Healthcare Marketing Checklist: Does Your Practice Check All the Boxes?

Marketing your healthcare business online can be an imposing project, from putting together a marketing plan, to understanding how to maneuver through the ever-changing marketing channels, to keeping your patient acquisition cost low while maintaining steady growth. It’s hard to know how to proceed. The following healthcare marketing checklist can help you through the creation and implementation process of your marketing strategy by identifying changes you want to make as well as different tactics you want to pursue to construct a well-executed, data-driven plan.

Send automated review requests.

When finding a new doctor, 71% of medical consumers look to reviews as their first step. Consumers make significant healthcare decisions based on reviews written by previous patients. Considering the impact online reviews can have on your business, it’s vital that you generate reviews to help it grow. An automated review request is an ideal tool to get reviews for healthcare providers. The personalized request is sent to the patient within 24 hours of their appointment and can be completed in less than one minute. The request process is simple, benefitting both the doctor and patient, and you should begin seeing a higher star rating right away.  

Optimize your Google Business Profiles (GBPs).

When a patient uses Google search to find a healthcare provider, they are presented with the top three GBPs (formerly Google My Business listings) that match their search criteria. To consistently get your healthcare business to show up in the local 3-pack of listings, you need to optimize your profiles using a variety of techniques such as listing your services, creating Google posts, building your reviews, and using photos. A fully optimized profile fine-tunes your online visibility.

Use Google posts to improve your organic ranking.

Another approach to increasing your ability to get listed in Google’s 3-pack is adding Google posts to your listings. A Google post is an optional element on your GBP and shows up as a thumbnail preview box when someone conducts a search. The short post often gives updates of special events, reports notifications, specifies doctor specialties, and can contain photos of the office. The posts help keep prospective patients informed, and they have the added bonus of being searched and indexed by Google.

Set up call trackers. 

The effectiveness of a digital healthcare marketing campaign is determined by collecting objective data. One way of collecting that data is through call trackers. With call trackers you can measure which marketing efforts result in the most new appointments. This is done by assigning unique phone numbers to various campaigns or locations. Then when a patient calls that number, it is easily determined if they got the number from your GBP, your website, a billboard, or any other campaign you implemented, and you can adjust your campaigns accordingly. Data-driven decisions are key to creating a successful medical marketing strategy.

Protect your brand with ads.

Purchasing a brand-specific ad is a cost effective way to advertise, since you own your own brand. In addition to the 3-pack of GBP listings, Google presents paid ads and organic search results—with the ads at the top. Consumers are forced to scroll down past the ads to find your establishment. Setting up brand ads ensures that your healthcare institution shows up at the top of results when a patient searches specifically for your practice or one of your doctors. (Did you know that if another practice uses the name of your business as a keyword, they can show up on top of results if you don’t have a brand ad in place?)  

Find high-value patients with predictive analytics.

Predictive analytics tools allow healthcare businesses to identify prospective patients by using data collected online. The data, collected from searches, uncovers important consumer behavior that helps identify patients who may need a particular type of doctor, procedure, or product. Additionally, predictive tools can identify patients with the type of health insurance that best suits your needs. Equipped with this knowledge, you can target consumers with digital healthcare marketing campaigns that translate into high-value patients best suited for your practice.

Set up general search ads. 

To bring in new patients, many healthcare businesses use general search ads. However, navigating the digital medical marketing arena can be complex without guidance on how to construct the ads. Several essential elements contribute to a successful ad such as using patient analytics, demographic data, and correct search terms. General search ads, when constructed thoughtfully, can increase traffic to your web site and boost revenue.  

Use display ads in Google, Facebook, and Instagram.

Did you know that more than 80% of adults in the United States use at least one social media site? To capture their attention, connect with your audience, and grow your business, your healthcare practice needs to be on social media—the place where consumers spend a lot of their time. Posting ads on media platforms like Facebook and Instagram helps build your brand and gets your name and message in front of thousands of potential new patients.

Calculate your patient acquisition cost.

Knowing your patient acquisition cost is one of the most valuable metrics in medical marketing. That metric will help you pinpoint where to invest your time and money. All you need to know to make that calculation is how much you spent on a specific campaign and how many new patients were brought in from that campaign (see the section on call trackers) Understanding your patient acquisition cost gives you the ability to make future digital marketing decisions based on facts, not speculation, and to keep up with the ever changing online environment.

Use your ROI to make data-based decisions.

Calculating your return on investment (ROI) and understanding the profitability of your company is an integral part of any marketing effort and helps you run an efficient healthcare business. Your ROI is calculated by dividing the net profit by the marketing spend then multiplying that by 100. Knowing your ROI, in combination with understanding your patient acquisition cost, allows you to make decisions based on data and to aim your marketing efforts directly at increasing revenue. 

SocialClimb can elevate your business. 

SocialClimb skillfully helps you grow your healthcare business by assisting you in implementing the data-driven marketing tactics explained in our healthcare marketing checklist. We understand the marketing headaches that come with a healthcare practice, and our HIPAA-compliant platform helps you manage and track your digital marketing campaigns and know your PAC and ROI. 

If you’re ready to improve your marketing efforts, let the professionals at SocialClimb help you move in the right direction. Set up a 15-minute conversation with one of our specialists today.