Healthcare is a unique industry. Like B2C businesses, they rely on consumers to come and take their service to make money. If they don’t have patients, they can’t make a profit. But how do those people find your practice? Well, that’s when healthcare becomes like a B2B business. Referrals are a huge part of getting people in the door from other healthcare practices and insurance providers.
To succeed, you must use marketing tactics from the best of both industries. Here are some tactics to help market your business to attract more patients and get more referrals.
Setting Yourself Up As An Expert
People only want to be treated by an expert. They want to trust that the person charged with their health knows what they are doing. In a world of medical blunders and lawsuits, professionals in the healthcare industry are under even more scrutiny.
A blog on your site is a powerful tactic for showing off your expertise. The best content for your blog should revolve around your field of study and be helpful to your target market, whether they are current patients or not.
This can include ways to prevent diseases, tricks to ease discomfort, exercises to stay healthy, or products that you recommend. These topics are chances to prove you are an expert in the industry and that you care for your patient’s well-being.
A good blog can help entice other professionals to refer patients to your practice. As you meet other professionals or they start to look you up, a blog can help them feel comfortable referring you. They only want to send their patients to an expert because if it ends poorly, that reflects back on them. Consider working with a healthcare software agency to develop patient portals or telehealth solutions to improve patient experience.
Building A Referral Network
Getting referrals requires making connections and networking. Sure, you can develop digital marketing tactics that target other healthcare professionals, but nothing quite compares to a face-to-face meeting.
Find ways to meet with other healthcare professionals in related fields. That might mean taking them out to lunch, scheduling a meeting in their office, or attending networking events. Linkedin is a powerful tool for connecting and staying in touch with other professionals. Getting in front of them gives you a chance to pitch your services.
When pitching, have multiple ways to show your results. A good start is raw numbers, such as how many people you’ve helped in the last few years. Then, go more in-depth with a case study where whatever you do changes their life. Show that what your business is doing matters and is worth referring patients to.
The Importance of Insurance
A lot of critical medical decisions are determined by money. You might be a perfect fit for a person’s needs, but if you don’t accept their insurance, it won’t matter one bit. They’ll find a competitor that is within their network.
Having a wide variety of accepted insurances is important as it gives a larger amount of people access to your business. If you get multiple requests for a specific insurance company, look into accepting them.
One helpful insurance tactic is to list the major insurance providers you accept on your site. Many insurance provider sites aren’t the easiest to navigate, and if they find your business outside of it, then you save them time and effort by telling them if they accept their insurance.
Being Locally Involved
You are in the business of helping people, and that shouldn’t stop just when they leave the office. Your business is a part of the local community and getting involved with local causes can be a big boost to your brand.
A good starting point is covering local events that impact your expertise on your blog. For example, a pediatrician could discuss a local outbreak of a disease (like whooping cough) and how to help prevent its spread. This would show that you care about your community and are in tune with what is going on.
The next step is to build your presence on social media. Practically every business has a Facebook page, but it’s still a meaningful way to connect with patients and followers. Your social media pages need to be a source of reliable information and news, not simply be one big promotion for your business.
Finally, get involved in the local community. Sponsor essential events and be seen as an advocate for goodness. Doing this will improve your brand awareness, help you connect with people in your target market locally, and show people that you are more than a business. In today’s world, people want to do business with companies, helping make the world a better place.
Being Mobile Friendly With Google
Search engines have a huge influence on the success of a business. Ones that rank higher get more visitors, which could correlate to gaining more customers. Basic and up to date SEO tactics can help you rank higher, but Google is always changing how they look at websites.
Google’s newest focus is on how mobile friendly a site is. Around 56% percent of all online traffic to top sites is done on a mobile device, so it makes sense Google wants their rankings to reflect that.
So here is the question. Is your site mobile-friendly? It isn’t if you pull it up on your smartphone and it looks like it belongs on a computer screen. If it seems like it fits, then you’re doing better.
Another thing to remember is that people browse mobile sites differently than traditional web pages. The best way to find this out for your site is by delving into your site’s analytics and looking at the User Flow for mobile and PC. If more people go to a specific page on mobile, research why that might be the case. Is it more prominently displayed on the mobile version, or is it a more requested page for mobile users? Adapt your mobile version to data as you find it and A/B test changes.
Do you a health care business owner or marketer with some insights to share? Do you have a question about one of the tactics listed above? Let us know in the comments below!
