While the healthcare industry is one of the highest grossing industry globally, it is yet to fully utilize its digital marketing potential. This is due to a lack of understanding of the value proposition offered by digital marketing. Digital marketing in healthcare can be used to drive traffic to your website, build reputation, boost credibility, and showcase your medical expertise. Using these digital marketing techniques doctors can reach their target audience and expand their practice. Therefore, healthcare organizations can invest in a healthcare digital marketing agency to drive more traffic, showcase their services to the digital world, grow beyond their locality, and generate more sales and revenue.
Consumers are now using the internet to look for information regarding health issues. According to Google Health Vice President David Feinberg, MD, as The Telegraph reports, an estimated 7 percent of Google’s daily searches are health-related and Google’s total daily health-related searches amount to 70,000 each minute. Similarly, majority of the patients book their appointments online, leave reviews online etc.
How digital marketing helps healthcare organizations
Digital marketing helps you to track your potential patient’s buying behavior, tastes and preferences, and thereby provide better customer experience.
Digital marketing lets you engage your potential patients with your informative content.
Digital marketing allows healthcare organizations to segment campaigns to target local, suburban and urban areas that makes it easier for the target audience to reach you.
The use of mobile phones is rising rapidly every year and mobile phones create a new and improved way for healthcare businesses to meet consumers online.
Using email marketing and social media marketing, healthcare organizations can connect with the potential patients.
Tips to boost your sales with digital marketing
Get more potential patients with content marketing: Majority of the visitors comes from the web search, and Google gets many queries that are related to healthcare. So, providing wellness or healthcare related information that people are looking for can bring more patients to the website. Content marketing is a popular digital marketing strategy, especially for the healthcare industry. As per CMI 2019 B2B Content Marketing report, 62% of B2B marketers say they have been more successful with content marketing. High quality content along with the proper marketing strategy can get more potential patients to your content and to your website. So, invest time and resources in developing blogs, case studies or any other form of content that will let your potential patients know about the services that you offer and your expertise.
Know your customers: Developing a deep understanding of healthcare consumers is essential for any healthcare organization. Adapt to customer needs to stay successful and provide great healthcare services or products. Healthcare clients are different from other customers. So, understand and give them what they are looking for so you can grab their attention. This helps to build trust in your potential patients.
Understand buyer’s organizational chart: This point is applicable for healthcare businesses such as pharmaceutical companies. Small clinics often have a single decision maker who decides to buy any product. But for big hospitals, you will have a buying group or a purchasing department. Take time to map out how each client makes their purchase and identify everybody involved in the process. Each and every client in healthcare has a different purchasing style. Get their purchasing information with contacts and networking within the organization as much as possible, and this helps to expand your influence.
Focus on your clients: Serving your customers is the good rule of thumb for any business. Make sure to improve your relationship with your clients in the long run. It is important that you learn how to effectively communicate with each of these individuals. Think about what to provide to ensure that they receive better, quicker, or more cost-effective care. If you want to become a better salesperson for your company and your clients, you need to write a convincing narrative about your company, as well.
Implement social media marketing: One of the best ways to promote your business is through social media platforms. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are very popular and almost everyone has more than one social media account. Post consistently on social media to connect with the patients. The patients can also leave their reviews on social media. Social media marketing can help you thrive as a healthcare entity and be on the top of your sales game at all times.
Choose Account-based Approach: Account-based approach helps you in increasing the number of your sales. This approach focuses on identifying the most influential players in the organization and communicating with them from a position of authority and expertise. Salespeople need more information and resources to help them engage prospects at critical moments in their buying process. Account-based selling is a proven strategy for gaining access to key decision makers within an organization so that you can reach your customers when they are ready to buy.
Use AI and Big data analytics: Big data analytics in medicine and healthcare integrates analysis of several scientific areas such as bioinformatics, medical imaging, sensor informatics, medical informatics, and health informatics. It helps to improve the quality of care and increases the accuracy of patient diagnosis. Data from various sources is integrated to analyze the current state of health care. Similarly, AI has the ability to gather patient insights, leading to predictive analysis. Getting patient insights helps the healthcare ecosystem discover key areas of patient care that require improvement.
Digital marketing provides you with a wide array of options for promoting and advertising your healthcare practice or business in a very modern way. Healthcare digital marketing is much more than just having a website, it is about having the right mix of digital channels that can enable you to connect with your customers. Using the right digital marketing strategies with the help of a medical SEO company, you can easily reach millions of people around the world, get more customers, and generate more sales and revenue.
Need help with search engine optimization, content writing services, and web design services? Our team at MedResponsive can help!
Call us at (800) 941-5527 and schedule a FREE consultation with our Senior Solutions Manager.
PPC or Pay-per-Click advertising is one of the top ways to advertise plastic surgery practices online. Partnering with a reliable medical SEO company can help plastic surgeons implement effective strategies to reach their target audience and attract new clients. Paid search ads appear when people search for things online using a search engine – like Google, Bing, Yahoo Search Marketing, and so on. Digital marketers can help plastic surgeons to launch PPC ad campaigns across social media platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. PPC ads will promote your website and provide a multitude of data that can be used to refine and retarget your paid search ads.
The internet is the medium for healthcare practices to reach out to a large number of potential patients/healthcare consumers, and having a strong online presence has become more important than ever in this present digital world. Today, just having an optimized medical website is not enough to attract potential patients to the website. To help patients find your medical practice or healthcare business online, it is important to claim your medical practice on Google My Business listing (GMB). Getting listed on Google’s My Business listing increases your chances of improving your website ranking. So, associate with a professional medical SEO service to optimize your GMB profile and help potential patients find your medical practice.
My Business listing is Google’s free tool that helps medical businesses create and manage their online presence with Google listing which appears when a potential patient finds your medical business on Google Search or Google Maps. It provides key business information like your registered medical business name, logo, full address, open hours and contact details. Even though there are several other online local directories like Bing Map and Apple Map, Google My Business (GMB) is the most popular tool that is responsible for driving 80% of local targeted traffic to neighborhood businesses. Google My Business gives your business the opportunity to appear as top listing in local search and it also shows in the form of a map showing your business location and basic information along with three other providers. According to Google, having a full profile on GMB gets 5 times more views than those businesses that do not have a profile.
How to optimize Google My Business Profile
Having a consistent NAP and URL: NAP refers to name, address and phone number and it is important to provide a consistent name, address and phone number in your GMB profile as well as website. If Google finds any inconsistency in your NAP, then it can lower your ranking and it can be confusing for potential patients too. Similarly, your website’s URL should be listed in your GMB profile and if you have multiple URLs then you can mention that too, provided there is consistency in the URLs. Inconsistent URLs are regarded as untrustworthy in the eyes of Google.
Claim your business: If you own a physical business location, then the first thing you need is to claim your Google My Business listing. This will help patients find your medical practice easily when they search online. Claiming your medical business listing and providing correct location and contact information will help patients find your business on search engines easily.
List your services: Mention the service that you offer in your GMB listing and this will help you stand out from the competition. Make sure to include search phrases in your list of service so that it easier for your potential patients to find you.
Use photos and videos: Include high resolution images and videos of your doctors, support staffs, facilities and building so that your prospective patients can see how your practice looks like. Appealing videos and images may help prospective patients feel more confident about choosing you and what to expect. According to Google, listings that have a virtual tour and photos generate twice as much interest as those without these features.
Select your category: Google allows you to choose your category so that it helps you appear in search results when a user searches for the specific category. You can choose more than one category but make sure to avoid choosing plurals of categories.
Include your working hours: It is important to mention your working hours in your GMB profile so that patients will know when to approach for any treatment. Make sure that you post your updated timings if there is any change.
Write about your clinic: Write a small section about your practice on your page with one or two keywords. This will give your prospective users an idea about what to expect from your practice.
Multiple locations: If you have more than one practice in multiple locations, then make sure to have a separate GMB listing. The practice name and category at each should be the same but ensure that contact details and numbers are given correctly.
Keep Updating Your Google My Business Listing
SEO is an ongoing practice and Google My Business is a tool that lets you create a strong online presence. Therefore, being active on Google My Business listing is important, whether you are open or not. If you fail to engage with your GMB profile then it may lead to a fall in publishing tempo and decrease in review volume, which may eventually affect your ranking.
Keeping your profile up-to-date is vital if there are any temporary changes. Suppose you are expanding your services and providing service over the phone, then you can include “telemedicine services” in your listing. Or if there is any change in the visiting hours you can update your profile with the new timings.
If there is no engagement with your GMB listing then Google can add “Temporarily closed” using its Duplex Artificial Intelligence. It helps Google know if businesses have not taken the initiative themselves to indicate a temporary closure. If you don’t have time or are not current on GMB management requirements to keep an eye on your listings, then hire a professional to take care of these requirements. Ensure that you do not make too many edits as it can lead to suspension of your listing.
Provide the Latest Information and Help People Stay at Home During COVID-19
Many businesses may be closed due to the spread of coronavirus and it is important to let your customers know how it affects your business by managing your Google My Business correctly. So, always keep your profile updated about the adjusted working hours. Some other updates that you have to add to your profile are:
Use attributes to highlight your services
Add a COVID -19 update post to your profile with detailed and timely updates about online services, safety and hygiene practices
Connect with your customers with Google My Business app and turn on messaging
Edit your business description to share information about your medical services
Recommendations of healthcare providers
By providing detailed information and a variety of media through Google My Business, healthcare providers can save people the trouble of visiting their location to acquire that information in person. This also helps promote social distancing and keep people safe by allowing them to stay home during this pandemic.
To keep your Google My Business listing active, make sure that you hire a professional medical SEO company that can review your GMB profile and advise you on whether it is being leveraged properly. They will review your GMB profile and optimize it with the best strategies to improve ranking and traffic.
In today’s dynamic world search engine optimization is changing rapidly and businesses should use is the right medical SEO tools to stay ahead of your competitors. The customer demands and expectations and Google algorithm updates forces businesses to continuously make adjustments to their SEO strategies to survive in the market. SEO is one of the most important ways to gain and keep a competitive advantage. It is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. It generates huge volumes of data like numbers, line graphs, bar graphs, pie graphs, Venn diagrams, percentages, proportions, analyses, analytics etc. This data help businesses understand traffic, customer experience, conversion rate, ranking etc.
SEO has become highly competitive that it no longer relies on standard techniques. So businesses are incorporating data science into SEO data to find more opportunities for businesses to grow and expand.
Following are certain steps for applying data science to your SEO data and transforming it into valuable insights:
Decide your data source: Google analytics and other analytics such as Google Search Console, SemRush, Ahrefs, heatmaps and technical audit tools can be used for search engine optimization. But as SEO gets more complex and integrates with other areas of digital marketing. So, to get better SEO insights you should have current setup and post adoption goals. Focus on areas where your visibility is limited and take the necessary steps.
Data science helps to align SEO with other marketing initiatives: SEO becomes stronger with marketing initiatives. No singe team can optimize all the SEO factors. It needs the cooperation of specialists, developers, UX designers, sales and customer support teams etc to develop and implement a good set of SEO practices. Track the relationship between dependable and independent variables to understand what actions are important for your business. Analyze the following data to know how your SEO impacts other channels.
Conversion and assisted conversion: Assisted conversion helps you identify the channels that don’t directly generate the conversions but play a part in processing. For example, a customer discovers your website through organic search and finds your products and services. Later the customer types in the URL directly to make a purchase, or is converted from a remarketing FB ad.
Top conversion paths: This data will provide more insights about how users interact with your website and other channels before becoming a lead.
Concentrate on stories and not numbers: Picking the right data or tools is not enough, it is important to pay attention to the right metrics. Focus on tracking the metrics directly tied to specific KPIs – such as those reflecting conversions, repeat business, higher customer engagement etc. Make sure that you focus on quantifiable, actionable metrics, not the vanity ones. So look beyond SEO campaign numbers and focus on the results. Insights are not just stories, it explains certain behaviours your customers are exhibiting and their associations with the marketing campaigns.
Data science can be used to visualize: Business leaders may not understand spreadsheets filled with numbers. So data visualization is important and helps you to speed up knowledge discovery, spot common trends and patterns, compare and contrast, digest large amounts of data, and reveal questions that would otherwise be missed. For example, data science can be leveraged during SEO audit to receive many insights about the client’s website and health and performance. The data would show page authority, number of inbound/outbound links per page, rankings and a multitude of other factors. Visualization of data makes your SEO data even more useful and actionable. With data science you can eliminate most of the guesswork.
Google search rankings are clearly a strategic matter. 91% of clicks on the world’s most famous search engine are made on the first page of results. So using data science businesses can optimize their websites for better ranking, sales and revenue. Approach a medical SEO company to optimize your website.
Over the past few years, the Internet and social media have had a great influence on all business segments including healthcare. Both social media and the internet are now being used by businesses to stay connected and communicate with targeted consumers, and to market or buy/sell products or services. Social media marketing plays a crucial part in healthcare digital marketing and healthcare businesses are also aware that social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc are important for reaching out to potential patients and healthcare customers. A good social media strategy helps to reach out to a large number of targeted audiences and boosts your business’s visibility with both existing and new consumers.
In 2016, LinkedIn found that 90% of top-performing sales people use social media as part of their sales strategy. The way of selling your services and products has changed over time. The traditional method of selling has changed to social selling. Social selling refers to making use of your social networks to find the right prospects to build a trusted relationship and achieve your sales goals. It ensures better sales, lead generation, and sales prospects. Social media marketing and social selling are distinct. Social media marketing uses social media channels to attract qualified leads, and they use email marketing and calls to action to transform these leads into clients. Social selling leans more towards conventional sales process, connecting with leads on social networks. Social selling puts the traditional sales process on social media channels and connects with leads on social media platforms. They would comment on their posts on LinkedIn and Twitter or share or retweet them. These interactions act as sales touch points.
Today healthcare businesses are moving towards social selling because a greater number of people use social media. Tools to track social selling helps healthcare marketers keep up with leads and understand what strategies work. The healthcare industry requires social selling due to the following reasons:
Difficult sales cycles selling a complex product
A high level of difficulty identifying the right buyers for your medical device/solution
Businesses that want to begin with social selling can follow some useful steps:
Businesses should have value-driven social networking and they must also know which social media channels are valuable; for B2B companies, LinkedIn is ideal.
Marketers should have built-out pages, posting schedules and followers.
They should post valuable content and not just promo content about their products/services.
You can find groups that have relevant topics and add insights to those. There are many groups active on Facebook and LinkedIn. Find the prominent groups, join those groups and start connecting with them. Posting useful content on these groups will increase the number of followers.
The next step is to connect with prospective clients. You can begin by sending a message in LinkedIn or any other social media channel, which is a polite way to start a conversation. Begin the conversation by providing something useful to the prospect, such as an informative/relevant article. Otherwise, answer a question that a person must have asked. After building a rapport you can start marketing your sales materials.
Just as in conventional marketing, it is important to measure efforts. Most social selling platforms have built-in analytics that will help the marketing team understand what works and what doesn’t. Social selling is a new concept, but businesses are already realizing its significance and those organizations that have implemented social selling already know how useful it is. It is essential to identify the platforms wherein the targeted customers spend most of their time. Your marketing team should be educated regarding what it means to provide real value, be helpful and engage in constructive networking via social media. Social selling also signifies that a business hopes to gain footing as a helpful resource and expert in their particular niche.
Social media plays a crucial role in healthcare digital marketing. Social media marketing is the ideal solution for reaching out to prospects and retaining existing healthcare customers. A Medical SEO company provides effective social media optimization, social media marketing and selling solutions that will ensure your business better online visibility, increased traffic and conversions.
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