5 Ways for Healthcare to Utilize Digital Marketing

Everyone needs digital marketing—even healthcare services. You wouldn’t think so since we all need to see the doctor from time to time, even if we’re in good health. Still, a healthcare center needs a digital marketing plan for the same reasons any business needs one: to reach their consumers, patients, and members through digital channels.

Most recently, the pandemic upended how marketing was previously done for healthcare services. Complete lockdowns prevented commuters from seeing billboards and bus terminal ads, for instance.

Providing the best care is every healthcare center’s goal, but that’s no longer enough in our connected world. A healthcare provider must also provide connectedness and a place to create a relationship with their patients. Consumer expectations now mean that healthcare providers must engage their patients and consumers at the right time and in the right way. In this way, you can increase your patient and consumer loyalty for life.

Here are our top five ways for healthcare to utilize digital marketing. Just follow the five Ps:

1. Physicians

Physicians are the face of your company since they tend to be the person who your patients and clients think of when they realize or remember they have a doctor’s appointment coming up. Just like on Yelp and Google, patients will write reviews about doctors, physicians, and specialists, whether it’s on your system or a search engine. This helps other potential patients and consumers discover who might be a good fit for them and how knowledgeable or personable one of these contacts can be—and hopefully, it’s good feedback. Make sure you hire the best healthcare providers who can uphold your clinic’s values, who take their patients’ input seriously.

Physicians who feel supported and like they have job autonomy are better physicians, so make sure you support them behind the scenes as well. Your patients will see the difference when they have an efficient visit that is on time and when their healthcare provider is well-prepared. Also, whether patients leave a positive or negative review, make sure you have a team to respond and thank them for their thoughts.

2. Patients

They’re the reason you’re here, and how they perceive your practice and the healthcare industry in general can affect your bottom line. Thanks to the internet, patients are also more well-informed not only about healthcare but also about customer service practices.

High patient satisfaction leads to better reviews and can lead to referrals as well, either through internet referrals or by word of mouth. Any marketing campaigns your clinic or office runs should take patient feedback into account, so you can either continue what you’re doing or tweak it for better efficiency. If you aren’t sure how you’re doing, maybe it’s time to request reviews or feedback from your patients via an email or SMS message. This way, you will be well-informed before you start work on your next campaign.

You’ll also want to take a look at your patient demographics. Is there a particular demographic your clinic specializes in? Do you want to diversify the patients you help in your community? Outreach such as requesting feedback can help you gather that data to both expand to new communities and retain your current patients as well.

3. Payers

This is what it comes down to, right? Patients pay you for their services. If your patients are paying online for services, make sure that the online portal is easy to use. That could be one question for your outreach or feedback survey, in fact. If making a payment to your clinic or practice is difficult or not intuitive online, then you may not see that patient the next time they need an appointment.

Customer service is also important here. If it’s difficult to find a way to contact you for help, you may lose patients. Make it easier to reach your clinic on multiple messaging platforms, such as email, texting, social media, or a personalized healthcare company chatline. Patients will have questions about payment methods, costs, and insurance, and if they can’t have these questions answered quickly, they’ll find another clinic that will answer them more quickly.

4. Policymakers

No healthcare clinic or provider would be complete without policymakers. These folks help to make sure that everyone is upholding the correct important regulations, such as HIPAA, and communicate these policy changes as they occur. The best ones will also help formulate content that is engaging to your potential new patients, keeping everything consistent.

When creating your marketing campaigns, you need to keep your policymakers in the loop or have one of them on your marketing team. At the very least, they need to sign off on all of your marketing materials before the campaign goes live in case there have been any changes in policy, whether it’s within your organization or even just your own office.

Making an error in client-facing materials can be confusing and takes away a lot of your credibility. Your customer service team will get swamped, and then you’ll have to backtrack and repair the situation. Keeping someone on hand to maintain the various policies within your clinic is imperative.

5. Professionals

These folks can be administrators, part of your marketing team, your IT or support team, and the front desk or medical billing. Whether your professionals are in client-facing positions or not, they all contribute to the efficiency and health of your clinic.

Since the pandemic, engagement between healthcare professionals and patients has become more important as we all have become more comfortable with adapting to remote work and digital communications. With this said, you don’t want to implement your digital marketing in isolation. Be certain that all of your team members are aware of new campaigns so that when patients or potential patients call in, visit the office, or chat with customer service, everyone is on the same page.

No matter what industry you work in, our team at InnoVision can help you with every step of your digital campaign, from graphic design to implementation. Contact us today to see how we can help turn your potential into returning patients.