13 Digital Marketing Strategies for Doctors

13 digital marketing strategies for doctors and healthcare organisations (hospitals) that will draw potential patients

As in many professions, digital marketing for doctors and digital marketing for healthcare organisations matters if they are to win new customers and keep their commercial life going.

Digital marketing and marketing communication activity for doctors and healthcare organisations is among the subjects where you need to be more careful, for both ethical and legal reasons.

In this article we will give information about marketing and digital marketing strategy for doctors and healthcare organisations. This article is a comprehensive guide to how doctors can increase their number of potential patients using digital marketing.

What is in this article?

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1. Create Your Google My Business Page and Be Visible

Create your Google My Business account so you are visible online. If you have a Gmail account you can create it quickly. You can create your account easily by following the instructions.

Once you have created the account it will suggest alternative methods for you to verify it. Verification is done with a code coming by phone or by letter. The verification code sent by letter takes a few weeks to arrive. After that you will be able to manage your account as you wish.

How will your business look once you have created a Google My Business account?

Filling in as much of the information in your Google My Business account details as accurately as possible will make it easier for your customers to gain accurate information about you.

To optimise your business page you need to add the following information:

Category selection: "dentistry", "dentist", "dental practice" and so on.
Phone number
A short piece about you
Opening hours
Address
Reviews and so on.
Posts (posts similar to Facebook posts)

In short, fill in every field completely.

How does your Google My Business profile account look?

You can even create a website in your Google My Business account

See
https://business.google.com/v/_/07528577448265639171/bf84/_?caid=9564130049

2. Improve and Optimise Your Website

According to research, more than 90% of website users judge a business by its website design. More than 38% of users leave a website immediately if the design is not appealing, not engaging and not usable.

The reason users form a prejudice based on your website is that they identify the care you show your website with your work.

Website design and usability therefore matter a great deal. It matters greatly that the website is easy to navigate and that you convey the most relevant information about your services to the user at the same time.

When doctors write content, the content needs to be written in language that is easy for all potential patients to understand. Technical terms should be expressed in plain language as far as possible. Do not use too much medical jargon in your content and prevent it becoming incomprehensible.

Content a doctor's or healthcare organisation's website should hold in order to win new patients

Detailed information about the treatments provided.
Content relating to your department that helps your potential patients protect their health
Information about the doctors working there
Professional photography of the clinic and
The address and phone number being easy to reach,
Online appointments
Thank-you messages,
If possible, an online payment option
Online invoice payment capability
A contact form, messaging, live chat

Basic requirements for a good doctor's or healthcare organisation's website

The website should be fast,
It should be secure (an SSL certificate should be installed)
The domain name should suit your clinic
It must be mobile-friendly
The content you write and your whole website should be structured for SEO, that is, search engine optimisation.

3. Produce Content, Do Content Marketing

You are reading this article right now and you are my potential customer. Even if you are not, one of the dozens of people reading this article could become my new customer. Doctors and healthcare organisations can win new customers by producing useful, informative content for users on their website and other channels.

This step consists fundamentally of two parts.

Producing the content correctly
Spreading it on the right channels

What kinds of subject can you cover?

Information about conditions and treatment
Treatment duration
Accurate information, persuasive content.
New developments in treatment
Recommendations for health

The Main Channels Where Doctors and Healthcare Organisations Can Do Digital Marketing

Website and blog
Social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram
YouTube
LinkedIn
The posts area in your Google My Business account,
Newsletters,
Partner websites (your sponsored content)
Influencers
Email newsletter messages
Spotify podcasts,

You can also read this excellent article to learn the benefits of content marketing.

4. Do Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

It matters a great deal that the content you create is reachable online by your audience — in other words, that it is read by visitors. Content that is not read by its audience is of no benefit to anyone.

When creating content for your website or other channels you should therefore write text that fits SEO criteria and write content around the keywords users search for.

SEO criteria you can apply on your own website

Your website should load fast. It should load in under three seconds.
Be mobile-friendly
Use correctly sized images with completed alt tags
Be a secure site (HTTPS)
Offer quality content
Link to relevant sites in your content.
Add links to your other relevant content
Connect your social media channels.
Share the content you have written with a link.
Request reference links from relevant websites.

5. Build a Bond With Your Followers Through Social Media

There are millions of social media users. Let us therefore not forget that your audience are social media users too. With the right strategy suited to the channel we can make excellent use of social media.

We should position social media not as advertising but as a tool for communication and building a bond.

Some Recommendations for Doctors' and Healthcare Organisations' Social Media Use

Show that you are reachable. Post at regular intervals.
Use good graphics to inform and to post. Graphics are fun and can draw potential patients. You can make use of the Canva tool to produce images.
Categorise your treatments. Share content and videos explaining the treatment processes you carry out. The aim here is to show potential customers how professional you are when handling their cases.
People generally love seeing before and after photographs. Consider this for the treatments where it is possible. Always get written permission and a consent statement from your patient before posting.
In line with the channel's dynamics (Instagram, Twitter), use tags suited to the treatment on the appropriate content.
Produce content that makes positive associations rather than negative ones. What does that mean? Produce content about the happiness and relief after treatment rather than broken, decayed, painful, sad content. Be positive.

What else can we do?

Customer thank-yous
Frequently asked questions about treatment
Make very good use of Instagram highlights.

Photographs of the clinic and your team
Photographs relating to your patients
The small celebrations you hold at the clinic (birthdays, a gift for a patient and so on)
Special offers or discounts (provided they comply with the law)
The training, seminars, trade fairs and online meetings relating to your work that you have attended or given.

6. Give Weight to Video Content and Marketing

Video marketing is among digital marketing's most effective tools. After Google, the largest search engine is YouTube.
Research has revealed that when patients have a problem with their health, 40% go to the doctor after watching a video online.

With a good video marketing strategy, doctors and healthcare organisations can reach their potential patients quickly. They can show how professional and experienced they are with the treatments they provide.

So what can doctors and healthcare organisations produce for video marketing?

Introduce yourself and your organisation: information about your purpose, your facilities, your treatment times, your philosophy. See example content.
Clinic and welcome videos: create video content presenting your clinic and the kind of environment patients will find themselves in when they come.
Patient opinion or review videos: these videos show patients' trust in your expertise while also setting good examples for your potential patients.
Treatment and process videos: content explaining the processes that can answer the questions in the patient's mind,
Educational videos: regular informative content about patients' health,
Live streams: by going live you can engage with your potential patients in real time and answer their questions.
Right and wrong: persuasive, explanatory content about the misconceptions widely believed to be true.
Frequently asked questions: video content about general procedures, anaesthesia, treatment times and frequently asked questions

7. Register Your Profile in Directories

Most patients looking for healthcare use search engines. In search engines, directories listing physicians and doctors come to the fore in the first results.

Register with as many directories as possible, filling in all the information you can. When adding your profile information, write it in line with general SEO rules and, if there is a field for linking to your website, link to your own website. Make an effort to keep your profile information up to date at regular intervals.

Here are a few directory sites you can add

8. Run Google Ads

Doctors and healthcare organisations should consider Google Ads in their digital marketing strategy.

To repeat, by doing SEO work you can rank at the top organically in Google and similar search engines. That work is a long-term strategy. The other way of ranking at the top in search results is advertising on Google Ads.

How does Google Ads work, and what should doctors and healthcare organisations pay attention to when advertising on Google Ads?

Google Ads appear above the organic search results according to the competitive ranking.
Potential patients make search queries with keywords
Your ads appear in the queries matching the words you have chosen.
You can direct a person who clicks your ad to your website or your social media page.

A few tips on what to pay attention to when advertising on Google Ads

Keywords should be relevant to you and your work.
Use your budget effectively by focusing on long-tail terms with less competition.
Use negative keywords to prevent irrelevant clicks. (There is no point in your ad appearing for the query "… university entry scores", for example.)
Limit your ads to the location you are in.
Check the search terms every day and check whether users are reaching you with the queries you wanted.
Make your ad copy fit the search queries. For example:
… write a compelling headline for the teeth whitening query. (See the example image)
Create ad extensions. Be sure to use call extensions in particular, setting them for working hours. Potential patients can then call you with a single tap.
Optimise your ad budget according to conversions.
Test alternative campaigns and ad copy.
Advertise in a way that complies with the law.

Example image of writing ad copy suited to the search query

9. Run Facebook & Instagram Ads

You will have seen that Instagram ads are quite popular among doctors and healthcare organisations. Instagram and Facebook ads work with a slightly different method from the Google Ads type. But both advertising models ultimately let you find more potential patients.

Instagram and Facebook ads let you advertise not with keywords but using users' demographic and behavioural information, getting your promotional content shown in their feeds.

Note: getting support from a specialist on Google Ads and Instagram ads matters for your budgets being managed correctly. If you have no knowledge of advertising and cannot give it time, you may simply spend your money for nothing.

10. Ask Your Patients for Feedback

Your patients are an excellent reference for other patients. Most potential patients read other patients' reviews before getting in touch with you. Reviews and feedback are the best marketing content for doctors and healthcare organisations.

11. Use a CRM System

CRM is customer relationship management. Businesses or individual practitioners make use of CRM software to track customer records and manage workflows.

As the number of your customers rises, tracking them manually becomes quite hard. With a CRM application you understand your customers better and hold the information needed to attend to each of them individually.

12. Get in Touch With Your Patients Regularly

Reminding your patients of yourself at regular intervals strengthens the communication between you. Special days, public holidays, birthdays and post-treatment satisfaction feedback are excellent opportunities for getting in touch.

To get in touch with your patients directly you can use channels such as phone, email and SMS.

You can read this article for detailed information about email marketing and the software you can use.

Reminding your patients of yourself at regular intervals strengthens the communication between you. Special days, public holidays, birthdays and post-treatment satisfaction feedback are excellent opportunities for getting in touch.

13. Get Full-Time or Part-Time Consultancy From Professionals

A digital marketing consultant helps you achieve your marketing goals effectively and cost-efficiently. Doing all of the above yourself may sound appealing, but keeping up with the many emerging trends and new developments can be demanding.

Making use of a professional's knowledge and experience speeds your work up while saving you the time and money that can be lost by getting things wrong. Getting support from a digital marketing specialist also delivers a compact application of all the items we have listed, analysing your needs with an integrated point of view.

You can get in touch to receive consultancy on digital marketing.

For dentists and dental clinics: 12 Digital Marketing Strategies for Dentists. This article focuses on doctors and general healthcare organisations.

13 Digital Marketing Strategies for Doctors