Digital Marketing plan for your Business

Digital Marketing, is the direct route to new and old clients. Yet surprisingly most businesses ignore this route and concentrate on traditional ways to interact and bring in customers. It’s time to change and come on board the online world that will help you expand your business exponentially.

Did you know that 59% of adults in the US have looked up a specific medical condition online. Around 77% of online searches are done on search engines. A significant amount of people will go to trusted hospital websites or healthcare websites to find their symptoms. In other words if you have an online presence you are more likely to find new customers when you tap into this resource.

How does Digital Marketing work?

Digital marketing is an interactive mechanism that uses different digital channels to distribute information. These digital channels include social media, mobile applications, email, web applications, search engines, websites and many more new electronic media which will pop up in the near future.

If you make two broad categories of your potential customers then you can probably understand how to use digital marketing a little easily.

1 People who are looking for information about your business
2 The place where people hang out looking for information you have

Search engines are the place where people are looking for answers. If you know the answer you must share it with them. How? Read on.

Social media is the place where people hang out. Social media algorithms serve them information according to their interests. They join groups which match their interests. However, there are many social media platforms. Where are your potential customers hanging out?

How to get noticed on the search engines?

If you want people to know your brand then get a domain. And to park the domain and information you would like to share you need to get your own space online. Online with an online presence can you build your brand online.

Bringing people to your website with SEO

According to a Google research 77% of patients do online research before deciding to schedule an appointment. SEO means search engine optimization so that information that you put online can be found easily. In simple words, when you will be put up information about yourself and your practice, you should put in the extra effort and use words and phrases that are being searched online about your specialty. You will find these words and phrases with the help of a Keyword tool called Google Keyword Planner. Search engines show the best matches they find and your website has a chance to rank on the search engine page. Once you find out the words that searchers are using to find healthcare clinics or your specialty, use those words generously throughout your website.

Make your website simple to understand and navigate. Give detailed information about yourself. Big bright photographs along with information about clinic location and timings could help patients to know when and where to come. The appointment system and fee structure can also be shared with them and you won’t have to answer those repeat questions if you add an FAQ section to the website. Sharing buttons on the information pages makes it easier for researchers to share the information with other potential patients they know.

Attract Searchers with Lead Magnets

While finding the different kinds of searches on Google, you will find many questions that people are searching for. You could answer these questions bn your website. Similarly, you can share guides, how tos and calculators. All specialty information that can be shared, should be put on the site so that it establishes you as an authority in your field. This information could be a self assessment guide, a checklist or even a video explaining a particular symptom. Examples of lead magnets could be “BMI Calculator”, “Pregnancy Calculator” or “Carbohydrate Calculator”; PDF files about “Guide to eating out after surgery” etc. In exchange for this guide or calculator, you could ask for data including name, telephone and email address.

Almost all pages could lead to an enquiry form or a section that helps out in scheduling an appointment. Once you have information about potential and new customers you could promptly follow up with a telephone call.

Showcase Good Reviews 

Your website should also have testimonials of satisfied patients. It may not necessary that you will always have good reviews, but your commitment to serve your patients in the best way you can will definitely result in more patients giving you good testimonials. The good ones can go on your website and the bad ones to the admin department to find out what went wrong and how it can be improved. A bad experience can also be a good opportunity to have a satisfied customer. Most patients don’t leave because of bad service, but because of not being given enough attention. An apology bundled with a value added proposal usually makes complainants happy and convert them into repeat customers.

Sharing your Happy Patients’ Reviews with the World

Happy and satisfied patients can be given a form when they are in the clinic or the form can be mailed to them and with their permission can be put up on the website. The form could have a rating system or a star system which makes it easier for potential patients to gauge that current patients are happy with your services. If you make your web pages easy to share then people can share the reviews with other potential patients via social media. According to a Pricewaterhouse Cooper survey, 42% of individuals viewing health information on social media, look at health-related consumer reviews and referrals of specific treatments or physicians. At the same time 43% of patients said they were likely to switch doctors as a result of negative online ratings.

Testimonials need not be quote unquote your patients. Some can be turned into a story. Like a story of how you and your clinic helped a certain patient. If the patient allows this journey to health to be recorded, you could make a small documentary in video.

Promoting Advertisements on Search Engines

You can buy space on the Search Engine Results Page. Just like you found keywords to share information on your site, you will have to take the help of keyword tools and find out what patients are searching for. Maybe you could also have an offer of a discount. For example a Christmas offer for an X% discount for a full body check up or a FREE diabetes check up. When you do an advertisement on the search engine your ad will be on top of the search engine results page, increasing the chances of somebody clicking on the link given. 

Retargeting ads

Retargeting ads are just like search engine ads, but the only difference is that the person being shown the ad has had some interaction with you earlier. You must have noticed that once you visit some retail brand’s website, you start seeing their ads wherever google ads are displayed. These are retargeting ads. This ad service is very economical and since the person is already familiar with your site and brand, it has a higher chance of conversion.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Answer Questions

Chatbots have the ability to have conversations with patients who want to find a solution to their queries and if urgent can book an appointment for them too. Around 42% of patients would rather have a chat online since they feel it is better than waiting on hold to talk to someone. Chat bots are usually programmed with FAQs and normal conversation type responses. The person on the other end asks questions on the chatting software on your website and he is given answers that have been uploaded earlier. The conversation ends with the enquirer being satisfied with the answers and talking to your office for further inquiries or a checkup.

Taking the help of Social Media

Whatever information you share on your website can be shared on social media. Social media is the place where a lot of people are hanging out. Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms and has around 2 billion users of all ages and Instagram has around 500 million users who are young and mostly female. There are similar social media platforms that have a specific kind of audience. It is your job to recognise those audiences and decide if you want to cater to them. While sharing information on a particular platform you should know the kind of format is popular on it. Photo and Video is popular on Facebook, Photo is more popular on Instagram, and image and infographics is popular on Pinterest.

Special Tips to Get the Extra Mile

Once you have chosen the platform(s) you find your customers on, you should start sharing information in the popular format so that they will notice, like and in turn share with others. You can share patient experiences, journeys and testimonials on social media giving potential patients a reason to trust you regarding your specialty. You can also share more information about the medical conditions you treat and education about diet and nutrition while the treatment is going on.

Write attractive and effective copy describing your posts. Remember to use Hashtags with your posts, they help you increase your reach. Find out trending and current topics in your field of expertise and use the trending hashtags for maximum advantage. Connect with doctors and professional who target a similar audience and gather a referral network that you could tag. This way their audiences can view the post too. When you find people commenting on the post, make sure to interact with them and engage with them. There are many communities of different professions that could be related to your specialty. You could join these online communities and share your posts in those group pages. Remember your posts and interactions should lead to a form so that you can collect data.

Social Media Marketing

Just like you advertise in Google, you can advertise on social media. Your ad will be shown on the newsfeed of your audience. This audience, provided by the social media platform, can be categorised by demographics, interests. location etc. You can target people according to the patient/customer persona you have created.

Similar to retargeting on search engines you could retarget people who have visited website on social media. As mentioned earlier retargeting ads are very economical to promote.

Keep in touch through Email and SMS

Once you have procured a database, then you could keep in touch with the potential patients with a newsletter. Your emails can include all the channels your clinic can be contacted with, for an appointment. Remember to keep an unsubscribe option for people who do not wish to be sent communications. You could also use emails and short messages for quick surveys including symptoms and improvements patients are looking for in a clinic.

 

Emails can be used for Reminders for Existing Patients. The reminders can be about appointments or prescriptions and dosages.

Reconnect with Patients 

There are many patients who lose touch after treatment and believe they do not need your services anymore. Also there will be patients who cancel their appointments but do not reschedule. To reconnect with them you would create an email and sms sequence. You could share offers with patients in this category so that they book an appointment with your office.

If you are committed to increase your patients then you should have a dedicated digital marketing plan. We hope this comprehensive guide helps get started and assists you to chart your marketing and sales funnels.