When individuals need medical attention, they are more likely to resort to their cell phones first. A large portion of the patient experience is currently completed online and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
Which digital channels will have the most effective in boosting the number of patients for your healthcare digital marketing company? Four critical components of a digital acquisition campaign that will reach more patients in 2021 are outlined below.
1. Establish credibility to get patient trust.
In these turbulent times, everyone is yearning for a sense of security. Physicians, in particular, are held to a high standard of dependability. In a time when patients want more reassurance than ever before, the core messages of reliability, trustworthiness, and confidence become the most important messages that you should emphasize across all of your marketing communications.
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- All eyes are on the road to safety.
As a first and primary concern, make it clear that your facility is secure. Everyone must be aware of your tireless efforts to maintain the highest safety standards.
Major hospitals make their safety and healthcare marketing services procedures available to the public to demonstrate that patients’ safety is their first concern, and this is a good thing. Safety concerns may be included on your website and featured in a social media post, for example, an informative infographic published on Pinterest or Instagram, to name a couple of examples.
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- Meet the members of the squad
Aside from that, your website is an excellent tool for connecting patients with your professionals. By displaying the profiles and images of doctors and nurses on the “About us” subpage, you may increase the legitimacy of your institution while also creating a feeling of familiarity among patients. “Meet the Staff” websites not only help to develop a pleasant and welcoming image of your company, but they also allow you to exhibit the skills of your medical team.
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- Make your company’s presence known.
You may also urge your physicians to register with physician registries such as WebMD, which are free to use. In addition to being convenient, these internet tools help people locate and compare healthcare providers in their local region.
2. Increase your social media presence (and don’t be afraid to be bold!)
A social media presence will be required for every medical firm in 2021, and it will not be negotiable. In addition to that, we’re sad to advise that merely establishing a Facebook account will not suffice. You’ll need a systematic strategy if you’re going to engage your patients via digital platforms.
A good rule of thumb is to publish frequently and keep your updates brief. Unless you’re writing to a professional audience, avoid utilizing medical jargon. Also, keep in mind that your material must be relevant to your audience, not to you as the author.
Please remember that each social media platform has a distinct function and necessitates a different content approach.
3. To engage more patients, do something different
Is there a more opportune moment to investigate fresh possibilities than right now? Some new strategies for enhancing patient acquisition may need a slight adjustment in one’s perspective.
To finish off, if you have a gift for writing, try submitting guest posts to healthcare blogs and online health-focused periodicals that cater to audiences other than medical professionals. The publication of your medical business on these websites will create visibility for your company and assist you in establishing authority within the patient population.
4. PPC advertising may help you increase your search visibility
Finally, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising should be considered the fourth pillar of your patient acquisition plan for 2021. The harsh reality is that not all healthcare organizations are equipped with it. They are willing to put up with the six to twelve months it takes for a longer-term SEO approach to begin producing value for their results. Others with more developed SEO strategies cannot depend only on SEO to generate new patient acquisitions in their respective markets.
PPC campaigns that are correctly set up may begin producing new leads for patients as soon as they are created.
PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is a search engine advertising approach in which you are charged each time a user clicks on an ad. Consider the following scenario: you want to rank organically for a highly competitive local term, but you’re having trouble. With PPC, you may have an ad appear at the top of a search engine results page (SERP), above the organic results.
5. Think beyond the box to increase the number of patients you can get.
No need to go any farther than your inbox to see that many healthcare businesses continue to depend on an out-of-date marketing strategy. The opposite is true for glossy hospital bulletins or huge postcards promoting local healthcare facilities, which are likely to be thrown in the trash without a second thought.
Instead, healthcare firms must provide fast, individualized customer experiences across a wide range of channels to remain competitive. Patient acquisition marketing may be significantly improved by expanding your focus beyond standard strategies, channels, and messaging and by tailoring healthcare marketing messages to psychographic groupings rather than demographics or illnesses.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the four tactics we discussed above are intended to help in patient acquisition marketing. Some patients will contact you by phone, while others will visit your website. Even the individual who located and contacted your number as a result of a PPC advertisement is likely to come up on your website at some point along their patient journey.
That your website is critical to your patient engagement strategy is what makes it so. So let’s create a warm and friendly digital entrance. If you want to make things easy for your future (and present) patients, this is a fantastic chance.
Above all, it’s critical to remember that it’s people, not marketing money or campaign analytics, who are responsible for turning the wheels of patient acquisition. Keep in mind that if you keep focused on meeting their demands, you will propel your company’s development.