As a Doctor or a medical practitioner, your sole obligation is to offer the best healthcare service possible to your patients. However, with the ever-changing world and medicine being a service-oriented profession, doctors need to embrace digital marketing, in addition to their healthcare obligation. Setting up a website with information about your practice, location, and contact details isn’t enough to place you above your completion. It’s not enough to get patients flocking through your front door. Setting up a website is, in fact, the minimum requirement when it comes to medical marketing.
Digital marketing and advertising for doctors isn’t a simple task either. It’s confusing and somewhat complicated. On one side, the medical profession runs by rules, ethics, and regulations. On the other hand, the internet harbors a lot of wrong information on medical research, diseases, and misconceptions that are spreading everywhere. In the modern age, doctors need to take center stage online and assume their responsibility as trusted healthcare professionals, as well as a source of credible medical information online, by building credibility.
Importance of Digital Marketing for Doctors
Does digital marketing for doctors mean your dentist will post the snapshots of your misaligned teeth on their Facebook page to show recovery? Or does it mean an orthopedic will share videos of their patient’s knee injury recovery on Snapchat? Not really. Digital marketing for doctors works to connect them to their target audience.
With more and more people using the internet every day, digital marketing is far more effective than conventional offline alternatives. While digital marketing aims to connect a target audience through digital means, it can use different approaches such as email marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, pay per click advertising, among others. By using these tools, or a combination of the same, doctors have the capability of establishing an effective digital marketing strategy.
Digital Marketing Strategies for Doctors and Medical Professionals
According to marketing surveys, only 4% of medical professionals in the U.S make use of digital marketing strategies to create awareness of their practices. There’s no shortage of doctors in the U.S, they are all over and spread evenly throughout the country, but the biggest problem is the patients don’t know where they are or how to reach them. For doctors to effectively create awareness and build credibility, an online presence is necessary.
Social Media Marketing
Don’t underestimate the power of social media. Just like your patient’s inner circle of friends and family can get you referrals, social media offers a community to which doctors who make a good impression can get recommendations. The only difference is social media breaks boundaries and can reach an unlimited number of people throughout the globe.
Write Blogs and Optimize your content
Blogs play an essential role in any website. They keep your audience engaged. Routinely posting blogs will significantly boost your volume of patients through page visits increasing the conversion rates. Just make sure you write content that your readers will want to share. Blogs also offer a platform doctors can share a recent experience with patients as well as medical breakthroughs.
Hire a Digital Marketing Company
Contracting an SEO company to optimize your content and make your practice more searchable on search engines will significantly improve your patient volumes. Just like hiring a social influencer or getting a company to help your brand and build credibility online. Hiring a digital marketing company to enhance your image online doesn’t come cheap, but it’s advantages in terms of patient volumes, practice credibility, and online presence are worth the buck
Bottom Line
Let’s face it. You won’t make much success hanging billboards or handing fliers to shoppers at your local convenience store. Running a successful practice still demands a good reputation, but, what is a good reputation when no one knows about it? In the current digital world, growing your medical practice demands building your image, expertise, and brand around your online presence.
