How Do You Market Urgent Care Center? Questions & Answers
PatientGain offers a very successful urgent care marketing service for $799/mon for urgent care centers and walk in clinics in US and Canada.
GOLD service is optimized to attract new patients who are looking for your services online, specifically on Google. We have conversion data and analytics from hundreds of urgent care centers. This data is used to improve your campaigns for higher patient acquisition and reduced acquisition cost per patient.
Unlike other practices, urgent care and walk-in practices typically do not require appointments, and patients do not “plan” on going to your clinic. They simply go to Google and either type or speak “urgent care near me” or “urgent care near me { your city name }”. At this moment, if you show up on Google’s top area, you are likely to have this patient visit your website and consider your urgent care.
Question No 1: What is the best way to market my urgent care practice?
Answer: Google is the no 1 source for new patient visits for urgent care clinics – prospective patients are searching google for the urgent care center to fulfill their immediate care needs. Google SEO and Google PPC advertising are extremely effective for urgent care centers.
Question No 2: Is urgent care advertising and urgent care marketing the same?
Answer: No. In very simple terms, marketing for your urgent care center is a comprehensive plan and actions in identifying your patients urgent care service based needs and how to best meet these needs. Urgent care advertising is one of the components of the overall marketing plan. It focuses on placing advertisements (like Google ads, Facebook ads) so that potential patients can discover your valuable urgent care services in the time of their needs. Some marketing professionals will argue that Search Engine Optimizations (SEO) is a form of marketing, some will settle on it is advertising. Regardless, SEO for urgent care centers in extremely important.
Question No 3: Is Google search advertising (PPC) a good source of new patients for an urgent care center?
Answer: Yes. Google PPC advertising is very effective (but it is complex). Simply creating an advertising campaign does not guarantee that you will have a successful Google PPC campaign for your urgent care clinic.
Question No 4: What should be Google advertising budget for an urgent care center?
Answer: The typical range is $1000 to $9000 per month, spend on average spend $3600 per month per location. However these are “average” locations with medium competition. There are many factors, number of exam rooms and how many providers, and fixed overhead also dictates how aggressive each owner is. Brands and chains spend more on advertising than stand alone locations. We have also noticed if the owner is a doctor/physician, vs a business person, doctor/physician owners will have a hard time understanding value of advertising. doctor/physician owners view advertising and marketing as an expense, rather than an “investment” with an ROI (Return On Investment).
Your advertising budget will vary, depending on your competition and type of services and number of new patients you want to acquire.
Question No 5: Is it better to focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Google Pay-per-click (PPC) for an urgent care center?
Answer: SEO and PPC are both important. They do not entirely replace each other, but there is an overlap. Google PPC advertising will help you acquire new patients quickly, while the SEO improvements take time. Even if you have the best SEO rankings, you would still want to allocate some budget for PPC advertising.
Question No 6: Is it important to invest in reputation management software for my urgent care center?
Answer: Yes. Other than SEO for your urgent care, you want to focus on total number of reviews on Google my business for your clinic. Your focus should be get to 4.5 rankings and 100+ reviews as soon as possible. The basic foundation of your success should always be based on providing quality urgent care services to your patients, however the software apps help you to get to your goals.
Question No 7: What are the benefits of SEO for an urgent care center?
Answer: SEO and PPC are both important. They do not entirely replace each other, but there is an overlap. Google PPC advertising will help you acquire quickly, while the SEO improvements take time. Even if you have the best SEO rankings, you would still want to allocate some budget for PPC advertising.
Question No 8: I have a new practice, what else is important for an urgent care center marketing?
Answer: There are many steps you can take. For example 1) Make it very easy to learn about your services 2) Hire friendly front desk staff 3) Phones should be answered rather than extensive menus and answering services 4) Offer something valuable for your community (like monthly blood drive) 5) Offer services that are in demand (Covid-19 testing and then vaccinations)
Question No 9: I have a new practice, should I invest in traditional media like flyers, newspaper ads for my urgent care center?
Answer: It depends. But keep in mind that majority of patients will find you online. If you are opening a new practice, it may sense to do a drop of postcards to everyone who is in 10 mile radius. However, you will find out that a robust online presence will have much better return on investment (ROI). This is our data from hundreds of urgent care clinics in US.
Question No 10: I have a new practice, should I invest in Facebook or Google? Which one is better for my urgent care center?
Answer: For urgent care centers, Google is much more effective than Facebook. For urgent care centers, approximately, 78% of the new patients are likely to have originated from your successful presence on Google and Google related sites. If you have MedSpa then the data is different.
Question No 11: Does SEO increase my urgent care center’s patient count?
Answer: Absolutely. Majority of the patients looking for urgent care services go to Google search. In fact the most valuable keyword for your urgent care clinic is “urgent care near me”.
Question No 12: Should I invest in a website?
Answer: Your urgent care’s website is one of the most valuable assets. The website should be based on “conversion”, should have high quality content and should be mobile optimized (beyond mobile friendly).
Question No 13: What is the top source of new patients for urgent care clinics in USA?
Answer: Over 82 percentage of the patients who look for urgent care services, do it on a mobile device. They also use Google search engine most of the time. When a patient searches for urgent care services on a mobile device, google usually displays “paid ads” in the top area of the mobile search. So if your google paid ad shows up in the top area, the patient is more likely to “click” on your ad and visit your website.
Question No 14: What should be important for new patient acquisition for my urgent care clinic?
Answer: Top sources of new patients:
1. Website (designed for mobile conversions)
2. Google PPC ads (immediate results – costs money and is complex)
3. Google Local SEO (takes time to establish – costs money and time)
4. Google Organic SEO (takes time to establish – costs money and time and is complex, but produces the best ROI for your marketing dollars)
5. Multi-channel contact strategy. Allow patients to 1) Call you from the website 2) Send you a Text/SMS – using an app 3) Add marketing-ChatBot 4) Contact form.
PatientGain.com’s Urgent Care Solution
PatientGain.com’s Urgent Care Solution is built to be used by business users and healthcare staff, not techies. With a user-friendly interface and easy to use tools, business owners are able to effortlessly manage and track their efforts online. Regardless of your background with technology it’s straightforward and effective. From patient acquisition features such as your website, Facebook business apps, or appointment scheduling, to your patient engagement applications such as email campaign management, PatientGain.com’s consolidates all you need into one integrated platform. Clinic owners no longer need to transfer data, coordinate strategies, or create integrations between different platforms to be successful online. PatientGain.com’s turnkey solution combines over 20 apps into one system, improving your clinic’s results online while saving you time and money.