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It can be a struggle for small practice owners to attract new patients if they haven’t done a lot of digital marketing. There are so many different things to consider from which channels you should use? What should you post? How do you use email marketing more effectively? What should your website look like?
Digital marketing doesn’t have to be challenging or expensive; in fact, many digital marketing channels are incredibly low cost and can result in a huge boost to patients. It’s about prioritizing the right things and spending money on software where it can be most effective for your practice.
To that end, we spoke with Dr. Ran Rubinstein [1]a cosmetic surgeon with over 20 years of experience, to learn about the digital marketing strategies he uses to attract new patients and keep his existing patients engaged.
According to our recent Software Advice 2023 Physician Social Media Survey*, 81% of physicians see social media as an effective marketing method for their practice. It’s a low-cost, low-effort way to keep your patients engaged and even reach new patients in your area who might not otherwise know your practice exists.
Whether it’s patient acquisition, increasing patient engagement, or improving your reputation, social media is important for any practice owner to consider. The last thing you want is for a potential patient to look at your social media pages only to find they haven’t been updated in two years. They may even ask if you’re still in business.
First, make sure each of your social media channels uses professional and realistic photos of your business. Include your phone number, email address and location prominently on every page so potential patients can contact you without having to go back to a search engine.
Dr. Rubinstein uses social media to great effect keeping his patients updated on what is happening in his practice. In order to maintain your social media pages, you have one of your employees regularly update your pages at least once a week.
If you have an employee who maintains and updates your social media pages, be sure to carve out some time in their schedule each day or week to dedicate to that particular project. It should be considered part of their role and not something extra they do on the side.
Prioritize Facebook and Instagram and keep your posts lighthearted, educational and engaging
The two most popular social media platforms for doctors and your patients are Facebook and Instagram, so that’s where you should focus your efforts.*
If you’re not sure which platform to prioritize, you can include questions in the Patient Engagement and Experience Survey that asks patients which social networks they interact with most often. If most only use Facebook, you should prioritize posting there.
When it comes to what you should post on your pages, consider posting short videos or notes that showcase your staff’s personality so your patients feel like they can connect with your office and trust you to take care of their health .
Email marketing is a low-cost and in some cases free marketing channel that is important for practice owners looking to expand their digital marketing strategy.
According to our 2022 Software Advisory Email and Social Media Marketing Survey**, more than a third (34%) of companies surveyed derive between 21% and 40% of their total business revenue from email marketing alone. Additionally, 68% of respondents earn at least a 1,000% ROI on every dollar spent, with a portion of those achieving an ROI of up to 4,900%.
These numbers may seem surprising to you, but if you consider this, if you are creating newsletters without the help of email marketing software, it will only cost you your time.
Once you bring software into the mix, you spend less time because of increased efficiency. You can even buy software that serves two purposes.
For example, Dr. Rubinstein uses software that allows him to send reminders to patients about what to do. “If they’ve had a certain procedure done that needs to be repeated every three months, the software program will send them a reminder.”
Email marketing software also includes reports that will let you know how effective your strategies are so you understand what’s working and what needs improvement.
This is what you should include in your email newsletters
Above all, you want to make sure you have a specific goal in mind when it comes to your email marketing strategy. For example, if your goal is to get more new patients signed up, you want to make sure that the core of your email marketing strategy is driving clicks to your website’s signup form.
If you want to focus on keeping and serving existing patients to increase referrals, send them to your social media pages or focus on engaging health-related email newsletters that your patients want to forward to his friends
Use email marketing software to create weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly newsletters that cover upcoming promotions, updates, news, or important dates. Additionally, you can further personalize your emails by sending specific patient groups, such as those with chronic conditions, educational materials to help keep them on track.
Ultimately, like any digital marketing strategy, you want to be intentional about everything. Don’t just send out newsletters because you think you have to. Think about what you include and how it will lead to your goals.
Your website should be the center of your digital marketing strategy. It’s likely the first place a new patient interacts with you and your brand after doing an online search for new doctors, so you want to make sure it’s up-to-date and looks professional.
And luckily, whether you hire an outside service to build and maintain your website or use website design software to do it yourself, it’s never been easier to have a professional-looking website.
Dr. Rubinstein emphasizes the importance of being hands-on and proactive when it comes to updating your website: “We’re always updating our site if we start offering new procedures. We’re adding new before and after photos, or if there’s a new review that’s relevant to a particular procedure, we’ll include it on the relevant page.”
He hires a website designer to update his page for him, but stresses the importance of checking everything regularly to make sure things are posting correctly. (The last thing you want is for your before and after photos to be in the wrong order.)
Here’s what you need to keep in mind when it comes to your website
First, just like your email newsletters, you want to make sure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly. Most website builder software options will make websites responsive by default these days, but it’s still an important consideration. The difference between a regular website and a mobile-friendly website is that the mobile-friendly option will be more flexible.
You also want to make sure that you list all the services you provide in one easily accessible place on your website. Make sure you have a visible and easily accessible link to all your services, procedures and treatments in the top banner of your home page. You also want to make sure you have a navigable drop-down menu so patients can access the pages they want no matter what page they are currently viewing.
You may also want to include a link to your patient portal, content blog, or social media pages.
Find some examples of what other practice owners in your industry include on websites that you think look nice and try to emulate that. The last thing you want to do is stray too far from what’s normal in terms of website design, because your patients are used to navigating the Internet and web pages in certain ways, and anything that strays from ‘this can lead to frustration and a bad user. experience
Now that you know what types of digital marketing strategies you should consider, you need to know how to measure success. When it comes to measuring success, there is no such thing as too much data; This is why using software can be a great help. Almost all software options will have some sort of reporting feature that lets you know how your marketing efforts are going.
For example, Dr. Rubinstein uses the reporting features of his email marketing software to help him measure the success of his email newsletters. If you send out a newsletter and have a 30% open rate, you can go into the software and see which links your patients clicked on to help you refine your email marketing strategies.
He also mentions that word of mouth is important to consider. Ask “how patients heard about them” and also note how busy they are to get a general idea if your efforts are working. It will often have patients come in and say, “I saw your post on social media,” which is confirmation that it works.
Because it’s usually not as granular as getting real reports from your email newsletters, it can be difficult to measure the success of your social media presence. While it’s true that some dedicated social media analytics software can help you dig deeper into your social media metrics, unless you have a large following, the cost of getting more software may not be worth it. pity
However, if you have a strong social media presence, it’s worth considering. Knowing which of your social media pages has the most engagement and reach will help inform your marketing efforts moving forward.
If you don’t have a large following, you can still conduct internal surveys of your patients to gauge their engagement and the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. Include a question that asks “where did you hear about us?” in your intake form is a good way to understand which strategies are effective and where you need to spend some time improving.
Understanding what digital marketing channels are available to your practice and being intentional about where you spend time and resources is crucial to the success of your marketing strategy. Don’t think about your digital marketing strategy in silos; they should work together and feed off each other to be more effective.
For example, your social media pages should link to your website which should have an email newsletter form. Your email newsletters should include the most engaging social media content and links to your website’s referral or opt-in form.
With a strong digital marketing foundation, you should be able to retain and attract new patients without having to spend a lot of money.
For more resources on how to better market your medical practice, check out these articles:
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