The healthcare industry is ever evolving, as is the way its customers look for information and providers. To be at the top of the game, healthcare providers must target patients online, which is where a good marketing plan comes into place.
Organic Traffic Optimisation
Reaching patients via search engines is vital to any healthcare practice. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a form of marketing which helps you to rank better on the search engine results pages, making your practice more visible to potential patients. For example, if you were a supplements company, when a patient types ‘high strength fish oil’ into the search engine, optimizing your website would ensure that it would appear high in the results. This is done through many different methods, including making changes to website content and layout. This is a long process but is well worth the wait.
Content Marketing
The world of healthcare can be confusing to those who aren’t in the loop, but luckily you can kill two birds with one stone here and use content marketing. It involves creating relevant content such as guest posts or blogs about medical issues, industry news, complex conditions or simply helping patients to make the right choice. It offers interesting and useful content. You will need to make use of keywords and phrases that your patients are searching, and the more content you can have on your website that contains lots of these relevant keywords, the likelihood of your website ranking well increases.
Social Media
Using sites such as Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, as well as all the other social media sites, is not restricted purely to consumer products. Many healthcare companies use social media as a means of reaching potential customers and increasing their engagement. By using a range of different platforms, you can get people talking about your practice and reach new patients. You could advertise things that stand out about your service, such as low waiting times or exceptional service. Putting links on your social media back to your website gives potential patients a path to your site. It will not only introduce you to a new group of patients but also help to retain existing ones.
Email Marketing
Directly sending your patients engaging emails is one of the best ways to ensure you are at the top of their minds. You can utilise it to send newsletters, appointments reminders and more. It is a very personal method of marketing, and it will allow you to build relationships with customers. These targeted emails will be sure to resonate with your customers.
Have a Professional Website
Most of the marketing strategies suggested here all lead back to one place… your website. You’ve worked so hard to get people to the website, so once you have, make sure its a place they want to stay. Make a great first impression by having a website that is easy to navigate and gives clear information. Create engaging content to provide potential patients with any questions they might have. Your website will also be reflective of your practice, so make it sleek looking without being too busy, and use just the right amount of colour to make it look appealing without being overbearing.