With 77% of potential patients researching health information online, digital marketing is a vital part of any medical marketing strategy. If the ROI (return on investment) of your medical practice’s marketing is less than satisfactory, you may not be paying enough attention to your digital presence.
Traditional offline marketing, such as flyers, billboards, and TV ads, are no longer as effective as they used to be. As patients are moving to the digital realm, so are the healthcare providers.
Let’s take a closer look at the definition of digital marketing and its importance to the success of your medical practice.
Digital marketing for doctors is a set of tactics that attract, convert, and retain patients on the internet. Since the majority of patients search for medical information and look for doctors online, the virtual realm is the best place to implement your marketing efforts.
A digital marketing strategy for doctors consists of many elements that depend on your marketing goals, budget, and the needs of your target audience. With the right approach to digital marketing, it’s possible to achieve an impressive ROI.
If you already use tried-and-tested offline advertising methods, why do you need digital marketing? Without it, you lose the competitive edge.
When patients need medical information assistance, the majority of them:
While some potential patients may respond to flyers and TV ads, the majority still goes online for more information about your doctors and practice.
Digital marketing is cost-effective because:
You can choose digital marketing strategies that suit a specific budget and achieve a high ROI.
With offline marketing, it can be hard to communicate with your patients outside the clinic. Digital marketing gives you a unique opportunity to speak with your patients, hear their concerns, and explore their pain points.
You can learn more about your target audience and design highly effective personalized offers that bring patients to your doorstep.
Word-of-mouth is a key source of information for patients who are looking for medical services. The majority of people read reviews and listen to opinions before making a choice.
Digital marketing allows you to develop an online reputation by soliciting reviews and ratings in business and medical directories. This helps potential patients form an opinion about your clinic.
Digital medical practice marketing includes several essential elements that allow your team to achieve a high ROI.
Any digital marketing strategy starts with a website. All online marketing efforts revolve around this digital calling card. That’s why it’s imperative to create a functional, aesthetically appealing, and search engine optimization (SEO)-friendly website.
If you are handling protected health information (PHI) through patient reviews, patient portals, live chat, and patient forms, your website must be HIPPA compliant. This includes:
Unfortunately, many content management systems (CMS), including WordPress, aren’t HIPPA-compliant. That’s why you need to review your marketing tools before handling PHI.
The best way to do it is to invest in healthcare marketing technology that offers HIPAA-compliant web hosting, CMS, photo galleries, and e-mail marketing tools.
When a patient enters a query, Google and other search engines use complex algorithms to determine which websites contain the most valuable responses.
Search engine optimization is a strategy that brings your website to the top SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). It involves making your website appealing to both the target audience and search engine crawlers.
To create an effective SEO strategy, you need to:
SEO is an excellent way to bring organic traffic to your website where you can use other tactics to convert visitors into leads.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads are a part of paid advertising strategy. This allows you to bring digital ads to your target audience when they are highly likely to see them.
PPC refers to the pay-per-click payment method, which involves paying for the ad only if the user clicks on it. However, marketers often use it as a broad term to describe paid ads, including
PPC ads are an excellent lead generation tool since they target potential clients based on their needs. This digital tactic is more expensive than organic strategies. However, it usually yields faster results.
Social media marketing (SMM) is a set of tactics that you can use to attract, convert, and retain patients on social media. They include:
The key platforms for medical SMM are Facebook and Instagram. However, the organic reach of posts is currently declining. To reach new prospects, you would need to implement paid marketing options. Today, 79% of marketers pay for advertising on social media.
You may have heard that content is king. When it comes to healthcare marketing, it’s the entire royal family. Content allows you to generate leads, retain patients, and demonstrate your authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
Healthcare content marketing can:
When the internet is available, people who experience symptoms don’t call the doctor immediately. They google. By implementing strong content marketing tactics, you ensure that your website is the first source of information they find.
The most common content types that doctors use include blogs, infographics, videos, and podcasts.
Online reputation management is monitoring and shaping how patients view your practice. With proper reputation management, you can streamline word-of-mouth marketing, build brand awareness, and enhance your clinic’s trustworthiness.
One example of reputation management for doctors involves:
Google reviews aren’t just a ranking factor. They help potential patients choose your clinic over the competition.
E-mail marketing has the highest ROI of all digital marketing tactics. With the right approach, it can reach 4200%.
Once you have a potential patient’s e-mail, you can nurture the lead by sending out personalized offers that address their pain points. Additionally, you can use e-mail marketing to keep existing patients engaged and bring them back to your clinic.
To ensure HIPAA compliance, you need to find a HIPAA-compliant e-mail service provider. Unfortunately, many of them aren’t willing to sign the Business Associate Agreement, which is required for HIPAA compliance.
Healthcare marketing technologies as DoctorLogic’s patient acquisition platform provide HIPAA-complaint e-mail marketing options along with HIPAA-compliant web hosting and website management.
Creating an effective digital marketing strategy can help generate leads, grow your practice, retain patients, and increase revenue. All you need is a team of experts and the right HIPAA-compliant tools.
DoctorLogic is a HIPAA-compliant patient acquisition platform backed by a digital marketing agency for doctors. Thousands of physicians across the country use DoctorLogic to attract and retain patients.
The patient acquisition platform comes with all the tools required to turn visitors into leads, leads into new patients, and new patients into a loyal audience. Meanwhile, DoctorLogic’s agency can handle any aspect of digital marketing from SEO and content marketing to social media and PPC ads.
Find out how it works by requesting a free demo today!