12 Ways to Acquire More Patients to Your Healthcare Practice

Marketing is an essential component of any business’s success, particularly in healthcare and related fields. For example, the medical practice requires the doctor to see approximately 40 new patients per month. To acquire more patients, your organization must provide necessary services at reasonable prices and accept any insurance. Dedication and hard work can help retain patients, but marketing will bring them in.

The importance of retaining existing patients cannot be overstated, but you must regularly add new patients to thrive. Healthcare marketing and referral programs can be highly beneficial to acquire more patients, but the following methods have increased your overall revenue.

What exactly is healthcare marketing?

Healthcare marketing is a marketing strategy used by doctors, hospitals, healthcare networks, health practitioners, caregivers, healthcare providers, and healthcare marketing executives.

It is a strategic outreach and communication process designed to acquire more patients, guide them through their healthcare journey, and keep them engaged with the healthcare system.

The most effective healthcare marketing strategies combine omnichannel, highly segmented, and targeted online and offline efforts to drive engagement and growth while focusing on key market performance indicators and investment return.

When done correctly, healthcare marketing can benefit your practice in the following ways:

Maintain patient engagement with relevant, personalized, and timely outreach throughout their journey

• Long-term patient retention and increased loyalty in your healthcare community.
• Increase the number of qualified leads in order to generate revenue.
• Assess your productivity and re-align your strategy.
• Increase your strategic advantage in an increasingly competitive market to acquire more patients.
• Rapid changes in the healthcare industry markets necessitate agility and concentration. You may need to hire outside assistance and plan on a larger budget than in the past. But it’s worth it in the end for the peace of mind–and to see your patient population volumes grow faster than ever before!

To assist you, we have provided our top 12 ideas to include with any well-planned healthcare marketing strategy.

12 Healthcare Marketing Strategies You Should Implement to acquire more patients

1. Make consistent use of healthcare branding

You may believe that your knowledge sets you apart from other healthcare providers, doctor practices, or hospitals. But, let’s face it, one white coat looks exactly like the next to a patient, and consumers are notoriously hesitant to buy a product or service from someone they don’t know or trust.

When you create a solid and recognizable brand and promote brand awareness, you can significantly reduce your overall cost-per-acquisition and hence you can acquire more patients.

When you’re essentially asking consumers to trust you with their health, promoting any achievement award is a great way to build trust in your brand.

It may take some time to determine what works best for your brand. However, your healthcare marketing strategy will eventually come together because you will learn how to represent your brand with any marketing materials best.

2. Assess the online patient experience

A decade ago, having a website was sufficient to impress prospective patients and assist them in locating your healthcare brand identity. However, a website is now the new front door for healthcare. It’s often the first thing patients see, and if the website is not optimized for user experience, it could be the last time a person thinks about your hospital or healthcare practices.

Put yourself in the shoes of a patient. If someone landed on any page of your website, would they be able to identify your practice’s location, your medical practice’s multiple locations, and primary services within 5-10 seconds? Will they be able to contact the appropriate person quickly? Is the imagery and wording representative of the average patient at your healthcare clinic or practice?

Take note of how patients typically engage with you, including channels such as your website-a third-party listing service, online ads, and so on. Consumers nowadays want to interact with you on their terms, and your healthcare marketing strategy must account for the various ways people can connect with your company.

3. Create a mobile-friendly healthcare website

A responsive website automatically adjusts to the size of a screen, ensuring the same experience whether the site is accessed on a computer, tablet, phone, or another mobile device. It’s the norm in website design today–but more importantly, it’s something search engines look for when crawling any medical website to determine how and where you’ll rank.

Google values user experience and will prioritize competitors who have a mobile-friendly website. In general, responsive websites provide the best mobile digital healthcare experience. Even if you already have a responsive site, ensure that your content and imagery are loading correctly (and quickly!) on mobile devices.

4. Site speed tests

Patients today are less willing to put up with slow loading times than ever before, according to healthcare marketers who study user (i.e., prospective patients) behaviors online. For example, it only takes 5 seconds for a prospective patient to seek care elsewhere due to your slow website.

Another issue with user experience (or patient experience) may cause your medical or healthcare website to fall in search engine results. You can test your site’s speed using Google Page Speed Insights. If your load times are slow, talk to your web developer about ways to improve them. Another healthcare marketing tip to keep in mind is to check the site speeds of your competitors in your “healthcare neighborhood.”

5. Optimize for potential patients search engine outcomes

Search engine optimization is a powerful tool for propelling your medical practices or hospital network to the top of search engine results pages. It is, however, far more complicated than most marketing professionals realize. For example, you can’t simply repeat the phrase “healthcare practice” 100 times on your website and expect to rank first in Google for doctors providing healthcare services in your area.

A significant portion of SEO entails using the appropriate optimal phrases and keywords so that Google can understand your healthcare organization’s websites. This practice ensures that you rank for the right, relevant, and pertinent healthcare-related search terms (e.g., medical conditions, healthcare professional treatment). However, it also implies incorporating those terms naturally throughout your content, as Google cares about readability first and foremost.

6. Use PPC and display advertisements for Healthcare Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (also known as “Healthcare SEO”) is an organic marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a healthcare practice, hospital, or hospital network (or hospital system) online.

You can manage your budget and decide how much you’re willing to spend on pay-per-click advertising (also known as PPC or paid search) to keep your site visible at the top of search engines. With both PPC ads and display ads that appear on the sidebar or top of other websites, your return on investment is clear and defined.

7. Make use of social media (the right way)

Too many hospitals and healthcare practices base a large portion of their digital healthcare marketing strategies on organic social media. Organic social media involves posting photos, updates, events, and other content directly to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, and it’s a viable strategy for building your brand and informing patients about new developments.

It should not, however, be your sole social strategy. Paid social media advertising is a better way to reach the right people who might be looking for your services—even if you’re not already connected. Let’s face it: unless they are already involved with, or employed by, a local healthcare organization, few people share posts from that organization online.

7. Make use of social media (the right way)

Too many hospitals and healthcare practices base a large portion of their digital healthcare marketing strategies on organic social media. Organic social media involves posting photos, updates, events, and other content directly to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, and it’s a viable strategy for building your brand and informing patients about new developments.

It should not, however, be your sole social strategy. Paid social media advertising is a better way to reach the right people who might be looking for your services—even if you’re not already connected. Let’s face it: unless they are already involved with, or employed by, a local healthcare organization, few people share posts from that organization online.

8. Request feedback from patients

More than half of Americans say patient reviews are at least somewhat critical when selecting a doctor. Before scheduling a visit, consumers want to see that others have had a positive experience with you, so obtaining positive reviews from your satisfied patients is critical.

It should not, however, be your sole social strategy. Paid social media advertising is a better way to reach the right people who might be looking for your services—even if you’re not already connected. Let’s face it: unless they are already involved with, or employed by, a local healthcare organization, few people share posts from that organization online.

Patients typically leave reviews only when motivated to do so or when they had an above average (or inferior) experience. You will miss out on positive feedback from patients who were pleased with their office visit if you do not solicit reviews of your healthcare services. This may be difficult for your front office staff to accomplish–and they should not be required to assess each patient’s level of comfort.

9. Utilize patient feedback in your marketing efforts

When patients have negative feelings about your practice, you can’t avoid it and leave reviews on third-party websites like Yelp. You can respond to any patient feedback and demonstrate that you are working on the problem. You can respond directly to patient feedback on sites like Yelp. Patients may be motivated to update their review if the issue is resolved on time with the proper follow-up.

Any Healthcare Marketing strategy should include reputation management, but this does not mean you should be defensive in the face of negative reviews. Instead, it entails upgrading processes and equipment to provide the best possible patient experience moving forward.

10. Track your marketing strategy

You should constantly monitor how well your healthcare marketing strategy is paying off in terms of ROI. Each year, your Healthcare Marketing budget should be adjusted based on what you want to focus on this year, based on a careful examination of your metrics (performance analytics). This type of patient marketing tracking can be accomplished in a variety of ways:

• Use a CRM (customer relationship management system) like HubSpot to track how patients interact with your campaigns, whether through emails, call centers, or targeted landing pages.
• Use Google Analytics to determine which search terms you rank for and don’t.
• Set up Google AdWords to monitor your pay-per-click campaigns.
• Use a HIPAA-compliant call-tracking system to see how paid advertising pays off and monitor your front desk.

11. Check in with your current patients

Though it may not be as effective as digital advertising, word-of-mouth referrals should always be a part of your overall healthcare marketing strategy.

Follow up with patients after an appointment or procedure to see how they’re doing. Inquire about your patients’ families or send personalized birthday cards. Send emails and mail reminders for follow-up appointments (in-person or via telemedicine) and do everything you can to maintain a healthcare relationship. Patients will always appreciate your time and may recommend your local medical practice to their friends and family.

12. Include doctor referrals in your marketing strategy

How does your practice reach out to potential referring physicians? You’re not getting what you need if you don’t use a physician liaison. Unfortunately, too many healthcare practices and medical specialty groups rely on the front desk to contact doctors who may wish to refer their practice–but the front desk does not have the time to do so!

Doctor referrals are among the most effective organic marketing strategies for attracting new patients.

Every day, your physician liaison should visit hospitals, licensed caregivers, and medical practices, schedule lunches with potential referral bases, and maintain contact with potential sources.

Conclusion

Because markets are constantly changing, you should regularly review your healthcare marketing strategies. You must evaluate the worth of your current patients regularly. It is also recommended to consider the patients’ future potential. It might be worthwhile to cultivate a relationship with a potential high-growth patient. Working with your patients can assist you in identifying new and improved products and services.

Request a demo to explore how Xoopah can help your healthcare practice increase your operational efficiency, stay connected with patients, acquire more patients and grow your business.