6 Effective Marketing Strategies For Your Healthcare Business

How are you marketing your healthcare company? In the US, there are over 907,000 registered healthcare providers rankings from dentists, primary care physicians, physiotherapists, ophthalmologists, hospitals, long-term care providers, and many more.

Regardless of the service you provide, you need to ensure you attract the right patients using appropriate marketing techniques. Effective healthcare marketing can make all the difference between patients choosing your facility over a competitor. People are demanding more from their service providers, and healthcare is no different. You want to be able to convey this to patients from the very beginning before you get them through the door.

This is where effective healthcare marketing tactics come into play. This post looks at some of the most effective tactics you can use to attract and retain patients.

Email Marketing

Much like with any other sector, healthcare businesses can utilize email marketing techniques to not only keep current patients engaged and up to date but also to put feelers out to potential new clients. Having an enticing pop-up on a website can help you to increase subscribers, but if your content falls flat, then you will likely be undoing all of your efforts.

Your emails can contain up-to-date news about your facility, new technology, or advancements you are adding. Achievements and successes and general information about what you do. Avoid being too “overtly salesy,” as this can be a turn-off. After all, patients want to know you care about providing them with a service, not selling them procedures they don’t need.

Website Content

What does your website say, and what impression is it giving out? If you want people to find you based on what you do, you need an effective website that can not only answer queries but also benefit existing patients. You need to be providing effective informative content that relates to general queries people have as well as inform them of what you can do for them. It is also essential that you have your content written by a team of writers and editors who are medical professionals, including doctors, dentists, mental health, and other health care providers and specialists. This can help you to ensure the information you are putting out there is factually correct and that you are abiding by regulations pertaining to information of a medical nature. Compliance is critical in every single aspect of what you do.

Referral Programs

Referral programs work via word of mouth. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tactics you can have. Essentially how it works is you want those who have used your services to be telling others how amazing you are and how they, too, need to come to you for the exact treatment. It is about first establishing trust and a rapport with current patients enough to have them market you for you. In turn, you can offer a referral program with an incentive. However, you need to ensure this is legal where you are based, as some states have strict laws regarding incentivizing referral programs for healthcare. But if you follow any guidance on the subject, this can be a potent tool to use.

User Generated Content

User-generated content has become somewhat of a buzz in recent years. It involves patients leaving reviews and testimonials online, either on your website or reputable review sites, and you then use this in your marketing campaigns.

Take these quotes (of course, directing users to the original for fact-checking) and use them in emails, in banners on websites, in print advertising, or even around your facility too. To be able to use this type of content for marketing, you need to ensure your facility as a whole is working to the highest standards so people feel compelled to leave good reviews and support what you do. Essentially this is a more digital word-of-mouth type of marketing, but when used correctly, it can be a powerful ally.

SEO

A stalwart in digital marketing, but when done correctly, the most effective way of ensuring longevity from your marketing campaign. Reaching the top of the search engine results pages for queries relating to your practice can be instrumental in finding new patients and attracting people to you.

Gone are the days of keyword stuffing, and SEO these days involves a multifaceted approach that includes a range of different parts that need to work together seamlessly. You need to use exact long tail keywords that you want to rank for, such as cosmetic dentistry in (enter your location here) and so on. You must ensure your website meets current search engine regulations, is optimized for mobile users, and is fast and responsive. Internal and external linking, adding alt tags to images, providing valuable and detailed content, and having clear structure and navigation are also essential for good SEO.

Social Media

Social media remains one of the best and low-cost ways to quickly reach new and existing patients. By creating social media pages, you can update people following you on recent changes and information they need to know. Share updates, images, feel-good stories, reviews, and more. You can engage with people in real time and give actionable feedback to improve what you do and generally get a sense of what people want to allow you to tweak your approach until you hit the sweet spot.

However, you mustn’t rely on organic publishing alone. While this is an excellent place to start, don’t be afraid to use boosted posts and paid advertorials to help you reach more people. 

Lastly, on social media, remember to be as descriptive in your profile as possible and use keywords in your posts naturally and in your bio to help you boost your SEO and rankings in your niche.

Conclusion

Healthcare can be an extremely competitive industry which is why marketing needs to be done carefully and with an additional layer of consideration. Knowing how best to approach your marketing campaign and what to avoid can put you in an excellent position to boost awareness of your healthcare company. However, you should remember that you need to focus on patient care and the patient experience. It supports what you do and boosts your reputation positively to back up your marketing efforts.