For small practice owners, it can be difficult to attract new patients if you aren't doing enough digital marketing. There are many things to consider when deciding which channels to use. What should I post? How can I use email marketing most effectively? What should your website look like?
Digital marketing It doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. In fact, many digital marketing channels are incredibly low-cost and can lead to significant patient growth. It's important to prioritize the right things and spend your money on the software that can best benefit your practice.
To find out, we spoke to Dr. Ran Rubinstein. [1]A cosmetic surgeon with over 20 years of experience, we learned about the digital marketing strategies he uses to attract new patients and maintain the interest of existing patients.
According to the recent Software Advice 2023 Physician Social Media Survey*, 81% of physicians consider social media to be an effective marketing method for their practice. This is a low-cost, low-effort way to keep your patients engaged and reach new patients in your area who may not have known your practice existed.
Social media is an important factor for clinic owners to consider, whether it's acquiring patients, increasing patient engagement, or improving their reputation. The last thing a potential patient wants is to look at your social media page and realize it hasn't been updated in two years. You may even wonder if you're still in business.
Watch the video below to learn more about the various pros and cons of social media for physicians.
First, make sure each social media channel uses professional and realistic photos of your business. Prominently list your phone number, email address, and location on each page so potential patients can contact you without having to go back to the search engine.
Dr. Rubinstein uses social media effectively to keep his patients updated on what is happening in his office. To maintain the social media pages, he has one of his employees update the pages regularly at least once a week.
If you're asking employees to maintain and update your social media pages, make sure they take time out of their daily or weekly schedules to focus on that specific project. It should be considered part of their role and not something they do extra on the side.
Make Facebook and Instagram a priority and make your posts bright, educational, and engaging
The two most popular social media platforms for doctors and patients are Facebook and Instagram, so that's where your focus should be. *
If you're not sure which platform to prioritize, you can include a question in your patient engagement and experience survey asking patients which social media they use most often. If the majority of your audience only uses Facebook, you should prioritize posting to Facebook.
As for what to post on your page, consider posting a short video or blurb that showcases your staff's personalities so patients can relate to your practice and feel like you can trust them to take care of their health. please.
Email marketing is an important low-cost, and sometimes free, marketing channel for clinic owners looking to expand their digital marketing strategy.
According to the 2022 Software Advice Email and Social Media Marketing Study**, more than a third (34%) of businesses surveyed earn 21% to 40% of their total business revenue from email marketing alone. I'm here. Additionally, 68% of respondents earned an ROI of at least 1,000% for every dollar spent, with some respondents earning as much as 4,900%.
These numbers may seem staggering, but when you consider them, if you create a newsletter yourself, email marketing softwareit just takes time.
Implementing software increases efficiency and therefore reduces the amount of time you spend. You can also purchase software that serves two purposes.
For example, Dr. Rubinstein uses software that can send patients reminders about upcoming appointments. “The software program will send you a reminder if you have taken certain steps that need to be repeated every three months.”
Email marketing software also comes with reporting features that let you know how effective your strategy is, so you can understand what's working and what needs to be improved.
Here's what your email newsletter should include:
Above all, you need to have a clear goal in mind when it comes to your email marketing strategy. For example, if your goal is to get more new patients to sign up, you should make driving clicks to your website's registration form a core part of your email marketing strategy.
If you want to focus on retaining and nurturing your existing patients to increase referrals, send patients to your social media pages or appeal to health-related email newsletters that your patients want to forward to their friends. Focus.
use email marketing software Create a weekly, biweekly, or monthly newsletter with promotions, updates, news, important upcoming dates, and more. Additionally, you can make your emails more personalized by sending educational materials to specific patient groups, such as those with chronic conditions, to help keep them on track.
Ultimately, just like any other digital marketing strategy, everything you do needs to be intentional. Don't send out a newsletter just because you “have to.” Think about what to include and how it will lead to achieving your goals.
Your website should be the center of your digital marketing strategy. It's likely the first place a new patient engages with you and your brand after doing an online search for a new doctor, so you want to make sure it's up-to-date and professional.
Thankfully, even if you hire an outside service to build and maintain your website; website design software Creating a professional-looking website has never been easier if you do it yourself.
Dr. Rubinstein emphasizes the importance of being practical and proactive when it comes to updating your website. “We always update the site when we start offering new procedures. If we add new before and after photos or have new reviews related to a particular procedure, we will post them on the relevant page.”
He hires a website designer to update his pages, but emphasizes the importance of double-checking everything regularly to make sure the content is posted properly . (Please avoid reversing the order of the before and after photos.)
Here are some things to consider regarding your website
First, like your email newsletter, you need to make sure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly.largely website builder software These days, options create responsive websites by default, but it's still an important consideration. The difference between a regular website and a mobile-friendly website is that mobile-friendly options are more flexible.
You should also make sure to include all the services you offer in an easily accessible place on your website. Make sure the top banner of your homepage has clear and easily accessible links to all services, procedures, and treatments. You also want to make sure you have a navigable drop-down menu so your patients can access the page they want, regardless of what page they're currently on.
You can also include a link to. patient portalcontent blogs, or social media pages as well.
Find some examples of what other clinic owners in your industry have included on their websites that you think look good, and try to emulate that. Patients are used to interacting with the Internet and web pages a certain way, and any deviation from that can lead to frustration and bad users, so the last thing you want when it comes to website design is the usual. It's a big departure from. experience.
Now that you know what type of digital marketing strategy you should consider, you need to know how to measure success. When it comes to measuring success, you can never have too much data. That's why using software is such a huge benefit. Almost every software option has some sort of reporting feature that lets you know how well your marketing efforts are performing.
For example, Dr. Rubinstein uses the reporting features of his email marketing software to measure the success of his email newsletters. If you send a newsletter and its open rate is 30%, you can access the software to see which links your patients click on and refine your email marketing strategy. .
He also says it's important to keep word of mouth in mind. He asks “how patients hear about themselves,” and also pays attention to how busy patients are to get an overall idea of whether his efforts are having an effect. He often has his patients say, “I saw your post on social media,” to make sure it's working.
Measuring the success of your social media presence can be difficult because it's usually not as detailed as getting actual reports from an email newsletter. 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 number of followers, the cost of acquiring more software may not be worth it.
However, if you have a large social media presence, it's worth considering. Knowing which social media pages have the highest engagement and reach can inform your future marketing efforts.
Even if you don't have a large following, you can conduct internal patient surveys to assess patient engagement and the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. This includes questions such as “How did you hear about us?” Filling out an intake form is a great way to understand which strategies are effective and where you need to spend time to improve.
A successful marketing strategy relies on understanding what digital marketing channels are available to your business and being intentional about where you invest your time and resources. Don’t think of your digital marketing strategy in silos. To be most effective, they must work together and influence each other.
For example, your social media pages should link to your website with an email newsletter form. Your email newsletter should include your most engaging social media content and a link to your website's referral or registration form.
With a solid digital marketing foundation, you should be able to retain and attract new patients without spending a lot of money.
For more resources on how to best market your medical practice, check out these articles:
