We get it. This is the worst. You don’t know when this is going to be over and when you can get back to work.
However, this is not the time to bury your head in the sand. Do that, and you will be way behind when things get better.
Now is the time to take the bull by the horns and get the stuff done you have needed to do but never had the time!
We have put together ten things you can do to make the most of this time. If you follow these instructions, you will come out of this stronger, better and ready to take market share from your competition.
Let’s do this!
1. Review Generation
Have your staff go through your last six months or more of visits. Call each patient to check-in and see how they are doing. Once they confirm the patient is happy with your office, ask them if they will give you a review. Google has stopped posting all reviews, for now, to protect small businesses from malicious people who might be frustrated that you are closed or limited your hours. Yelp initiated a similar practice today, and we anticipate that Facebook will follow them. Patients can still post reviews to Google, Facebook, and other platforms, and when the craziness stops, and they have the resources to verify the postings, the positive reviews will be added to your online profile.
Your staff can tell them that reviews are critical to your practice and that you know how busy people get. If they have the time, which they now do, you were hoping they could share their thoughts on your practice with your community. Have your staff offer to send a link to your Facebook page. This way, you do not have a lag in reviews, and you can pick up a lot of great reviews while your competitors are stagnant. You can also use this time to find a procedure-specific testimonial to use on the corresponding procedure page on your website.
- Also, invest the time to respond to your reviews, especially the positive ones! So many practices take patients’ reviews for granted. They have the most enormous referral potential, and Google will notify them when you have commented with a link to it. When you can, responding to reviews also sends strong signals to Google that your GMB has excellent activity and engagement, which inevitably leads to a higher ranking and more new patients.
2. Content Creation
Q&As are great for increasing your Google rankings. It would be best if you had them on every procedure page. Take this opportunity to write at least ten Q&A’s a day. Once you have around 50, you will want to send them to your digital marketing agency along with the page they belong, so they can upload them to your website. Continue to do this every day, and you will create a ton of extremely valuable content for free. Try and write the type of questions patients ask because the way they ask you the questions is the same way they asked Google the questions. Your answers should be exactly what you would say to a patient in your office. That way it is your voice, your philosophy, and your vibe. This unique, original content is exactly what Google wants.
3. Photo Gallery
Now is a great time to create or update your before and after gallery with new B&A photos. Clients always tell me that they wish they had the time to get through their backlog of pictures and edit them for their websites. B&A galleries are highly trafficked and tremendously help conversions. Aside from the homepage, it is the most visited page on every website. If you do not have a B&A gallery on your website, now is a great time to get started.
4. Office Vibe
Now is a great time to enhance the vibe of your office. You want to create a fantastic experience that patients will see, hear, smell, and feel when they walk in your door. I have even seen offices with music in the parking lot. Pick a great playlist on Spotify, place vanilla diffusers all around, add some plants, enhance your lighting. Create a space where as soon as people enter, they feel they are in the “right place.” You want to wrap your prospective patients up in a warm blanket of comfort instantly, so they don’t look anywhere else and spend more money with you!
5. Q&A Videos
Make a list of the top ten questions you get for each procedure you do. Find the right setting, set up a camera or phone, use a good microphone and lighting, and start answering questions. Each Q&A can be a video for you to upload to YouTube and then embed in a video gallery on your website, as well as to post on Facebook, Instagram, etc.
Remember, slow down a little when you speak on camera and that your audience is a potential patient, not another doctor so your vocabulary and explanations should be aligned with the viewer. Let your normal personality come through. By keeping it ‘real’ you will be able to establish a ton of confidence with your prospective patients.
All of the spoken content in YouTube videos is digitized by YouTube for closed-captioning. Those words are then used by YouTube and Google to rank videos in search results. Videos are a great way to get massive amounts of content on the web.
6. Plan Your Social Media Strategy
We have created a video tutorial to help practices understand the psychology of social media for medical patients that also gives you some easy strategies and tactics you can begin implementing right away.
Social media is about consistency and engagement. Google loves to see your consistent posts and the more engaging your posts become, the larger your overall audience. Avoid selling, posting specials, and showing too many testimonials until you have created a connection with your patients.
Everyone is going through the same thing right now and they are spending a ton more time on social media than usual. Use this time to have some fun, connect and be a part of your community’s lives.
7. Email Marketing
Create an email template and start sending out helpful/fun/interesting/funny emails to your patients and clients. Right now, everyone is spending more time than ever on their devices. Your emails are much more likely to get read. Email is a great way to maintain a relationship with your clients and let them know you are real, you are going through the same things they are, and you are here for them. You are reading this, aren’t you?! Set up an email flow to stay in touch now and then, when things normalize a bit, you can send promotions.
8. Specials
Create some fantastic specials customers can lock in now. I mean some crazy prices people can only get by putting down a deposit now, even if they do not use it until the summer. Getting people in the door is critical. When they do come in, you can up-sell them, book their next appointment, or sell products. Posting this type of special on social media is also a great way to capture emails and generate leads. One of our clients did this on Friday, and on Monday, someone booked $4,000 in procedures at her med spa for a date TBD.
9. Virtual Consults
Now, more than ever, is the time to go virtual. People are stuck in their homes! This is a fantastic way to connect with prospective clients. Make sure to put this front-and-center on your website, social media, and emails.
10. Digital Do-Over
Now is an excellent opportunity to up your marketing game. Some practices are going to shrink into the shadows and hope things get better. Others are going to take this opportunity to create a genuinely fantastic web presence. Those that do will gain market share and skyrocket when this mess is over. No one has a crystal ball to know whether that will be in one, four, or six months. However, we will come out of this. Those who use this time to put their practice in the best position will come out of this as winners, and those who hide will lose clients, market share, and their livelihood. Take this time to do a deep dive into how your digital marketing is performing by asking a lot of questions.
-
- Is your website converting at a high level?
- Are you ranking well for at least 500 keywords?
- Is your social media engagement reaching a high percentage of your followers?
- Is it time to switch to a better digital marketing agency?
You are going to make it through this and you are going to come out of this poised to dominate your market!
