Take your patient acquisition to the next level with a smart, efficient, and scalable OB/GYN digital marketing strategy. Put yourself in front of your local audience searching for a solution with an optimized website, local SEO, and Google PPC campaign while building a strong positive online reputation.
Today’s consumers are accustomed to researching online before choosing a healthcare provider. Therefore, OB/GYN providers need to show up in front of a solution-seeking patient with the right information and an easy way to book an appointment.
Here’s our blueprint for a scalable digital marketing strategy that allows you to capture existing demand while building a solid reputation to fuel future growth.
Your website is the foundation of your OB/GYN digital marketing strategy because it’s your digital front door. Patients doing research will sooner or later land on your website, whether it’s the home page, a booking landing page, or an informative blog post.
Your website should always prioritize user experience, which means it must be optimized for mobile devices. That’s how people search for information, with 58.26% of all web traffic coming through mobile devices. People use their phones to quickly find providers near their homes or offices and want to be able to make a call quickly. That means your site must be:
Next, focus on elevating your user experience (UX) and improving access. For example, integrate live chatbots or messenger apps so website visitors can ask you questions. Additionally, create multiple ways to connect with you, such as a calendar booking link, CTA buttons, and contact forms.
Your OB/GYN website must provide answers. After all, healthcare in America is a complicated process. Meanwhile, many women still feel awkward talking to family and friends when they need help with gynecological care. Plus, not all patients initially understand what kind of service they need.
Some information patients look for include:
Comprehensive information on your website will build credibility, improve organic visibility for common queries, and encourage patients to book an appointment.
OB/GYN is a local service. Patients prefer to find a credible provider near their home or on their route to work. While some may be willing to travel further for a better provider, in most cases, local SEO is where gynecologists benefit the most.
Start with listing yourself on local business directories and niche-specific platforms. For example, many OB/GYN service providers find Zocdoc a robust platform for patient acquisition.
When choosing directories, prioritize large, trustworthy platforms with built-in scheduling and review collection functionalities because they can help you to develop a positive reputation.
The next major piece in your local OB/GYN patient acquisition strategy is your Google Business Profile (formerly called Google My Business (GMB)) listing. Therefore, it’s important to ensure your profiles have the most recent information, including hours, address, and descriptions.
Ensure that your name, address, and phone number (NAP) is consistent between GBP and all listings.
Additionally, Google has added new attributions to GBP profiles that allow healthcare providers to market themselves to their local audience. For example, your listing shows people what insurance you accept, including Medicare. You can also indicate the languages you use to provide services and create an FAQ regarding the treatment you offer.
You can capture consumers at their decision-making moment by targeting high-intent, solution-aware keywords. Therefore, a geographical keyword strategy is critical to your local visibility.
Some geographical keyword examples:
If you target a specific audience group, incorporate their features into your keyword strategy. For example,
Treat location pages as seriously as your homepage because local consumers often land on the corresponding location page first based on their search query.
Avoid using the same copy across locations. Instead, offer location-specific information following your geographical keyword strategy. For example, provide a description of the doctors at each site, the treatment programs each location specializes in, etc.
Gynecologists need a full-funnel SEO and content strategy that prioritizes capturing BOF conversion-ready patients while also creating helpful content for TOF and MOF queries.
For TOF patients, create educational pieces optimizing for general research keywords, such as “how often do I need to go to the gynecologist” or “how do I maintain reproductive health?” This helps demonstrate the importance of gynecology care and encourages people to seek your services.
For problem-aware MOF patients, focus on explaining your treatment program and why that’s the solution they need. For example: “What are the symptoms of a UTI?” or “How serious is a lump in your breast?” If you struggle with creating content ideas, try to see what questions are being asked on Reddit, Quora, or women’s health Facebook groups.
Finally, create content that communicates your unique selling proposition and shows that you’re the best in the field. This will help you capture BOF patients since they know the solution they need and are now looking for the best provider.
Elevating patient experience should be every gynecologist’s focus. Compared to other healthcare services, OB/GYN relies more on word-of-mouth recommendations from past patients.
Since OB/GYN is an intimate matter, many women feel more comfortable asking their girlfriends for a referral. If your previous patient had a good experience, she would likely talk you up to her fellow ladies.
Similarly, if someone had an unpleasant experience at your practice, you can guarantee she’ll also warn her friends to stay away. Therefore, creating a comfortable, supportive, and respectful patient experience should be your top priority.
OB/GYN healthcare providers rely heavily on positive reputations to fill their patient pipeline. Additionally, reviews are also closely tied to your local SEO and online patient acquisition.
Also, 66.1% of healthcare consumers consider reviews older than 18 months out of date. Therefore, you must invest in review solicitation and long-term reputation management to build a reputation that demonstrates the quality of care you provide.
If you leave review generation up to chance, you’ll likely receive more negative than positive reviews. Dissatisfied patients are much more inclined to leave negative reviews. To generate a high volume of positive reviews, you must develop a repeatable review solicitation process.
The easiest way to start is to ask loyal patients. From there, train your team on review solicitation best practices. Then, you can provide scripts and help them identify the best point in the patient experience to ask.
To truly scale review solicitation, you must invest in a technology like Podim or BirdEye. They integrate with your EHR or CRM and send automated review requests via text or email after an appointment. The messages make the review process easy, and you can send them directly to the review platform you want them to go.
Get more tips for generating positive reviews
Building a positive reputation is only half of the work. The other half lies in online reputation management. To develop a comprehensive reputation management system, start by following these best practices.
Google PPC ads are highly effective for OB/GYN service providers wanting to reach purchase-ready BOF clients in their target areas. With Google PPC ads, gynecologists can target high-intent keywords like “OBGYN near me.”
You need an effective Google Ads account structure to reduce Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and maximize conversion. Otherwise, you’d only be wasting your ad budget. For example, Boston IVF, a national fertility treatment institution, gained a 25% conversion increase with a 27% decrease in CPA after optimizing its Google Ads account structure.
Currently, Google Ads accounts fall onto a spectrum. On one end is the segmented account, which provides more control and works best for larger organizations that designate different spending budgets for each location. On the other end is the consolidated account, which minimizes the number of campaigns and ad groups to maximize impression. Consolidated accounts also work wonders with Google’s AI-powered bidding tool.
OB/GYN providers benefit the most from a hybrid account structure that balances control and automation. That way, the organization can still control each location’s spending while allowing Google’s smart bidding strategy to optimize your spending.
With Google PPC ads, you already have a head start by capturing BOF patients seeking an urgent solution. All that’s left is to follow PPC best practices for healthcare providers so your ads provide a positive user experience and move consumers forward in their patient journey.
Some strategies to implement include
Learn more about PPC strategies for OB/GYN
Once you’ve fully captured BOF leads with Google PPC ads, you can consider leveraging paid social media advertising to tackle the entire funnel. Again, start with conversion ads targeting purchase-ready consumers and incorporate instant experience and call ads to make conversion easy.
After maximizing BOF lead capture, you can move up the funnel to tackle MOF and even TOF consumers. In other words: create content to generate demand. For example, discuss why routine gynecologist visits are important, warning signs to watch for, and women’s healthcare routines.
While educational content focuses less on instant conversion, this full-funnel approach will build a sustainable patient acquisition strategy that continues to move leads forward in your pipeline while building trust with them. That way, when a patient is ready to buy, they naturally come to you.
Learn more about engaging patients with a full-funnel strategy
Every OB/GYN digital marketing strategy must consider how they can glean insight from their data. Data-driven digital marketing is the only way to ensure that you progress in the right direction, as it clarifies how each aspect is performing and allows you to take informed actions.
CLR provides OB/GYN providers with what happens after a campaign generates a lead. Does that lead to a patient? How many additional interactions did it take to reach conversion if it does? If not, where did the lead drop? This information allows providers to make data-driven decisions on digital marketing strategy optimization.
When implementing CLR, start with finding the attribution model that resonates the most with your organizational goals:
Learn more about closed-loop reporting in healthcare marketing
Create a single source of truth by integrating your CRM, EHR, and other marketing systems into one centralized system. Develop interactive, comprehensive, and shareable dashboards so your teams can communicate and collaborate across departments.
Today’s gynecologists need a digital marketing strategy to reach new patients. In the end, your goal is to be present in front of consumers looking for a solution while educating them about why OB/GYN care must be a part of their healthcare routine.
When developing your digital marketing strategy, always keep your patients in mind. Provide an effortless process, an intimate, secure environment, and a respectful, positive experience, and you will fill up your patient pipeline in no time.
Alex Membrillo
The original version of this page was published at: https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/obgyn-marketing-strategy-guide/
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