Digital Marketing for Doctors and Healthcare Providers: A Complete Guide

Healthcare professionals must make an effort to promote their services online and generate more patients. If you’re in the same boat, you’re in the right place. We’ll discuss how you can launch a digital marketing strategy to let your target audience know that your medical practice exists and give them a reason to try it out. Let’s begin!

11 Best Tactics for Your Healthcare Marketing Strategy

Grow your medical practice’s online presence for your target audience by following the marketing efforts below.

1. Build a Professional Website For Your Practice

You can set up a practice website and get your digital marketing initiative off the ground in many ways. We suggest you buy a domain name and web hosting to set up your WordPress website. It’s a flexible and customizable content management system (CMS) that allows you to build your online reputation properly.

Since almost everyone uses their phones to search for health information, a fast-loading mobile site paves the way for optimal patient experience. For best results, use a responsive website design for your medical website. Your site’s layout adapts to the visitor’s screen size, so they can easily find what they want and perform your desired action without problems.

Speaking of desired action, your website must contain contact information, like email, phone number, and address. You can feature these details on the header and footer of your site so potential patients can see them and reach out to you much faster. Also, feature a chat widget or a contact page with a form people can fill out if they don’t want to call.

2. Invest in Your Site’s Search Engine Rankings

Search engine optimization (SEO) allows your target patients to find your site pages on search engine results pages (SERPs). Appearing on top of SERPs for your target keywords lets more people see and click on them, resulting in higher website traffic and potential conversions.

First, optimize your site’s on-page factors. Research for keywords your target audience searches for on Google relevant to your healthcare industry. Once you’ve narrowed down your keyword, create high-quality content and pages optimized for each to increase its chances of ranking high on Google search and other search engines.

Next, focus on launching an off-page optimization campaign, which involves acquiring backlinks from authoritative websites. Generating as many links from high-traffic sites in the healthcare practice is a sign that your website is just as trustworthy, leading Google to rank your website higher on search results.

You also need to work on your local SEO, which enables you to appear on local search results for keywords relevant to the locations you serve. Targeting keywords that include your city or state and the phrase “near me” ought to do the trick. You must also sign up for a Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) to appear on the local 3-pack and generate more leads for your medical practice.

3. List Your Medical Practice on Online Directories

Another local off-page ranking factor, online directories help establish your NAP (business name, address, and phone number) that you entered on your Google Business Profile (GBP). By observing NAP consistency, you help Google show your potential patients the most accurate contact details and reach out to you concerning your services.

Search for directories for healthcare providers like yourself on Google and create a profile for each. Examples include Healthgrades, RateMDs, and Vitals. Enter your NAP on the profile, among other information, and save the details. Then list down the sites you signed up for in a sheet. Whenever you update your NAP, you can log in to these accounts to reflect the changes.

If you don’t have the time to do all this, you can sign up for BrightLocal, which will list your medical practice on relevant online directories. It will also identify outdated NAP from directories you’ve signed up for and update them for you.

4. Instantly Get New Patients with PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) lets you launch paid ad campaigns to immediately generate highly targeted traffic to specific pages on your medical site, increasing the likelihood of visitors becoming your clients.

There are many PPC campaign types to choose from for your website. The first is Google ads, where your ad appears on SERPs for your target keyword. The key to a successful campaign ad type is bidding for keywords that people in your location search for, preventing your ad from showing on SERPs for irrelevant search phrases, and optimizing your landing page for the keywords and intent. 

The second type is social media ads. Choose which among the social media platforms you want your ad campaign to appear on (prime choices are Facebook and LinkedIn). Then narrow down the users you want to show your ads to based on the demographics of your target audience.

5. Reach Out to More Prospective Patients with Video Marketing

Video content is a great way to boost patient engagement on your website. Instead of just having text and images appear on your site’s above-the-fold section, you can feature a hero video that showcases your clinic’s location, people in your staff, medical facilities, and others. This gives people a personalized introduction to your practice even if they haven’t met you yet.

You can take your video marketing to another level by creating explainer videos about your medical practice. Explain in a few minutes who you are, what you do, and what problems your expertise solves in the video. By interactively showing people how your services work, they can clearly understand the value you offer and encourage them to try them out.

Finally, publish patient testimonials on your website. After completing an operation or procedure with them, email patients to send you a recording of their positive experience with your services. Or ask them to come over to your clinic so you can record it for them. Use these videos as a way to show the effectiveness of your skills and to attract more people to become your patients.

6. Get More Online Reviews

If people can’t record a video testimonial for you, the next best thing is to ask them to leave a Google review about your services. Also, encourage them to leave their testimonials on review sites like Yelp if that’s more convenient for them. Getting as many positive reviews from current patients enables you to build trust with potential patients and gives them more reason to try out your services.

If you received negative patient reviews, take this as an opportunity for reputation management. Apologize for the trouble your services may have caused and ask them how you can improve the situation. Meet them halfway with their requests and maintain professionalism at all times. Showing this level of customer support can help you potentially win even more patients down the line.

7. Offer Self Appointments on Your Website

The best way to get more patients from your website is by enabling them to set appointments by themselves. Set up booking software and connect it to your calendar. After filling out the appointment form with their details, the app automatically blocks the time the patient chooses in your calendar.

Let visitors know that they can schedule appointments on their own from your site. Include a call-to-action (CTA) button on the header that leads them to the appointment form page after clicking. 

8. Set Up a Patient Referral Program

Ask your previous and current patients to spread positive word-of-mouth and referrals to their families and colleagues. You can start by printing referral cards containing your office information and handing them to patients after a procedure. When they initiate a referral, thank them or give them a small token of appreciation for thinking about your business.

To take your referral marketing to a whole new level, hire a physician relations representative. This person can bring in referrals from general practitioners to your practice, so you don’t have to do the heavy lifting. The representative can also connect you with local physicians and medical professionals to grow your network, if not generate even more referrals.

9. Educate Your Patients With Educational Content Marketing

Another way to establish trust and increase brand awareness with your target audience is to showcase your medical expertise online via content marketing. First, publish blog posts optimized for keywords asking for advice about your specialty. Also, consider launching a YouTube channel sharing medical advice with a style and tone that resonates with your target audience.

Give the content you’ve created on social media a boost by sharing them on social media. You can also launch email marketing campaigns to engage your audience and gradually turn them from leads into clients. By promoting your knowledge in your medical field to as many channels as possible, you establish your authority in the practice, allowing you to attract more patients.

10. Begin Marketing on Social Media

We’ve touched upon social media multiple times above, but we’ve barely scratched the surface as to what this channel can truly do to market your medical practice. Social media marketing lets you build a following and engage with them through highly strategic posts. But first, you decide which social media platforms to use where you can find most of your target audience.

Aside from promoting your latest blog posts and videos, you can ask users questions, answer queries related to your practice, and share medical tips and advice. You can schedule these posts in advance using a scheduling tool. This frees up your time to monitor the results and make the necessary tweaks to improve the engagement of your future posts.

You can also monitor your brand sentiment on social media. Search for your name and see what users say about you. Engage with all of them by thanking the positive posts and learning from the constructive criticisms they have about your practice. 

11. Keep Measuring Your Marketing Results And Iterate 

What makes digital marketing ideal for medical professionals like yourself is its scalability. After concluding a campaign or even while it’s ongoing, you can see its performance and make changes for your next campaign or on the fly if necessary. 

Marketing tools like Google Analytics let you check which pages received the most traffic and whether you’ve made your conversion goals. On the other hand, Google Search Console helps you identify your site’s SEO performance and if your most current plan increased organic traffic.

Use the information these tools provide to inform the next moves for your marketing strategy. Your goal is always to achieve better results than your previous campaign, so make the most of the data the tools provide.

Let us Run a Marketing Campaign For Your Medical Practice

If you don’t have the time or skills to implement any doctor marketing tactics outlined above, let On The Map Marketing do them for you. Our online marketing agency has the expertise and experience to help healthcare professionals acquire as many leads and patients from the marketing campaigns we launch for them.

Contact us so we can prepare a doctor marketing plan for your medical practice. We’ll also offer a free audit to medical practitioners if we have a mutual fit.