Oct 11 2022
Digital Marketing Strategies To Attract New Patients for Medical Practice
The digital marketing strategies used to promote your medical practice will depend on many factors, including your target audience, budget, and goals. Here are some of the most effective methods for attracting new patients to your medical practice.
Invest in Advertising
1. Use Google PPC ads to target
Use Google PPC Ads to target people looking for your practice, doctors, treatments, and diseases. Yes, even if you already show in the results, you should acquire your brand and doctor names. Research demonstrates that you will get more visitors than if you merely showed up organically, and it also safeguards you from rivals who could acquire your brand name.
The most focused method of bringing in new patients for your practice is through Google search advertisements. Because they connect with patients who are actively looking up the ailments you target or seeking your therapies. Any digital marketing strategy that uses these searches is likely to result in in-office visits. Since you only get charged when someone clicks on an advertisement, they are also low-risk.
2. Include Bing in Your Google PPC Ads
When your Google search ad campaign is successful, you should think about starting a Bing search ad campaign to increase your lead volume. Bing presently holds a 7% market share in the US, thus a minor purchase will result in more search traffic for Bing. Additionally, it has a considerably lower cost per click than Google. To protect your brand, you should at the very least purchase brand name searches.
Related Post: Where To Invest in Digital Marketing if Your Budget is Limited?
3. Use remarketing to find website visitors who don’t convert.
On their initial site visit, the majority of prospective patients will not convert. You may target site visitors who don’t convert into leads using remarketing campaigns. Remarketing is a feature of all significant digital advertising platforms; we advise starting with Facebook.
4. Use remarketing to target users
Remarketing isn’t limited to site visitors. Targeting people who interact with your social advertisements is a remarketing tactic that is sometimes ignored. This entails focusing on viewers who enjoy, comment on, or even just briefly see a video. Remarketing makes sure that your advertising dollars aren’t wasted on indifferent patients and that you keep pursuing those that are.
5. Use Facebook advertising to attract new patients
The most comprehensive reach of any digital medium is offered by Facebook. Organic Facebook posting, however, is insufficient. Facebook has transformed into a “pay-to-play” website. Any marketing effort for a medical practice should include Facebook advertising as a key component. Therefore, experimenting with ad formats and targeting is crucial.
6. Locate Patients Using YouTube Ads, Pay Only When a User Views
The typical session on YouTube lasts 40 minutes, which is far longer than any other platform and has the second-largest reach behind Facebook.
Skippable advertising makes sure you won’t be charged if someone passes your video ad among the ad formats, which also include text and video. YouTube’s targeting is another feature that sets it apart. Ads on YouTube may be targeted using Google patient searches and based on what potential patients are watching on YouTube, both of which constitute unique targeting.
7. Employ Native Advertising to Attract Patients With Content
The majority of native advertisements show up on fresh articles as “related content,” as shown in the example below. Medical offices that run advertising promoting blog entries on ailments and remedies can make good use of them. In essence, you’re exploiting the content to draw in your best clients. Native advertisements may generate a lot of traffic and are very cost-effective.
8. Using programmatic advertising for advanced patient targeting
Programmatic advertising is one of the most specialized types of digital advertising. In essence, these are markets where marketers may purchase advertisements and, more significantly, make use of vital 3rd party data that enables advanced targeting. This covers propensity models for diagnosis and OTC pharmacy buying behavior.
9. Integrate Facebook ads with Instagram
It’s good to run ads on Facebook as it can increase your leads. Try integrating these ads with Instagram. There is no complex theory for this. You need to check a box and see the results. To integrate with Instagram, sometimes you may need to customize your work.
10. Purchase YouTube Google Search Keywords
Since Google controls YouTube, many advertisers are unaware of some of its fantastic ad styles. The first is “custom intent audiences” on YouTube, which let you target YouTube adverts based on Google Search activity. Therefore, there is a good possibility that keywords that are performing well on Google will also perform well on YouTube.
Related Post: What is the Purpose of Digital Marketing for Medical Practice?
Publish Content
11. Start blogging
Create content related to your niche and publish the blog. Let the community know about evolution in medical research and share your thoughts on it. Try to answer the questions of your patients and guide them honestly. Although blogging takes time, it definitely pays off. Be consistent in a blog posting to increase your impact in the community.
12. Post Updates to Your Google My Business Listings
Post any blog entries you make to the practice’s Google My Business page. This is a fantastic approach to stand out on GMB and alert Google to local search listings.
13. Revise previous blog posts
An often-overlooked tactic is to edit older blog entries that, with a little tweaking, can rank higher if you’ve previously been contributing to your site. Unfortunately, even highly-ranked blog entries eventually “decay” since Google considers older blog posts to be less relevant. Therefore, be careful to include fresh paragraphs.
14. Produce Lead-Generating Downloadable Content
Offering good patient education resources as downloadable content is a fantastic approach for clinics to get their top leads. A “treatment guide,” for instance, is an excellent approach to address concerns a prospective patient might have about a procedure they are considering. However, it also enables you to get some lead data so you can develop that prospect into a patient. Making downloadable information is another method to include questions in the form submission that might help you determine whether the patient qualifies.
15. Post consistent video content
One of the finest methods to connect with potential patients via empathy and to educate them about your business and doctors is through video material. Try not to forget the investment in videos and their paid advertisement.
16. Increase Dwell Time on Your Site by Adding Videos
Try to create videos related to your field and experience. And post these videos on the main page of your website. People prefer to watch a video than read text because it saves time and is easy to remember. So it will grab their attention which helps increase your Dwell time.
Optimize Your Website
17. Review your contacts
Create a “contact” tab on your website. And provide a contact number to let people contact you conveniently. Also, mention your social media contacts and email so people may contact you through different channels. You will notice it boosts your leads very quickly.
18. Submissions of Offer Forms, Not Just Calls
Let’s say you just provide a phone number for patients to call if they want to get in touch with you. If so, you’re also losing out on incremental leads that you don’t already receive. Consider providing the option for patients to make an appointment, at the very least.
Related Post: 5 Reasons Your Medical Practice Website Needs an Update
19. Pop-Ups with Exit Intent
Before a visitor leaves your practice website, these pop-ups are an excellent approach to collecting leads from them. However, they only appear when a visitor indicates that they want to quit their browser or leave your website.
20. Include a chatbot on your website
Chat is a fantastic method to generate leads, particularly after hours when your front desk is closed. There is no requirement for a real human to answer conversations around the clock. As an alternative, you may develop a chatbot for your website that will respond to the most frequent queries and tell site visitors to contact you during office hours or submit a lead.
Related Post: Top 12 SEO Techniques to Optimize and Higher Website Ranking
21. Reconsider Your CTA
Some of your patients will call you, but many others won’t. Consider the main “call-to-action” on your website as your cash register. Instead of just adding a “contact us” CTA, consider adding CTAs that are more closely related to your website’s main objectives.
“Schedule an appointment” and a “self-schedule” option are two of the strongest CTAs you can use. Verifying your insurance is another excellent call to action for site visitors who could be considering your clinic but are unclear if you accept their insurance.
A “pain evaluation” form is one of the CTAs we provide for several of our Spine & Orthopedics clinics.
22. Include Excellent Patient Testimonials on Your Website
Testimonials from patients are standard fare. However, many medical practitioners either don’t use them or use them sparingly or in untrustworthy ways, such as anonymous text testimonials. High-performing businesses will make the effort to get video endorsements.
Expand Physician & Practice Listings
23. Increase the number of Google My Business entries
Businesses must list themselves on Google My Business so that they can swiftly attract new patients. However, a lot of medical practices have insufficient or inaccurate local listings. The more comprehensive your profiles are, the more probable it is that you will show up higher in local searches and persuade potential patients to phone or visit your website. Use the content changes and be sure to add photographs.
24. Add listings for doctors in directories
While the majority of practices have Google My Business listings, not all of them produce physician listings. If your practice has numerous doctors, Google advises that you should have BOTH a practice listing and a listing for each doctor. Your total search visibility will rise as a result.
25. Increase the number of practice and doctor reviews
A strategy for producing a lot of patient reviews ought to be in place at your clinic. By automating your outreach, you may solicit reviews continuously without having to manually do it. Additionally, it entails developing a plan for WHEN to solicit reviews and filtering them using the NPS (Net Promoter Score) to ensure that you are only contacting satisfied clients.
Improve Front Desk Operations
26. Reconnect with Former Patients
Driving previous patients back to the office is one of the simplest methods for practices to rapidly increase income. Utilize phone outreach, SMS, and email nurturing to re-engage previous patients.
27. Reactivate Cold Leads
Re-engaging cold leads who may have put off obtaining treatment or who are still looking for a provider is essential. Practices may also re-engage these prospects through email nurturing, SMS, and phone marketing.
It’s crucial to comprehend why these leads didn’t convert to properly adjust your messaging.
Therefore, those communications would be more tailored than completely cold leads that you don’t know anything more about, for instance if you knew a potential patient started feeling better or just wasn’t ready.
28. Persistence is also necessary
Keep in mind that many calls now go to voicemail because of the numerous ways that patients screen their phone calls. It frequently requires more phone calls to contact them as a result. Nevertheless, a lot of practitioners quit after only a few tries. Therefore, keep calling and try various hours and days of the week.
At least 12 touches spread out over two weeks are what we advise.
29. Email nurturing sequences, number
Email nurturing should be a part of email outreach to re-engage clients or patients. This refers to a series of emails sent to prospects to encourage them to set up a meeting. Email sequences might answer concerns, give patient testimonials, address objections, and more. They may also be brought on by events like returning visitors to your website.
30. Use SMS to Communicate with Prospects
Many practices still do not use SMS in their practice communications. However, SMS response rates can reach 46%, and open rates can reach 98%. Simply said, a text message has a much higher chance of being read than an email does. It is a crucial component of our medical practice marketing initiatives.
Find Innovative Ways to Connect with Patients
31. Participate in Facebook Groups
Everyone uses social media these days for entertainment and education. In social media forums, people frequently post questions about their illnesses and treatments to receive advice or suggestions. Facebook groups are one of the social media platforms that may use to interact with patients and gain their confidence.
32. Start a Facebook group of your own
Additionally, practices have the option of establishing their own Facebook Group. For instance, you may start a local chapter of a bigger group if you can’t locate any groups that focus on your particular area of expertise already. Remember that this strategy requires patience and some deftness to ensure that it avoids being too promotional or infringing on group norms.
33. Organize “Virtual” Educational Events
Suppose you have a specialty that requires a lot of schooling. In such instances, holding “virtual” information sessions to generate leads is a potential tactic. Consider them as patient “webinars.”
As long as someone is there to take questions, they can be pre-recorded and repeated every month. This strategy may result in patients who are more qualified and comprehend your offer.
Keep in mind that you must advertise these events through paid advertising.
34. Social media live video
Another opportunity to educate the patients is through live video. You don’t need to edit anything, which is a huge advantage. You can record the live broadcast for later use or for people who can’t watch it live but still want to view it later.
35. Increase Your Outreach to Doctors for Referrals
The majority of practices still use the same methods for physician outreach. While you may have staff members devoted to these initiatives, practices may support them with digital marketing techniques like LinkedIn or Facebook advertising to focus on a particular list of target physicians or other referral sources.
36. Specialized Lists for Paid Promotion
If you already have a list of doctors that you’re looking for recommendations for. You may target ONLY them with it through paid advertising. Many platforms provide this bespoke list advertising; LinkedIn and Facebook come highly recommended.
37. Medical NPI Targeting
You may target particular NPIs of the doctors you’re targeting through programmatic advertising in addition to using bespoke lists. To tailor your outreach efforts, you may even find out through reports which doctors are responding to your adverts.
38. LinkedIn Advertising
For the majority of digital marketing campaigns aimed at physicians, LinkedIn advertising is the most effective. You may target particular practice groups using LinkedIn in addition to the custom lists mentioned above, for example.
39. Design a Course
One of the main ways that doctors establish trust is via education. Offering a superior education to your rivals via an online course is one approach to drawing in more patients. Making an online course with video content is now simpler than ever, and the patients you recruit from such a course will be a lot more knowledgeable when you meet them for the first time.
40. Launch a TikTok account
Many medical offices have found success with launching TikTok accounts. The TikTok algorithm, in contrast to other social networks, makes sure that every piece of material has a chance to be seen, with the most interesting content rising to the top.
Why is TikTok? Because it has over 80 million US members and has had the highest growth of any social network in recent years. On TikTok, we’ve seen a lot of medical facilities grow their fan bases and get tens of thousands of views by uploading naturally.
41. Ads on TikTok
Content uploading is a wise move. However, simply uploading material to TikTok is insufficient without trying TikTok ads. Ads on TikTok are often less expensive than those on other social media platforms. Run TikTok advertising and choose a city as the target audience. TikTok advertisements do well.
Bonus: Check out this Digital Marketing Roadmap to set up a strategy for medical practice.