Digital Marketing Tips for the Healthcare Industry

In the highly competitive and vital field of healthcare, acquiring new patients is an ongoing challenge for any practice. Potential patients yearn to be more knowledgeable than ever – using digital devices to research medical questions, reading and writing reviews on service recommendations, and finding the best practice for them prior to even stepping into a medical office. Due to this demand for information, healthcare providers need to ensure their digital presence is easy to find and instantly recognizable. Implementing the best digital marketing tactics can help you surpass the competition, enhance visibility, and drive increased patient acquisition. From our proven success in advertising for our healthcare clients, AVX Digital recommends the following 6 best digital marketing practices to produce a positive return on investment (ROI).

Top 6 Best Digital Marketing Practices for Healthcare

1. Develop a Clear Brand Vision

Regardless of the industry, every company or organization should have a clear, yet functional brand voice. Branding represents what the company is, what it does, and why it stands out from the competition. When implemented consistently, branding can reinforce recognition, display a cohesive strategy across all initiatives, and market a digitally innovative organization.

2. Create a Fully Functioning Website

Users who are researching anything relevant to healthcare should be able to easily find your business and access your website. A website is commonly the first initial exposure a visitor has to a company – it’s a great way to express your values and vision. Furthermore, a functional website goes beyond its aesthetics. A professional website with informative content, complemented by consistent branding, is the perfect recipe to build trust with visitors.

AVX Digital has an accomplished team of web developers who can enhance the look and feel of a website, as well as optimize technical attributes like site speed. Ensuring that visitors can easily navigate throughout the site and find all of the answers to their questions allows the site to establish a positive impression of the organization – a vital step in the client acquisition process.

3. Expand Your Digital Presence Beyond One Channel

An important consideration throughout all marketing efforts is to be where your audience is – in an age where mobile devices become more important every day, users can interact with your brand through a variety of screens and marketing channels. An omni-channel approach is valuable because it provides a clear and consistent brand vision across every touchpoint. This can include social media platforms, paid advertising campaigns, organic search and more. While having an exceptional website is a great asset and the foundation of any digital presence, activity on a variety of digital channels can increase brand exposure to potential patients and enhance engagement as well. Additional channels can expand a brand’s digital footprint by directing visitors to the website for more opportunities to gain new patients.

4. Implement SEO Tactics

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a wide-ranging discipline that can identify weak points on a website and implement best practices – whether visible or behind-the-scenes – to appear higher in search engines. Utilizing a variety of SEO methods can have a positive influence on a website’s organic positioning on search engine result pages (SERPs), effectively boosting visibility to relevant users and generating more traffic to the site. Beyond SERPs, SEO can also ensure all of your online local listings have your most recent address and contact information. Google My Business, Yelp, and more are important sites to attract patients based on the location they’re searching in. These search engine optimization techniques can provide easy and seamless access for patients to get in contact with you and can lead to higher client acquisition.

5. Utilize Paid Media Efforts

SEO is a core component for any digital marketing strategy, but is often complemented by Paid Media Advertising. Through the advanced targeting mechanisms that are available, paid media allows practices to grow patient base at an effective cost. With these intelligent data tools, marketers can direct specific campaigns towards the right people at the right time.

PPC Advertising

One channel is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising, which can have one of the most effective approaches for any healthcare professional. This method allows businesses to display a paid advertisement at the top of search results pages for specific keywords. Marketers can help identify the most effective keywords relating to their business, and attract potential customers with custom-written ads. These highly-tailored campaigns promote increased site traffic from visitors with a higher probability of becoming a new patient.

Social Media Advertising

Whether on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or a variety of other networks, social media is a reliably popular way to communicate in the 21st century. Advertisers are capitalizing on this trend with marketing campaigns that target interested new customers with high specificity. Many platforms have the capability of creating business profiles that allow specific posts to be promoted to reach a larger audience. This is an opportunity to share informative content about the industry and engage with potential or previous patients while encouraging retention. A great feature of this platform is the ability for users to share your content to their network as well.

Programmatic Advertising

Lastly, programmatic advertising can be a great opportunity for the healthcare industry to expand their visibility and reach. Connected TV (Roku, Hulu, etc.), Display, and Native Advertising are able to drive positive patient acquisition due to strategic ad placement on industry-related content. Similar to PPC and Social Media, innovative targeting mechanisms can analyze where preferred audiences are and direct ads through those channels. Digital and Native advertisements can be displayed on third party sites that are trustworthy and relevant to healthcare. Connected TV is a new channel that can direct ads and commercials on video streaming platforms, while still positioning ads based on where the best users are.

6. Content Creation

Regardless of the platform, you are utilizing to market towards potential patients, creating content that is visually appealing and informative can be the difference between you and other competitors in the industry.

Blogs

Blogs are a great way to create content that is timely, educational, and can empower a user to take the desired action to become a patient.

Social Media

A more direct platform that enables companies to be more engaging with users is Social Media. Posts on social media can be easily shared through a user’s networks, increase audience reach, and promote actions like directing them to the website.

Email Marketing

Once someone fills out a contact form or calls a medical practice, they are not necessarily a patient yet. Email marketing can allow advertisers to stay in touch with previous customers, and follow up with new leads to ensure they become patients.

Enhance Your Digital Footprint

Healthcare is a competitive industry with a variety of options for patients to choose from. The best methods in digital marketing can promote both short term and long term positive growth for medical practices. Healthcare businesses can utilize digital marketing to enhance their digital footprint, engage with the public, and establish trust with informative content.

AVX Digital has many years of experience building patient leads and supporting ROI-driven growth in the healthcare industry. Our experts can help any medical center or healthcare professional find which marketing tools are best suited for them. If you would like to learn more, get in contact with AVX Digital today!