Patient acquisition is an important part of any medical marketing strategy. Lacking a clear understanding of how patients flow into your practice is a recipe for decline. If you’re looking to improve your own strategy, this guide will help you work backward, beginning at the end and branching out to the first touchpoints. Here are four ways you can improve your patient acquisition strategy.
1. Upgrade Your Website
Your online presence begins and ends with your website, so this is the best place to start if you’re looking to see a boost in the number of patients coming to your practice. The reason for that is that all of your marketing strategies are driving traffic back to your website. It’s what shows up when people search for you, it’s linked in your local listings, and it’s where people are directed from your social media platforms. All roads lead to your website, so what are patients finding when they get there?
Here are some of the things that can impact how effective it is.
Content
Most likely, people are coming to your website to get information about what you do and how you do it. Are they finding what they’re looking for? You have a secret weapon when it comes to website content: you have access to a lot of information about your patients. You know their pain points, you know the questions they ask, and you know why they’re looking for you. With that in mind, audit your website and decide if it conveys this information. Having a page for every service you offer that includes answers to the most frequently asked questions about your services is a good starting point. From there, starting a blog, creating case studies or testimonials from your patients, and an “About” page that lists your locations and hours is a logical next step.
Conversion Elements
Anything that gives a potential patient a place to contact you is considered a conversion element. These can be forms that people fill out, buttons they click to call you, chat widgets, anything that helps convert a visitor into a patient. If your website doesn’t make it easy for visitors to become patients, it’s not doing its main job.
Security
Website security is important, but most people don’t realize exactly how important it is. Websites that don’t have a secure socket layer (SSL) certificate aren’t able to utilize HTTPS web addresses. Not only does this make them more vulnerable to cyber attacks, it also means that most web browsers will warn users that your site isn’t secure when they visit. On top of that, search engines have openly said that they consider SSL certificates a ranking factor. Having an insecure site is just bad all around.
2. Audit Your Local Search Listings
Local search is just what its name implies: a search for something near you. Plus, even if you aren’t actively promoting your practice through local search, you likely already have automatically generated listings on local search engines. Because they’re generated from whatever information search engines collect across the internet, automatic search listings are often riddled with inaccurate information, and inaccurate information is penalized by search engines. Therefore, spending time correcting inaccuracies can be really beneficial for your local search marketing efforts.
The most important information to get right is called NAP information – which stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. At the bare minimum, make sure this information is accurate across the internet, but to really shine, add as much information as you can. Photos, descriptions, operating hours, your website, and managing your reviews (more on that in a second) will help you stand out from your competitors.
3. Review Your Reviews
The easiest way to figure out what people are saying about a product or service you’re interested in is to read the reviews. You might think reviews aren’t really something you can change, but there are actually several things that search engines look at when they assess your reviews as a ranking factor (oh yeah, they do that).
There are three major factors at play with online reviews:
- How many reviews are there?
- What’s the overall sentiment of the reviews?
- Is the business responding to negative reviews? How quickly?
The easiest way to get more reviews is to request them from your patients. The easiest way to do that is to set up an automated system to request them without any manual effort required on your part.
4. Get Social With Social Media
Perhaps the best way to communicate who you are and what you do is through social media profiles. While operating a business profile is, of course, much different than posting to your own personal pages, social media gives you a chance to connect directly with patients, new and old alike. It’s also a huge market – after all, who do you know who isn’t on social media these days? Picking a platform is important – Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are all popular and effective platforms for practices looking to tap into new markets. Figuring out what to post once you’re there is an art form, but you’ll quickly begin to see which types of posts get the most engagement from your audience. Asking your patients to follow you on social media is a good way to get started.
About Chad Erickson:
As a trusted senior executive and co-owner of MyAdvice, Chad Erickson has been consulting clients on the best marketing strategies for their businesses since 1999. With a focus on both the internal and external aspects of effective marketing, he plays an instrumental role in MyAdvice’s growth, as well as the development of our comprehensive, best-in-class digital marketing platform.
In addition to being an industry leader in digital marketing, Chad understands the complex aspects of owning and running a business. He has a proven record of raising capital, acquiring companies, and developing strategic alliances within the industry. He is also a faculty member for many of the top medical and dental conferences. Visit myadvice.com to learn more about how we can help you with local listings management, reviews and other aspects to your digital marketing campaign.
About MyAdvice:
MyAdvice empowers business professionals to increase revenue through digital marketing. The platform enables hands-on control and visibility into performance, backed by 20+ years of expertise. MyAdvice provides a step-by-step plan for implementing tactics, including websites, local directories, customer reviews, social media, SEO and paid advertising. Learn more about our platform and how it can help your business at myadvice.com.