed, these “edits” will likely be rejected, but now and again, one may slip through. It is worth it to double-check these listings now and again to ensure accuracy.
Finally, look to join local organizations such as a Chamber of Commerce or another business association. These organizations are great places to get your name listed among the more well-known and established businesses in a community. A direct link from a website like this to your medical practice will also help your overall organic rankings. While difficult to accomplish, look for opportunities to place your name and website address on a website ending in .gov, .edu, or .org. These are valuable backlinks that will help promote your name!
Promoting Your Location: Getting Your Business On Maps
In search results, users looking for a physical business will often be presented with a map of closest relevant results. If you are providing services a potential patient needs, you need to be on that map. Many people will make their healthcare choice based on just those results and skip organic results. A map listing is a priority for your medical practice.
Fortunately, if you have already claimed profiles as mentioned above, you are halfway there. Many major mapping apps on phones, like Google Maps, Waze, Bing Maps, and Apple Maps, get their business listings from those directories. When you check your location out on a map, make sure the “location pin” is accurate. If you are operating in a new building, business park, or strip mall that uses “suite” numbers in the address, the map may not know exactly where you are located. If the pin is incorrect, go back into your listing, and you should be able to move it manually.
Your work in promoting your location is not done yet. On your website, dedicate a page to the “directions” to your site. Write out how to get to your medical practice by naming the roads someone will generally take to get there. Granted, most people will just let a map app tell them where they are going, but local streets and landmarks will help your organic rankings. Finally, include information about public transit. Many medical practices neglect to tell their patients what bus, regional rail, or subway stop is nearby. Sure, they can take the extra step to look it up themselves, but the fewer clicks someone has to make, the more likely they will visit your clinic.
Promoting Your Reviews: Using Patient Testimonials
First, you need to get their reviews before you can promote them. Once again, if you have claimed your profiles, you have made a big first step forward. The online reviews you receive about your medical practice will appear on these listings. The vast majority will come from Google and Yelp, and these reviews will, in turn, often appear on your map listings. To acquire a collection reviews, all you have to do is ask. If possible, make it as easy as possible to leave a review with as few clicks as possible.
When you have good reviews of your medical practice, you should publish them on your website and social media channels. Be mindful not to violate any HIPAA regulations by giving out to many details about a person when you are promoting a review. The reviews should be on your home page and rotated in and out every month. By putting new and current reviews on your website, you are continually updating it with fresh and original material. It will help your overall organic rankings and inform potential patients how great your clinic is for them. Some medical clinics publish a “monthly roundup” of reviews patients leave and incorporate them into marketing materials. A simple print out of four and five-star reviews pinned on a bulletin board in a waiting room is a great way to use these reviews. Picking out the best to include in brochures is another fantastic way to use them. Feel free to correct any grammar or misspellings, but do not change the review’s overall content.
Promoting your medical clinic’s name, location, and reviews associated with your business should be a crucial part of your medical marketing plan. Call PatientGain.com today and let us assist you with this area of promotion. Our years of experience of working with others in the healthcare industry can help you grow your business!
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Healthcare Advertising VS Healthcare Marketing
Many healthcare professionals confuse Healthcare Advertising with Healthcare Marketing.
Advertising is just ONE of the many “things”, “programs” or “techniques” launched to achieve a successful Marketing Program. So Medical advertising is one, but very important part of Medical Marketing for a practice. For example if you are a pediatric physician with focus on urgent care for children, and your goal is to acquire more patients, you may want to “market” your practice in 20 mile radius for potential parents of patients who may seek Pediatric Urgent Care. For this effort you would typically have many things to do :
Step 1: Sign for the building
Step 2: Business cards
Step 3: Doctor’s bio printed and promoted to local primary care physicians
Step 4: Providing free “meet-and-greet” for parents of potential pediatric patients
Step 5: Collaboration with local schools for “low-cost” physicals for school athletes
Step 6: Mail drop in 5 mile radius using USPS mail and flyers for parents of potential pediatric patients
Step 7: Networking with other local businesses close to your own location
Step 8: Using social media campaigns
Step 9: Making the lobby of the clinic a pleasing place for parents of potential pediatric patients and for children
Step 10: Referral program to market using existing for parents of potential pediatric patients
Step 11: Launching your online strategy to market your practice
Step 12: Offline advertising offline for your healthcare practice
Step 13: Online Advertising for your healthcare practice
Healthcare Advertising Defined
Advertising for doctors can be offline or online. Offline advertising for doctors refers to Billboards, Newspapers, Paper Yellow Pages, Ads in Cinemas, Radio Ads.
Online Advertising for doctors refers to advertising focused on internet based mediums. For example:
- Google search advertising
- Facebook display ads
- SEO / Search Engine Optimizations
- Website conversion techniques to improve the actual patients generation from your website
- Advertising on Instagram
- Email marketing
- SMS/Text based marketing
- Display advertising
What Is Content & Why Is It Important?
1) Text, words and sentences – useful information for the reader.
2) Images with relevant tags and links
3) Videos, diagrams, and other visual aids that support the main headings, sub headings and actual paragraph text.
This information is consumed by your prospect and existing patients in the form of Website pages, Blogs, Facebook Posts, Email Newsletters, Images on Instagram, Feeds on Twitter, SMS text messages on mobile devices. Hence your medical marketing content should be interesting, attractive, useful, and provide value to your prospect patient or an existing patient. Unique quality content on your own website is the single most important factor for higher SEO rankings for doctors and medical practices.
PatientGain.com platform contains 6 different apps that help you with Content Marketing. Medical Content Distribution Engine is new product from PatientGain.com.
6 Key healthcare automation apps for your medical practice
1. Medical ChatBot App for your website
Simply, from the view of a doctor or a medical practice manager, a chatbot is nothing more than software based on AI algorithms (Artificial Intelligence) that will perform automatic tasks within given parameters. The “Chat” part of a Chatbot indicates that it is primarily designed to interact and chat with patients and potential patients. Since our chatbot works in the healthcare industry, it is a Medical Chatbot. A medical chatbot is designed to have a conversation or a discussion with a real human/patient. Depending on how the person responds or chats with the bot, it will return answers as programed into it. PatientGain’s IntelliBot software is also integrated with a HIPAA compliant CRM, so your communications are stored in a HIPAA compliant database.
Read more about intelligent medical ChatBots
2. 2-Way Patient Communication Using Texting/SMS
Patients Read 97% of Text Messages. Engage them from your website. Capture leads and add them to your HIPAA compliant CRM automatically. 71% to 88% of your patients are mobile. They are browsing on their cell phones and visiting your website. They also prefer to communicate with you using texting/SMS. Convert more new patients and engage with existing patients. No long term contracts and easy start. 92% of Mobile Users Prefer Texting/SMS. This app provides you with technology based competitive advantage. Better patient communication is equal to better outcomes and more new patients.
Read more about 2-Way Patient Communication Using Texting/SMS
3. Internet Advertising For Doctors & Physicians
Most Doctors Ask Us: Do I Need to Advertise? The Quick Answer is Yes, if You Want to Compete Online With Your Competitors.
As a practice manager, you have to focus on 1. Offline traditional advertising and 2. Internet online advertising. As majority of the patients search for medical services online, healthcare advertising for doctors using the internet is on the rise. We highly recommend online advertising for 99 percent of healthcare medical practices. Our data shows consistent increase in patient count and overall business improvement. In some cases we have to stop online advertising for our customers (physicians & medical practice) reason : they could not handle the volume of new patients.
Read more about Internet Advertising For Doctors & Physicians
4. Appointment Scheduling App for Doctors
Your patients love convenience. With online appointment scheduling, it’s never been easier for them to quickly find a medical provider, and set-up a time to be seen. By including appointment scheduling apps on your clinic’s website, your patients can easily see your availability, and pick out a time that works for them. Patients who find your website online are more likely to visit you when they can quickly and easily schedule a visit online. This app is integrated with Google, Facebook, Instagram Ads, and HIPAA compliant CRM provided by PatientGain.
Read more about Appointment Scheduling App for Doctors
5. Online Reputation Management for Doctors
Online reputation management can be a headache or a winning strategy for doctors & healthcare clinics. Only 28 percent of the time it is patient-physician related. 72% of the patients who are unhappy and who post negative feedback on google and yelp are not doing so because of the patient-physician experience; they are unhappy due to billing issues, incorrect deductible payment, rude front desk person, lack of perceived patient focus, improper handling of the paperwork, long wait time or impolite response from a clinic staff member (non-physician). 28% of the time it is patient-physician related.
Let’s face it – as patients leave your medical practice, either they are happy with the service, unhappy or somewhere in the middle. With a little bit of focus and excellent software on your side, you can turn the entire patient experience into a winning strategy for your practice. Unhappy, disgruntled patients can destroy the reputation of a dedicated doctor. So your strategy should be to proactively address this issue. 3 apps are included.
Read more about Online Reputation Management for Doctors
6. Social Media Posting App for Doctors
Understanding how top medical practices are using the social media is the first step. What type of effort and money should you spend on your social media strategy? should you hire someone to “post” for you? These are common questions we are asked on a daily basis from our healthcare professional customers.
Social Media Content Boost Bundle
1. 5 Instagram Posts Per Week
2. 5 Facebook Posts Per Week
3. 5 Google Posts Per Week
4. 2 Custom Image Creations Per Month
5. 4 Email Campaigns Per Month
Read more about Social Media Content Boost Bundle
PatientGain.com is a proven medical marketing solution, includes apps, websites, SEO, HIPAA compliance and account management.
To learn about What is the Foundation of Medical SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Doctors
To learn about How SEO Works For Doctors Websites, this is a good starting page.
To learn about Short-cut SEO for Medical Practices, this is a good starting page.
To learn about Pricing and cost of SEO services for medical practices, this is a good starting page.
To learn about How Much Do Doctors Spend On Advertising?
To learn about Medical SEO Voice Search Optimization For Doctors (BERT)
To learn about Local Medical SEO For Doctors
To learn about Mobile SEO For Medical Websites
To learn about Zero-Click SEO for Doctors & Medical Practices
To learn about Benefits Of Medical SEO Marketing
To learn about Key Items For SEO Evaluation of Medical Websites
To learn about Avoid Risky Plans – Use Proven Medical Marketing Strategies
To learn about Medical Marketing Using Emotionally Compelling Offline Media
To learn about Pre Launch Medical Marketing Checklist for Doctors
To learn about Medical SEO vs. Medical Advertising – Which One Is Better?
To learn about Is Your Medical Website Design “Future Proof”?
To learn about Medical Website Conversion Strategies
To learn about Medical Website Content Marketing Strategy
To learn about How to Acquire New Patients for Your Medical Practice
To learn about Medical Website Applications