Neglecting marketing nowadays is like removing a tooth at home – cheap, but long and painful. The characteristics of the medical business determine the approach to the promotion of medical services. If they are not taken into account, then it will not be possible to effectively promote your medical services.
The person usually feels a great responsibility while choosing the clinic or an individual specialist. We often feel nervousness or fear for our health, trusting it to other people. We also understand that some procedures can be accompanied by pain. Most patients are limited in information and have to completely trust their doctor, taking the prescribed treatment and following the recommendations. The actions and behavior of the clinic staff should be aimed at reducing the psychological discomfort that appears to the majority of clinic visitors. Simple conversation often helps. The tone of the conversation, the degree of confidence of the specialist, his appearance – all this has a psychological effect on the patient and sometimes affects the doctor’s reputation more than the result.
When you decide to create a medical practice, you will need to start marketing activities long before its opening. Below are the most important healthcare marketing strategies to follow for having a successful healthcare business.
- Conduct the analysis of the local market of the medical services and explore your target audience. It’s important to assess the capabilities of your institution in the early stages. Also you need to analyze the behavior of patients in the area. Here it is important to identify the factors that induce them to turn to competitors or refuse their services.
- Use social media platforms to engage your target audience. Nowadays not only television, radio, print media, but also social networks and instant messengers help to promote a medical brand. All you have to do is to choose the suitable marketing channels for you. On the platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube you can attract new patients with interesting and useful content to grow your client base. It will also help you build a long lasting relationship with your patients, be in contact with them in case of some issues. Don’t neglect the social media posts, videos, including interviews with your top doctors, and blogs on specific topics on social media. Sharing such content will help you maintain interest in your existing patients and engage new audiences.
- It’s important to build a mobile-friendly website. Google and other search engines rank websites that are optimized for mobile search higher than those that are not responsive and user-friendly. Mobile-friendly websites require less time to load and automatically adjust to the size of the screen.
- SEO is important in healthcare marketing as much as in any other business. You need to make the research for the best target words and phrases to include them in the content on your website and within it. It is recommended to create a blog and post articles relevant to your specific healthcare services. In case the articles are long and contain certain keywords, your website has greater chances to be ranked higher in SERPs (search engine results pages) which means getting organic traffic for free.
- Develop a healthcare app. Most people are spending time with their mobile devices making it an important part of their lives. Mobile apps provide easier access to doctors and their services, especially nowadays, when hospitals and medical institutions are working in special conditions because of the coronavirus epidemic. Developing an app is only half of the process. It is equally important to know how to market a mobile app and create a mobile app marketing plan several months before its launch to the market.
At the end it’s important to mention that you always have to track your healthcare marketing strategy to understand what works the best for promoting your services.