The specific actions and activities you put in place to bolster the growth of your medical practice can make all the difference in your quest for new patient acquisition and the growth of your medical practice. 

Medical marketing was probably not part of your education as a medical doctor, but to grow your medical practice, you need to begin to see your patients as consumers/customers. In essence, you need to inculcate a medical marketing mindset and actions into the running of your medical practice.

The present era is marked by stiff competition where patients are inundated with diverse choices of doctors to choose from. Your target audience researches their choices online and offline before they decide which doctor should handle their health issues. Therefore, your digital strategies should focus on showing potential patients why your medical practice is the most suitable choice. 

The 7  Essential Digital Strategies 

A successful patient acquisition strategy needs to be effective for it to generate leads and convert. These 7 essential digital strategies are result-oriented and easy to follow through if you give it your best shot.

1. Create a Formidable Online Presence. 

This may sound obvious but for its relevance, we need to reiterate the need for your medical practice to establish a strong online presence. Potential patients look up reviews from review sites, visit medical websites and engage with your practice on social media before making their decisions. It is therefore imperative that you solidly meet them at all these points with the relevant information and insights they need.

It then means that to successfully achieve this, you need to know who your audience is. As a matter of necessity, you should be able to know their demographics, psychographics and pain points. Most importantly, know the social media platforms they use more and make your practice easily accessible via these platforms. Armed with this knowledge, you can efficiently provide them with the information and services.

2. Create Valuable Content 

Create highly relevant and educational content that will resonate with your target audience. The values you provide will sway people to visit your medical practice or not. If you are not providing the type of content your potential and existing patients are looking for, your competitors are. 

Ensure that your content, especially the web contents are SEO friendly. Decipher the keywords you want to rank for and that of your competitors, then integrate them into your content. This will help your target audience to easily find you and it will help boost your ranking. 

Infuse downloadable content and informative videos as part of your content marketing strategy. 

3. Highlight Patient  Reviews

Listing your medical practice on review sites is essential to the growth of your practice. There are many such sites, but you need to narrow it down to your field and niche such as WebMD’s Choice Awards, for maximum impact. However, generic ones like Google My Business are absolutely important too. Be sure to Optimize your profile so you can be seen on the first page when potential patients search for you. 

The pattern of usage of these reviews can make or mar your digital marketing strategy. Encourage your existing patients to leave positive reviews on these sites. Sharing these reviews on your website and social media platforms will show potential patients that your practice is trustworthy. This is important because research has shown that a lot of people rely on online reviews to make decisions on who to entrust their health. Negative reviews can bring positive responses if you show empathy and proffer solutions.

Timely response to reviews and questions is crucial, so you may consider using online reputation management tools and software compelling marketing videos 

Create and share compelling videos that will interestingly provide information to your target audience. Videos create strong emotional connections and put a human face to your medical practice. For your videos to be an effective marketing tool, they should be in a simple language that your audience will understand, not filled with medical jargon. 

Your videos should come in the form of – 

• Short welcoming videos that will warmly introduce your potential patients to your practice and staff while creating a strong emotional connection.

• Educational content that will enlighten your audience about your services, and inform them about health issues and how to protect themselves.

• Case studies of your past cases and success stories reiterate your prowess and relevance and build stronger trust. 

• Testimonials and reviews from past patients will be the icing on the cake.

Videos become a more powerful tool for lead generation and conversion when you add a relevant and clear call to action (CTAs). You can share them on your website and social media handles, especially YouTube which fortunately appears in Google searches too. 

4. Create User-Friendly Website

 Websites that are easy to navigate have higher stay times and conversion rates. Internet users are often in a haste with a low attention span. You need to grab their attention from the word go. SA’s slow website is an easy way to lose website visitors. A user-friendly website should also be mobile-friendly since there are currently over 5 billion mobile phone users in the world.

In addition, you should Optimize your website to be SEO-friendly. Target specific top keywords and phrases that are relevant to your medical practice. For instance, if you are a surgeon, your target audience may be looking for keyphrases like ‘surgeon for gallbladder’, and ‘oort h   opaedicsurgeon’. It is also advisable to know the exact keywords your competitors are targeting and incorporate that into your web content also.

5. Seamless scheduling/booking

In a world that lives on the fast lane, no one wants to spend too much time and energy looking for how to reach you.

Your website should include a compelling CTA with a simple form that prospective patients can easily use to reach you. You should also display your phone number prominently should they prefer to give you a call. To further boost accessibility, consider including a chat box that will provide 24 hours patient support. 

6. Run Paid Ads 

Online advertising is powerful because it can target your specific audience when done correctly. Moreover, you don’t need to break the bank to run paid digital ads. You can do it on your budget. 

There are different platforms to run digital paid ads – 

• Google Search Ads: This ad helps you appear at the top of Google search pages/sites for the keywords you want to rank for. In effect, your target audience will see your ad when they search for words related to your practice. 

• Social Media Ads: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube ads are all powerful advertising platforms. However, you need to know where your target audience is and focus your ad campaign on those platforms. 

• Display Ads: These appear on target websites that your target audience visits. They are often in the faces of these potential patients as they navigate the websites. Your display ads can contain video, images, or audio. 

Conclusion

In a digital world, you only have the first few seconds to make an impact. Knowing the essential digital strategies becomes crucial to new patient acquisition. A lot of your target audience is online. You should target them while they are making enquiries on Google, scrolling through Facebook or looking for How-to videos on YouTube. ALWAYS produce the highest quality content, be it video, audio, images or text.