To augment patient numbers and keep the clinic lucrative, you are required to employ more modern marketing strategies. On the one hand, you’re fortunate because there are many various ways and methods to efficiently upgrade your business these days such as SEO, Google Ads, and so forth.
1. Benefits of digital marketing
The importance of the web is undeniable for any kind of business nowadays. A powerful web presence can contribute to you excelling over your rivals, attract more patients to your clinic, and in general increase your remuneration. To further testify to the significance of web presence, research conducted by Pew Research Center indicated that at least 72% of adults alone in the U.S. search for health information online.
Regarding this – and the fact that the utilization of technology is only possible to raise with time – it is just rational for clinics to concentrate their efforts on attracting patients through digital marketing.
- Content marketing: Create content that helps your audience learn more about their conditions or problems.
- Search engine marketing: Setting up ads on Google Search for keywords associated with your clinic.
- Search engine optimization: Improve your website in such a way that it appears on page one when people search “medical clinic.”
- Social media marketing: Preserving active social media attendance, setting up advertising campaigns, etc.
- Email marketing: Being in contact with the former patients with special offers and strive to maintain them as clients for your clinic
2. Make a well-designed website
It’s difficult to set up a powerful web presence without a well-designed website to display your clinic in the virtual world. If done right, a website can contribute to you to augment patient flow to your clinic by letting anyone who looks for you to receive information about your services and proficiency, call you and learn more about health-related topics directly from experts.
Make sure that your website is based on modern standards, though. The site you created 10 years ago is just not suitable anymore. Awkward or out-of-date design or slow load speed are both among the elements that can trigger your clients to prefer your competitor’s clinic over yours.
Some essential parts of a medical clinic website:
- Updated and user-friendly interface
- Simple and alluring home page
- Instructive content
- Congruity with all devices
- Suitable Content Management Software (WordPress is recommended): While a well-designed and efficient website might be a bit costly, it’s surely well worth the investment. Better to create a single quality website once and have it set up for years than have to re-do it every few years.
3. Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO can be defined as the optimizing of the website for search engines so that Google (or other search engines) puts your website on top of search results for a specific keyword.
As was already mentioned, most people today search for information and services online, and medical services are not excluded. As such, improve your website by local SEO Brisbane according to Google best practices so that your clients can find your clinic when they search for medical clinics in your region.
What SEO precepts, you might ask? Well, here are some basics:
- State your target keyword on the respective page: The target keyword should be stated once in Heading 1, Heading 2, and several times throughout the page copy.
- Make your website mobile-friendly: Google awards websites that are improved for mobile traffic.
- Have a devoted page for each target keyword: For each service that you present, you’d like to have a devoted page targeting the respective keyword.
- Make an (optimized) Google My Business account: Having a GMB profile lets you rank on Google Maps, making it more possible for people in your area to find your clinic.
4. Embrace social media platforms
Businesses have long discovered methods to take advantage of the power of social media platforms, so it’s only natural that you can also utilize social media in healthcare to boost your web presence and augment clients. Out of the several choices available, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the best platforms to attract future clients.
Methods for utilizing social media to upgrade your healthcare clinic:
- Post pertinent content: Post articles, videos, and other types of content that help your patients learn more about their health conditions.
- Fortify your posts: Most social media platforms let you set up ads on them or fortify your content pieces to attract a broader range of clients.
- Obtain social proof: You can ask your current clients to leave comments on social media platforms, letting you obtain social proof.
- Arrange giveaways: You can allow your client base to know about special offers, promotions, or giveaways through social media.
- Provide online booking: Most people today would rather do everything online, including shopping, working, and even looking for dates. So, there is no surprise that they have the same habits when it comes to reserving their healthcare appointments. Online booking has many other benefits, such as decreasing cancellations and no-shows by letting patients book appointments when it’s most comfortable for them.
5. Employ a practice management software
Modern Practice Management Software (PMS) is one of the most efficient methods to ameliorate your clinic, change the patient experience and, in turn, increase patient flow to your clinic. Practice Management Software is a series of tools that contribute to the process of handling a medical clinic. Some usual traits include (but are not restricted to):
- Online booking & telemedicine: Your clients can book and show up for appointments online.
- Medical CRM: The marketing team can better hold track of individual patient history and appointments, letting you provide a more suitable customer experience.
- Reporting & analytics: You can monitor healthcare KPIs and standards through a single dashboard.
- Electronic health records: The health records of the patients are accessible digitally.
6. Hold Your Patients Engaged with Email and SMS
Providing a quality patient experience is wonderful, but you are also required to assure that they’re interested in your brand even when they’re not actively being cured in your clinic. The best way to do this is to use a medical CRM and periodically contact your former (or current) patients. Some approaches for this are as follows:
- Send automated appointment reminders through SMS or email (to lessen no-show numbers).
- Refresh your patients about clinic news through a newsletter.
- Contribute to your patients to remain healthy with a general health newsletter, sending them points pertain to their health or a specific condition.
Address patients within special demographics with special offers. E.g. a 50% off checkup, free consultation, and so on.
