You already offer the best in fast medical treatment, but how do you keep more people coming through your doors?
You opened a healthcare clinic because you want to help others. This is an admirable goal and it takes a lot of courage, trust, and ambition to actually open your doors for the public to see. Unfortunately, even healthcare agencies are prone to suffering from the fickle minds of their consumers. Without a great marketing strategy, your healthcare center might become one of the many small businesses that fail in the span of a few years. According to Investopedia, as many as 20% of small businesses fail in the first year alone. By the five-year mark, almost 45% of small businesses will shutter their doors for good. Even though most people should be visiting their doctor at least twice each year, many people don’t see their doctors for years at a time. Whether you’re keeping your current clients or trying to reign in new ones, healthcare marketing tips are key to your business’ survival.
The best way to keep your business afloat is through tried and true marketing techniques paired with a healthcare twist. Nowadays, people want fast medical treatment, but they also want to form relationships with their doctors, utilize online communication, and have a variety of services available to them. Unless you want to file for bankruptcy chapter 7 with a healthcare lawyer, you will want to invest in your business sooner than later.
From SEO to in-person marketing to the services you offer, here are some of the best healthcare marketing tips businesses should follow for 2020.
Assess your business’ current services
Traditional doctors often rely on older methods of medical care; they will have a patient pay a co-pay at the door, listen to their issues, and prescribe a medication or offer a check-up. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this method, but it certainly doesn’t help you stand out from the competition.
Nowadays, changing up your service offerings is among the best ways to stay ahead of the pack.
First, you should look at your demographic. Are you a pediatric medical health center that caters to children and their young parents? Or are you more involved with older folks who want to utilize those basic methods of going to the doctor? Depending on your demographic, choosing to implement new-age technology could make or break the bank. An older person won’t want to fiddle around with a payment tablet on their own and they certainly won’t want to answer multiple questions in a tiny font on the same machine. It’s better to offer this demographic more hands-on help by better training your staff and establishing a welcome atmosphere. This might mean hiring customer service representatives along with doctors, but it might also mean that you invest in whimsical artwork for a pop of color in an otherwise bleak place.
However, a health center near a college campus might want to arrange for self-check-in options, on-demand care services via telehealth communications, and more. Younger folks rarely want to spend time in the hospital and prefer to do as much as they can autonomously.
Regardless of demographic, you should also assess your current offerings on a larger scale. Do you offer lab testing or X-rays? What about therapy options or counseling? Some modern healthcare facilities have even started offering medical spa services to improve their patients’ aesthetic concerns along with their medical ones.
Along with offering great services comes offering top-notch technology and state-of-the-art amenities. As such, relying on plastics healthcare distributors can ensure your products are the top of the line. While it might be cheaper to invest in used medical equipment, most people want to see modern technology to ensure that they’re getting the best care possible.
You might also want to consider your hours. Walk-in medical care clinics are rising in popularity because patients want prompt healthcare with no wait-time. That’s just one of the reasons that urgent care facilities have become so popular. Even if you aren’t willing to keep your doors open for 24 hours a day, extending your hours or welcoming walk-in appointments at certain times of the day can help you better meet your bottom line.
While your practice doesn’t have to do everything, considering where your strong-suits are can definitely help steer your healthcare facility in the right direction. That’s one of the best healthcare marketing tips when it comes to doing your best work.
Do you have a specialization?
There are countless general practitioners out there, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, specializing in a certain aspect of health can allow you to capitalize on a segment of the market. If you’re one of the only specialists in your area, that means you could have a monopoly in helping the folks that need you the most.
Common specializations include sports care, dermatology, gastroenterology, and more. Of course, you might need special training to call yourself a dermatologist along with being a medical doctor. But even specializing in a certain demographic’s needs can make all the difference in your area.
For example, seniors often need more hands-on care compared to other demographics. As such, offering medical services aimed at seniors can focus your abilities and allow your practice to become the best of the best. If you focus solely on seniors, you can also partner with other long term care facilities to ensure that the seniors — and their families — have less to worry about when their health starts to decline.
Other healthcare facilities can benefit from targeting segments of a population that isn’t necessarily connected to their age. Establishing a medical weight loss center, for example, can help overweight folks that want to lead a healthier lifestyle. While this isn’t the best idea if you live in a young, healthy town, establishing a practice in an area that has a diverse population with varying needs can allow you to capitalize on this niche.
Again, you don’t need to have a specialization to stand out. Sometimes, offering great services, sprucing up your space with a forklift rental for the heavy lifting, and connecting with your community can make all the difference. But if there’s an aspect to your care that makes you stand out from the rest, healthcare marketing tips demand that you use this to your advantage.
Partner with local businesses
Partnering with other local businesses can make a world of a difference when it comes to getting new clients through your door. After all, word of mouth advertising is still one of the best ways to improve your facility’s reputation. When a trusted business claims that your center is good, their customers will be more inclined to believe it.
This is especially beneficial if you partner with similar businesses to yours. While giving your business card to a nearby restaurant can’t hurt, you’ll get more foot traffic by handing out this card to dermatologists, podiatrists (pun very intended), and other healthcare providers in your area. After all, healthcare is the last thing someone wants to think about when they’re going to town on a juicy burger. On the other hand, someone who’s concerned about their foot health might be more willing to hear about that new dermatologist (or whatever your healthcare facility is) that just opened up down the street.
On top of that, partnering with other local businesses gives you the opportunity to better serve your clients. Few people want to think about death so knowing a local funeral service provider in your area can take some of the weight off of your patient’s shoulders. You can also offer the best recommendations for dentists and other medical facilities with specializations as well. Even though healthcare marketing tips readily rely on digital advertising for better foot traffic, nothing beats great customer service. This is all in the name of better serving your patients and establishing trust within your community.
SEO and digital advertising
Now that we’ve unpacked some of the best ways to help your business in person, let’s dive into some of the ways to help it online. After all, the internet isn’t going anywhere and countless people want to be able to see your hours, services, and information online in a neat little package. Before you invest in any SEO services or PPC ads, you need to establish a reliable, fast website.
Going through template-based websites can lead to a slew of problems if you aren’t careful. That’s why investing in a custom website design company can help meet your business’ goals. They will ensure that your website loads quickly and offers the best in information about your company. A fast website that also runs on mobile apps is key when it comes to bringing in new clients; if your website doesn’t load in about three seconds, it’s likely that your potential patient will take their business elsewhere. This is because a slow website often makes a company seem unreliable, though this isn’t always the case.
Once you have a custom website, you can start modifying your on-site text with SEO-based keywords. For example, if you’re opening a healthcare facility in Miami, you’ll want to look for keywords similar to those like, “good doctors in Miami.” SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, encompasses many factors, including your website’s speed, relevant keywords, backlinks from reputable companies, and more. Talking to a digital marketing specialist can make all the difference if you don’t know how to set up your own website.
Building a blog is another great way to create shareable, organic content at virtually no cost to you. Plug in some keywords into an informative blog and post it on your social media pages to see it take off. Your blog won’t always get a big readership, but its SEO value and potential make it a great option for businesses new and old. In fact, healthcare marketing tips claim that over half of marketers see the value in on-site blogs.
Once you have the basic healthcare marketing tips down, you can start engaging in more costly ventures, like PPC advertising and paid ads on other sites. It isn’t always easy to manage your money, so relying on a professional can benefit a company that would rather focus on its main business. In your case, providing the best healthcare to your customers.
Healthcare marketing tips for the modern age
In this day and age, it isn’t always easy to see what healthcare marketing tips will stick and which ones will flop. For now, the best thing you can do is focus on what you do best and rely on consultants to help you figure out the rest. Good luck providing the best in healthcare!
