4 Tips for Creating a Healthcare Marketing Plan

Marketing is indispensable for any business, and the healthcare industry is no exception. Regardless of which field of medicine you practice, whether you’re managing a big hospital or running a small practice of your own, having and implementing a solid marketing plan will help you grow. Setting up the strategies to run on their own wherever possible means you won’t have to do things manually – freeing up time for you and your staff to do their jobs. Curious about where to start? Here are 4 strategies that will give you a solid marketing base for your business. 

1. Create a good website. 

What makes a good website? A few things. For one, your website should be responsive, which means it works on any combination of device and browser your prospective patients may use to access it. This is crucial to your practice’s success, because it’s estimated that 77% of consumers will leave a site that is not built to be responsive. Not getting this right means losing out on new patients – and therefore, new business. You can quickly test to see if your site is mobile responsive by viewing it on a desktop and adjusting your browser window to different sizes. If your site is built responsively, it will adjust to any new screen size you set it to. 

Create well-written copy, and then keep it coming. The copy on your website should answer any questions your potential patients might have about the services you provide, as well as provide answers to common questions your patients ask about those services. It should offer ways to get in contact with your practice and make it easy to find your locations, office hours, and social media links. Routinely publishing new copy is a good practice as well, usually in the form of a blog.

Make sure it’s safe and HIPAA-compliant. 

If your website is storing any sensitive patient information, it’s important that you choose and maintain partners that will keep it safe. The hosting partner you choose for your website must be HIPAA compliant as well, to ensure their procedures will keep your patient data safe.

2. Create and maintain local search listings for your business. 

Online search is incredibly important to help new patients find your practice. Creating listings and keeping the information updated will ensure Google has your correct practice information and will increase your chances of appearing in local search results. Doing this by itself isn’t enough, though, because search listings are always subject to change, either by Google updates or by users suggesting changes. The three most important elements of your local listings are known as your NAP info, which is your Name, Address, and Phone number. They need to display the same way across all of your profiles – even a difference of 123 S. Apple St vs 123 South Apple Street can be enough to cause a duplicate profile. Auditing your listings as frequently as possible will help you catch these problems before they create issues.

3. Automate your patient review requests. 

Reviews are an incredibly important part of a marketing and local search strategy. Prospective patients are looking at them to see how you operate – and how you respond to patient complaints. Setting up a system to automate your patient review requests cuts down the amount of manual work you and your front desk staff have to do. Sending an email or text request for a review makes it easy for your patients to leave a review without them having to do much work.

4. Create a social media strategy.

Social media can help improve your business’s visibility like few other marketing channels can. Choose the social media platforms that make the most sense for your specialty (or, start with popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram if you aren’t sure where to start). Post consistently on social media – experiment with different forms of content like your testimonials, before and after content, articles, and your own blog content. Social media allows you to connect directly with your potential patients while giving your practice a personality, but figuring out what that personality sounds like takes a bit of experimentation. Take note of what your audience resonates with and interacts the most with.

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Need help developing your healthcare marketing plan? MyAdvice has been helping practices like yours for more than 20 years! Contact one of our experts for a complimentary consultation.