Health Marketing: Increasing Patients in Clinic
Healthcare marketing entails a number of different activities, and one of the most important is local SEO, specifically ranking your Google My Business.
Allied health marketing can be defined as any kind of promotion or advertising that healthcare providers do to help patients understand their health needs and give the patient an insight into their clinic.
In this blog post I will discuss how allied healthcare marketing can effectively apply marketing principles in order to improve clinic traffic and generate more revenue!
Healthcare Marketing trends in 2021
Health marketing in the allied health space is very much a local based marketing play. Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is one of the most important trends to implement in order to increase patient visits to finding new patients online.
SEO includes a number of different strategies such as Google My Business which I mentioned above, and all kinds of other channels like social media posts on platforms such as Instagram as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
In healthcare, patients are looking to Google for advice more than ever before. They want to be able to research their ailments (often miss-diagnosing themselves) and make the best decisions possible about their health.
Recently, we have seen more search queries that ask specific questions than those with just keywords.
Therefore, we believe the trend for 2021 is relevant content, in the form of allied health marketing blog posts, but also continuously adding content to your modality and treatment and/or condition pages.
How can you increase patients in Clinic
Patients come to you because they have a need to fix their ailment. To increase patient load, your website should rank highly for searches about treatments for that ailment.
The easiest way to do this would be by following to fix these simple steps:
1. Consistently building good quality content on website
2. Adding blog posts regularly throughout the year (monthly!)
3. Having an active social media presence with consistent daily postings about relevant topics
Our Goal: Ranking in Google Organic & Google My Business.
How can you promote your Clinic
It is easy to get bogged down trying to find the optimal plan for change: the fastest way to lose weight, the best program to build muscle, the perfect idea for a side hustle. We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we never get around to taking action.
The simplest and cheapest way to market yourself is through copy writing. Either writing blog posts, or creating answering frequently asked questions and placing that content throughout your website.
Copywriting and updating your website is hard work, trust us, we know! However, we also know being consistent with your blog posts, and website updates can pay in the long run. As, it’s just as hard for everyone else as it is for you. Also note, that most of your competitors would have built their website, and not update quality content since.
However, if you can get in the habit of following this simple process; you’ll be able to write copy for your website in no time.
- Pick a condition that you’re familiar with treating.
- Take that condition + modality and type it into Google. EG. “pelvic floor physio”
- Find the “People also ask” section on Google, click the link several times; and you have yourself 10 questions people ask Google.
- Answer each of the questions; and either turn it into a blog article, or add it to your modality/condition page.
- Take the most popular question; and in your GMB, drop it into your Question & Answers – however, manipulate the quote to be; “What experience do you have with ABC”
Schedule a time in your calendar every week (or fortnight), and get it done!
How do you get more new Patients
The last piece of the puzzle is ensuring your website is set up properly. The key to success lies in conversion rates, with you wanting people converting from visitors into paying patients!
In a recent article we outlined 10 ways to increase conversions on your allied health website. There’s one tip we recommend above all; To increase patient rate, create intuitive navigation for visitors who are looking for specific information on your site.
Creativity is important when using your Allied Health website to display treatment options and services. Instead of having the list under a drop-down menu, put it on top so visitors know right away what you do.
Link everything together clearly explaining exactly where things are going from every page so that people can find their way back home if they need help finding something specific again later or want more information about an option other than those listed in main navigation bars (bolded for emphasis).
Lastly, make sure you include a big bold “Book Now” button, phone number on every page.
Conclusion:
By using these simple techniques, you’ll be able to increase the number of new patients that come through your door! Local SEO can be defined as any kind of promotion or advertising that healthcare providers do to help patients understand their health branding needs and give the patient an insight into their clinic.
Healthcare marketing is about understanding how patients search online, and ensuring your website is setup to capture those clicks.
Local Health Marketing Agency, can help you achieve success online through a variety of channels such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising & social media management. Get in touch with us today for a free marketing assessment.
