Medical Clinic Marketing: A Checklist for Getting New Patients

In this day in age where traditional marketing has become less and less effective the most successful way to market any type of business is through online marketing. This is especially true for the healthcare industry and medical clinics as it has become harder to attract new patients to clinics. Unlike other areas in business there are five p’s to keep in mind when marketing for healthcare
(1) Product
(2) Place
(3) People
(4) Price
(5) and Promotion.
In order to both retain current patients and attract new patients’ healthcare businesses need to increase their online presence and ensure they are effectively communicating their mission to patients looking for a trusted and well-rated medical clinic that they can use long-term. Listed below are eight important steps to take when marketing for your medical clinic:

Build a Website

The first and most important step in marketing your medical clinic online is to build a website. Having a website makes it easier for consumers to find your company and get a better idea of the services your clinic provides and is open 24/7. It serves as a digital hub where all links that are posted or included in email campaigns will lead customers to. It is also essential that your website is mobile-friendly meaning it will be easy to navigate on a smartphone or tablet. Compared to social media, websites make it easy to gather and evaluate consumer data and opportunity to create a personalized user experience. There are various ways to build a website: hire an agency, use a website builder, or build it in-house using the IT department. The most important aspect of a website is effectively communicating your clinic’s services and why consumers should go to your clinic versus your competitors.

Begin a Blog

Once you have a website the next step is to post both engaging and informational content that will attract new customers to your site. This is where clinics should provide more detail about services that are provided at the clinic. A blog also doesn’t need to just include information about the clinic’s services but can include customer and doctor testimonials or general industry information that customers may find interesting. The best way to attract new patients using a blog is to have a blog tab on the company website and a link to the blog on the clinic’s social media accounts.

Post engaging content on social media platforms

In this day in age, almost everybody is present on social media, the most popular ones being Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. It is important to post similar content but also various content depending on the demographics of each platform. For example, Facebook is a great way to attract older patients as most of the people on Facebook tend to be older. Facebook is a good place to post tips, news, and important items that will help ensure both current and potential followers. Another idea is to post videos of individual doctors at your medical clinic to provide more information about their area of specialty or product recommendations related to their services. Quality content doesn’t just consist of information regarding your clinic’s services but also about what patients can do themselves that may help satisfy their needs and gain their trust. Social media is vital in developing long-term relationships with current and potential patients which is why your clinic needs to regularly evaluate what consumers are looking for in a medical clinic. 

Advertise positive patient reviews

A great way to bring in more patients is to post and promote positive reviews written by current or past customers. In every area of business, the people consumers trust the most are other consumers which is why engaging and posting positive reviews can be so beneficial. This can be done using google reviews, social media comments or messages, and/or healthcare platforms where customers may look to research which clinic is best fit for them. The best places to look for patient reviews are on Google, Yelp, and other review sites. It is important to regularly communicate with past and current patients on how your clinic did or didn’t meet their needs. However, it is also important to respond to negative patient reviews to show that at your clinic the patient comes first.

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Improve Your SEO Strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a huge role in attracting new patients as it will increase the likelihood that your clinic can be found online and can help lead them to your company website or social media platforms. When a customer looks up a search term, for example, “medical clinic”, Google will display paid search results (SEM) and organic search results (SEO), it has been found that SEO received significantly more clicks on the search engine results page (ex. Google) than on SEM results. To improve your ranking on Google and the effectiveness of your SEO there are three things that impact your SEO ranking the most: keywords used, quality of content, and speed and mobile responsiveness to consumers. Bidding on the right keywords can significantly improve your SEO strategy and overall marketing plan. The right keywords can help make your medical practice stand out amongst your competitors. The best keywords to have been popular keywords that potential patients may search for that may include your clinic name, doctors at your clinic, the most known services you provide, and more. The next step to improving your SEO strategy is to research using Google Ads, Google auto-fills and suggest searches, and online keyword research tools that provide information about the most popular keywords regarding your clinic’s services. Secondly, your medical clinic needs to post engaging and quality content that patients feel is worth clicking on. Your medical clinic’s website and social media platforms need to have non-duplicate content. The most responsive online advertisements in this day in age are video and interactive advertisements. As mentioned previously, an example of a video advertisement could be testimonials on your website from patients or videos on Instagram or TikTok of doctors answering questions in the comments. Lastly, an important step to improving your SEO strategy is improving your mobile responsiveness and loading speed. This refers to how fast your website loads when a user clicks on the link. In the past decade, people’s attention spans have significantly decreased which is why your website must not take more than 3-4 seconds to load. This can be done by the people or company that was used to build your clinic’s website as the only way to improve this is to monitor and improve the coding used on the website. Another option to improve your overall search strategy is to hire an outside agency that can help your clinic evaluate how your clinic compares to other practices.

Improve your SEM Strategy

Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to the usage of paid advertising to ensure that a business’s products or services will be visible on search engine result pages (SERP). Contrary to Search engine optimization (SEO), Search engine marketing (SEM) is about getting traffic via online paid advertisements. This is a very effective strategy for increasing traffic to your clinic’s website, however, is more costly than SEO. Search engine marketing is mainly about two things: keywords used, and advertisements used. Similar to SEO, your clinic needs to bid on the right keywords as it can increase your ranking on Google’s search engine results. The 3 most effective practices for improving your clinic’s SEM strategy effectiveness are researching keywords, implementing retargeting, and consistently testing your ads. As mentioned before, keywords are extremely important in both SEO and SEM which is why it is important to research which keywords are the most effective in driving patients to your website. The best way to understand which keywords are most effective is to understand the user’s intent. This means understanding why they are searching and what information they are looking for based on their search. For example, if a patient looked up “medical clinic”, their intent is probably wanting to find a nearby clinic, want to know different types of clinics, or look for a known specialist in the services they need. For your medical clinic, it is best to emphasize the most popular services patients look for at your clinic. Listed below are two popular keyword SEM research sites that will help select the most effective keywords based on the most common searches regarding your services.

• Semrush.com
• https://www.wordstream.com/

Provide a Program for Patient Referrals

As mentioned above the most important message to spread is that the patients at your clinic come first. This is why it is essential to create a genuine relationship with your patients and ensure they feel prioritized and properly cared for. One way to do this is to print or email referral cards that include your clinic’s information including your clinic’s location(s), phone number, company email, and any other relevant information. The cards may also include a simple yet sincere message such as “Here at (clinic name) our goal is to provide the best of care because your life matters”. Depending on your clinic’s services you could offer rewards such as the chance to win gift cards or offer a free basic health exam. Regardless of the strategy, when your clinic gets a referral, it is important to follow up with the patient that referred your clinic and thank them by providing a personal message or offering up some type of reward.

Build an Online Profile on Healthcare Marketing Platforms

As mentioned previously in this day in age almost everybody is present online, but having an online profile goes beyond social media. There are designated platforms depending on what the services or product is looking for. In the case of searching for medical clinics, there are websites where the intention is to help find doctors or clinics near the customer that provides the services they are looking for. Again, customers trust other customers the most as they don’t have the intent of just getting a new lead for their clinic. For example, ZocDoc is a popular website that helps patients select the right doctor for their designated needs by looking at other patients’ reviews and relevant information including their location, area of specialty, available bookings, and links that take them to related websites. However, this site also helps connect doctors to their patients by providing doctors with a profile and making it easy to schedule an appointment online. In this case, it could be a good idea for the doctors working at your medical clinic to register for this platform to better promote both the doctors and the medical clinic. Listed below are online patient-doctor platforms that could help promote your clinic:

(1)  https://www.zocdoc.com/

(2)  https://www.nexhealth.com/

Create a Mobile App

The best way to attract and also retain customers is by making the user experience easy. This means having a website that is easy to navigate and that communicates efficiently about the clinic’s services and the clinic’s mission. Besides a website, creating a mobile app is a great way to develop a long-term relationship with your patients. Depending on the size of your clinic, a mobile app helps make it easier to book appointments, learn more about services, and register as a long-term patient. Having an app will also make it easier for the clinic by having access to the patient’s profile which includes current/past medications, medical history, appointments schedules, and more. Overall, it will help promote your medical clinic by making it easy for both the clinic and the patient to become a long-term patient at your medical clinic.

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Conclusion

There are endless opportunities that can help better your marketing plan for your medical clinic. However, the most important message to communicate to patients is that the patient always comes first and that your clinic stands out amongst other medical practices. MedPro Waste Disposal has been in the healthcare industry for over a decade and understands the importance of attracting new customers with the goal of satisfying their needs. MedPro has developed relationships with various medical clinics to help lessen the stress of their waste disposal needs which is why we want to help make sure they get the recognition they deserve. Call (888) 641‑6131 or visit our website at https://www.medprodisposal.com/ to get a free quote today on how our services can help your clinic stay compliant and satisfy your waste disposal needs!