Did you ever stop to think about everything that goes on in digital spaces now? It’s mind-boggling even at a glance. In fact, live statistics show that there are more than 5 billion people online right now.
And when it comes to healthcare, Google searches for health-related topics make up 5% of all online searches. We all know how helpful Dr. Google is at diagnosing potential illnesses, right? (eye roll) We likely agree that patients should leave the diagnosis to a health professional.
As a health care provider, you want to be where your potential patients are searching- online. That’s why digital health care marketing can help your practice become one of the top results in such searches and help you see more patients.
Three ways digital health care marketing can boost your brand
As a whole, digital marketing has many goals, but one of the most important of these goals is bring in more patient visits. How can digital health care marketing increase your patient appointments? Here are three answers a digital marketing professional may give:
Optimize your website content
Think about how much time you spend in front of the mirror tweaking your appearance before a first date. That’s similar to what digital marketing pros (called content marketers) are doing when they’re optimizing the content on your website. The content may include pages on your website or blog that are meant to attract your potential clients or patients. Content marketers aim to improve your content’s appeal to search engines by ensuring that the content is valuable to your potential patients.
- Does your website or blog content answer the questions patients asked when they searched?
- Is the content trustworthy with valid sources or backlinks?
- Is it easy to understand and visually appealing with images, graphics and formatting?
All of these questions are answered through search engine optimization, or SEO.
How valuable can improving your content’s search engine optimization (SEO) be? One marketing survey reports that 70% of respondents said SEO is better than pay-per-click (PPC) ads for generating sales.
Gain positive press or avoid negative media attention
Strategic communication is a term many people who aren’t in public relations or marketing might not have heard. Some might say this term is synonymous with a press release. However, strategic communications are much more than that. These communications can also take many forms. Of course, strategic communications can be a press release or announcement. They may also include a regular blog series by your practice’s CEO, a creatively designed fact sheet, bio or video. Strategic communications can also include employee communications, awards nominations, and crisis communication.
Here are some examples of how strategic communications might help your practice:
- Is your practice creating innovative treatments or helping a population that hasn’t previously been served? Media outlets are looking for positive, feel-good stories to serve their audience to combat all the negative news. Posting these stories on your website and social media will make the content more visible to the public.
- Has one of your provider been nominated for an award? Highlight positive news with press releases or social media posts.
- Have you received negative reviews or press due to an incident that was out of your control? Responding to reviews in a positive and timely manner can put potential patient’s minds at ease. Official responses can also help to avoid negative press, instead of a “no comment.”
Strategic communications are an important digital marketing tool for any business. Their goal is to help keep people informed about your company and its products or services. And this transparency can be important to your current and potential customers. A marketing study found that 94% of customers are likely to show loyalty to a brand that offers complete transparency.
Grow your audience on social media
I would bet that you’ve looked at one of your social media accounts today. Studies show that 59% or more of us check our Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook accounts daily. Health care businesses and practices can take advantage of this habit by creating targeted social media ads. Digital marketing for healthcare can be challenging because most online platforms prevent marketers from targeting audiences based on their health conditions. Experienced social media marketers understand the regulations and can help to create vibrant and engaging posts and ads for your social media platforms.
Social media marketing can help you stand out from the more than 8 million active advertisers on Facebook and other social media platforms.
Heart & Hustle can help you find effective digital health care marketing solutions.
Heart & Hustle Brands has helped many healthcare-related businesses, and I’m very proud of that. I truly believe that healthcare should be more accessible and transparent. That’s why I’m excited to help new health care businesses supercharge their brand so they can get their message out there and help more people.
Keen to learn more about the digital health care marketing services I offer? Let’s talk.
About the Author
Stacey Harrison is the lead brand strategist and designer at Heart & Hustle Brands and has provided creative direction for healthcare, industrial, and financial services brands for 20 years. She started Harrison Creative Group in 2017 to serve businesses that need a professional brand image on a budget. In 2021, the company rebranded to Heart & Hustle Brands to walk in the shoes of clients that experience a change of name or brand refresh.
