If you want your healthcare practice to stay competitive in an oversaturated market, word-of-mouth marketing isn’t going to cut it. Gone are the days of filling up your patient schedule simply because patients don’t have other options. Today, your patient base is looking for the most reputable healthcare organization to place their trust in — and your practice needs to stand out from the pack.
In this digital age, digital marketing is a crucial strategy for any business looking to stay afloat. However, many healthcare organizations have yet to implement these strategies for their growth and profitability. Your practice can rise above the competition, continually attract new patients, and engage your existing patient base with the right digital marketing tactics.
Learn everything you need to know about leveraging digital marketing in healthcare, including essential strategies to adopt and best practices to keep in mind. Then, explore the top healthcare marketing agencies in the industry to partner with for your marketing strategy.
Why Is Healthcare Digital Marketing Necessary?
Whether you own a primary care practice, a dental office, or a med spa, you simply can’t expect patients to find you and schedule with you on their own. There are over 338,000 active physician group practices across the U.S., and other healthcare sectors see similar levels of saturation.
Investing in digital marketing isn’t just a good idea; it’s a necessity. Healthcare organizations that neglect to implement digital marketing strategies continually lose patients to the competition. They fail to attract new patients because no one knows they exist. One study found that brand equity — the value of a brand name in consumers’ minds — significantly influences patient visits.
Digital marketing engages your potential and current patients within the platforms on which they are already choosing to spend their time. By creating a strategic presence on social media, search engines, email, and video, you gain a range of benefits.
- Attract new patients to your practice: Potential patients will find your healthcare providers when they search for “med spa near me” or “dentists in [your city].” They’ll then learn valuable information that convinces them to schedule with your practice.
- Build trust with your target audience: Healthcare consumers don’t trust practices that don’t have a digital presence. Fleshing out your social media channels and online marketing strategies shows your patient base that you are a legitimate, trusted organization.
- Raise brand awareness about your organization: Potential patients who know your practice name, see your posts on social media, or come across your ads frequently will be more likely to choose you when they need a new healthcare provider. Your brand will stick in their minds, subconsciously leading them to schedule with you when the time comes.
- Stay competitive with other healthcare practices: The most successful healthcare providers in your area have already implemented powerful digital marketing campaigns that helped them rise to their current level of success. Adopting your own online marketing strategy allows you to stay competitive with these practices rather than repeatedly losing business to them.
- Target your ideal patient base: Pay-per-click advertising and social media advertising, among other digital marketing strategies, are highly targeted. Position your ads to reach your ideal patient base, attracting the people most likely to schedule with your practice.
- See measurable results: Digital marketing strategies offer clear results to inform future strategies. Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) allows you to see how your marketing spend is working for your practice and what you should do differently to increase your return on investment (ROI).
Implementing strategic digital marketing campaigns doesn’t need to be overly costly or burdensome for your healthcare business. Closely measure your spending and target only the most effective digital marketing services. With the right strategies in place, you’ll significantly boost your practice revenue, making digital marketing in healthcare well worth your while.
Top Digital Marketing Strategies To Leverage in Your Practice
Certain digital marketing strategies are more effective for the healthcare industry than others. Focusing your efforts on the following strategies can help you boost your ROI and make the most of your digital marketing efforts.
Target Your Regional Audience With Local SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of enhancing your practice’s visibility in search engines like Google. The organizations that appear at the top of search results for keywords like “dentist near me” don’t do so by chance. Instead, they use specialized strategies to target search engine algorithms and show that they are the best match for that keyword.
Local search engine optimization targets searches within your city or region. Unless your practice has a nationwide presence, you’ll want to use local SEO to refine your strategy and ensure local patients find your practice.
SEO isn’t always a straightforward strategy. All of the following can affect your search engine rankings:
- The content on your website (and the keywords in that content)
- Your Google Business Profile
- The number of websites that have linked to your site (known as backlinking)
- The structure of your website
- The positive and negative reviews of your practice
- The consistency of your NAP (name, address, and phone number) data across online listings
- The number of “check-ins” at your practice locations
- Your proximity to the person completing a Google search
Local SEO can also be a relatively slow process. Changes you make today may not affect your search rankings for a few months. However, this strategy is vital to your online visibility and brand awareness, so it’s worth investing in.
Reach Your Perfect Patient With Pay-per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Many digital marketing strategies are organic, which means you don’t pay to reach your target audience. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the most important paid strategies to implement for your healthcare organization. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and similar platforms let you create advertisements you only pay for when someone clicks on them.
PPC ads can be laser-focused on your target audience. Specify the exact demographics you want to target with your ads, such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Interests (including what they have expressed interest in on social media)
- Income level
- Whether they have kids
This form of strategic digital advertising lets you target your perfect patient, increasing your brand awareness among people who may not know your practice exists. Because they use the pay-per-click model, you won’t risk wasting money on ads that don’t hit home with your audience.
Engage Your Patient Base With Social Media Marketing
Your target audience is already using social media to keep up with their favorite brands. They may also be following healthcare professionals in your city. Use social media for patient engagement, to share about your healthcare services, and to build trust with your audience.
You don’t need to pour hours into posting on every social media platform each week. Focusing your efforts on one or two platforms, like Facebook and LinkedIn, can help you begin fleshing out your social media presence and learning how to engage your audience through this strategy.
- These are a few ways you can use social media to foster patient interactions:
- Share about special offers, like a free consultation or discounted service
- Explain the different treatment options you provide
- Introduce new healthcare providers or services
- Host fun contests and giveaways
- Post informative content about your healthcare specializations
Stay Top of Mind With Email Marketing
Email is still a popular form of communication; as many as 99% of email users check their inbox at least once a day, while some check it up to 20 times a day. Sending emails to your target audience and existing patient base keeps your healthcare practice fresh in their minds.
Digital tools and templates help streamline the email marketing process. These tools also let you categorize your email address recipient list and send emails to specific people. Target existing patients with reminders and informative content while creating promotional email campaigns for “leads” or potential patients who haven’t booked an appointment yet.
Enhance Your Online Reputation With Web Design and Content Marketing
Does your healthcare practice have a high-quality website? Your healthcare website is one of your primary marketing tools and should accurately represent your professional services and providers. Investing in great web design can help your website create a positive impression on potential patients and lead them to schedule an appointment.
Your website should also be chock full of high-quality, keyword-rich content that boosts your visibility in Google searches and showcases your authority. While some healthcare companies use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to write content, human-written content may perform better in search engines and more accurately portray your organization.
Promote Your Healthcare Practice With Video Marketing
Many patients prefer to watch videos over reading content. If you want to prioritize good patient communication across your entire target audience, invest in video marketing to market your practice in an engaging way. You could film patient success stories, introduce your healthcare providers, or take a tour of your facilities on camera.
Creating videos may help ease new patient anxieties and make them more likely to follow through with their initial appointments.
Outshine the Competition With Reputation Management
Your healthcare practice’s online reputation plays a significant role in new patient acquisition. Nearly 75% of patients read online reviews when searching for a new provider. Having mostly positive reviews on platforms like Google Business Profile, Facebook, and Yelp can help your healthcare organization instill trust in new patients and show off your professional medical services.
Reputation management involves seeking positive reviews from patients and mitigating the impact of negative reviews. Send automated emails after each patient appointment, inviting them to review your practice on Google or send feedback privately.
You should also monitor your reviews frequently and make an effort to respond to every review your practice receives, positive or negative. You can even use positive patient testimonials in your content marketing strategy.
Digital Marketing Best Practices for Healthcare Organizations
Healthcare practices must approach marketing a bit differently than some other businesses. Follow these best practices to make the most of digital marketing in healthcare:
- Prioritize compliance with HIPAA and other regulations: Of course, you’ll need to ensure patient privacy throughout your digital marketing strategies and meet other regulations to stay compliant. Only share photos of patients or other health information with their express permission. Avoid importing patient information into any marketing tools that are not HIPAA compliant.
- Keep patient needs and wants at the center of your strategies: The most effective marketing strategies speak to every aspect of the patient experience. Understanding your patient base well allows you to target the right audience and tailor your strategies to the specific needs of your patients.
- Don’t forget about your existing patients: Leveraging digital marketing in healthcare isn’t just about attracting new patients. You should also engage your existing patient base to support patient retention. Send them emails regularly, interact with them on social media, and continue promoting your services to past and existing patients.
- Make data-driven decisions for your marketing strategy: Review your marketing KPIs frequently and adjust your strategy based on the data. For example, if one social media campaign led to better patient engagement than another, use those same strategies in future campaigns.
- Work with professionals to boost your digital marketing efforts: Mastering all the essential digital marketing strategies for healthcare practices can be time consuming. Many medical practices outsource this responsibility to professional digital marketing agencies. These teams have the tools and skills to create and execute a powerful marketing plan for your organization. Digital marketers can handle all aspects of your strategy, from writing quality content to overseeing PPC advertising.
Find Your Healthcare Marketing Partner With Top Marketing Agencies
Now that you know the importance of digital marketing in healthcare, it’s time to start prioritizing this strategy for your practice’s growth. Are you searching for a partner in digital healthcare marketing? Top Marketing Agencies keeps an updated list of the top marketing companies across a range of industries. Check out our list of the top healthcare marketing agencies in the USA today to find your next partner.
