Patient’s interest and behavior change during the holiday season. During this time of year, people are usually focused on shopping, office parties, and family gatherings. There may be a significant decrease in the number of patients, but that doesn’t mean that there’s less interest in health towards the rest of the year.
Stand out in marketing your practice and boost patient engagement with these holiday marketing tips.
“12 days” email series
“The Twelve Days of Christmas” is one of the most popular Christmas songs. During the holiday season, it is heard everywhere – TV commercials, shopping malls, school programs, and even church functions. Why not use it as an inspiration for your holiday email marketing campaign?
Email marketing is one of the best channels to help you stay top of mind and build a lasting relationship with your patients. During the holidays, it would be a great idea to create a “12 days” email series and send them to people on your email list.
You can create countdowns with a different daily message – remind people to book an appointment before the year ends, share healthy holiday recipes, and offer tips for staying healthy through the holidays.
Shine light on a worthy cause
The holiday season is the perfect time to focus on giving and gratitude. Aligning with a charitable cause will put your practice in a positive light and show your community what you value.
One of the best ways for you to get noticed this season is to turn the spotlight away from you and highlight a charity that you support. Participate in volunteer efforts that are relevant to your target patients. It helps you cast a wide net and position you as an expert.
Spread some holiday cheer by sponsoring a local charity event or a fundraiser. Encourage your audience to participate in the holiday giving campaign. You can offer a discount of a particular product or service in exchange for a gift donation. Your patients give back, needy kids get some gifts, and your practice gets more patients. It’s a win-win.
Hold a social media photo contest
Social media contests are great because they accomplish several marketing goals at once. When done properly and effectively, they can help you build a strong following, increase engagement, and really connect with your audience. With Christmas in the offing, it would be a great idea to run a contest that encapsulates this joyful festival.
If you’re a dentist, host a “show us your smile” photo contest with a holiday twist. Have participants submit pictures of their smiling kids on social media. Don’t forget to create a branded hashtag that you can use to collect all those photos.
The prize should be something that is relevant to your practice. For instance, you can offer free cleaning or teeth whitening.
By adding a bit of fun to your marketing campaign, you can convince your clients that they don’t have to dread a visit to your practice.
Film a holiday video
Humans are very visually oriented. Studies suggest that people find video content more interesting, more engaging, and more memorable as compared to other types of content.
Patients like healthcare providers who come across as gentle, kind, and human. Videos are a great way to show your human side and showcase your personality. The holidays are a great time to show off your holiday spirit and capture that cheer on video. You can create a short video to send your patients a warm, heartfelt message. If you are a pediatrician, you can dress up like Santa. Kids will love it.
Get creative and don’t forget to share your video on different social media channels.
Write holiday-related blog posts
This holiday season, you might want to share some tips and information that your audience would find valuable.
If you treat patients with diabetes, it is a good idea to provide tips on how to keep their weight and blood sugar levels under control during the holidays. If you’re a dermatologist, you can offer some skincare tips for winter or how to achieve healthy, glowing skin in time for their office party.
Since the majority of people check on their social media accounts on a daily basis, we highly recommend that you share them on your pages. Creating timely and relevant content increases the likelihood that your blog posts will be shared.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/5-Holiday-Marketing-Ideas-for-Your-Medical-Practice-social-media.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-12-16 18:24:112019-12-16 18:35:105 Holiday Marketing Ideas for Your Medical Practice
Online marketing for doctors is essential in the digital age. It provides a way to reach new patients, create a stronger connection with the ones you have, and promote your practice. Unfortunately, many doctors are still unsure about how to make social media work for their practices.
Here are 5 doctors who are rocking the social media game. Read on to find out how they used social media to their advantage.
Dr. Sandra Lee
Website: https://slmdskincare.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrPimplePopper/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrSandraLee/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drpimplepopper/Dr. Sandra Lee is a board-certified dermatologist. She uses social media to showcase her expertise – popping pimples and extracting cysts. Many of you have probably watched or scrolled past her videos on your feed. Dr. Pimple Popper posted a video of herself doing a blackhead extraction 4 years ago, and it took off from there. Although not for the easily nauseated, people seem to enjoy her content. In fact, she has amassed a large following on her social media channels. Her devoted set of fans call themselves “popaholics”. Dr. Lee has over 5.8 million subscribers on Youtube and 2.4 million Facebook likes. Her Youtube videos have been viewed more than 2.6 billion times. Now, she is a guru of skincare with her own TV show and skincare line.
Dr. Kevin Pho
Website: https://www.kevinmd.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevinmdblog/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinmd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinphomd/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmdDr. Kevin Pho, best known as KevinMD on social media, is one of the most prominent healthcare influencers. He is a board-certified internal medicine physician, an acclaimed keynote speaker, and author. Dr. Kevin Pho is the founder of the blog KevinMD.com, the web’s leading platform where physicians, nurses, and other medical practitioners tell their stories and share their insights. He also shares some social media tips for doctors in his blog. The site receives more than 3 million monthly page views and is regularly cited in major media. Aside from his blog and website, he also has successful social media profiles. He uses these platforms to share articles published on his blog, share the voices of other physicians, and promote events. His largest presences are on Twitter, with 160,000 followers. His Facebook page has over 123,000 likes.
Dr. Mike Varshavski
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realdoctormike/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctor.mike
Twitter: https://twitter.com/realdoctormike
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0QHWhjbe5fGJEPz3sVb6nwDr. Mike is a board-certified family medicine physician. With an impressive 3.4 million Instagram followers, it is clear that Dr. Mike knows a thing or two about social media. Doctor Mike uses his Instagram account to give people an opportunity to connect with him on a personal level. He regularly posts photos of his daily life – at work, at the gym, sponsored events, and even with his dog. He may be known for his dashing looks and fashion sense, but he also routinely disseminates health and fitness advice to his followers.
Supporting her goal of keeping your family healthy and safe, her content centers on the latest health news, general illness prevention tips, and helpful tips for parents. Her posts are personal and conversational. Hence, she was able to build a close relationship with her patients, in and out of the office. Swanson recently ended a stint as chief of digital innovation for Seattle’s Children. Over the past decade, she gained over 40,000 Twitter followers with her SeattleMamaDoc brand.
Dr. Josh Axe
Website: https://draxe.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drjoshaxe
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/doctorjoshaxeDr. Josh Axe is a doctor of chiropractic, a certified doctor of natural medicine, and a clinical nutritionist. His goal is to help people eat healthily and live a healthy lifestyle. In his website, DrAxe.com, he shares content about topics like natural remedies, weight loss, nutrition, healthy recipes, and essential oils. Following Dr. Axe’s Facebook page is like following your friend online. Here, he shares a sneak peek of his personal life – enjoying time with his wife or cooking in his kitchen. He also uses his social media accounts to share health information, promote events, his book and other products.
With over 2 million Facebook likes, 540,000 Instagram followers, and 43,000 Twitter followers, it is clear that Dr. Axe has cracked the code to building a powerful digital brand that people recognize.
Your practice needs social media One tweet won’t necessarily bring in new patients. Creating a Facebook page isn’t going to help you fill a waiting room. But with valuable content and consistent effort, you’ll be able to create trust with the community, solidify your reputation, and be a helpful resource to patients.
If you’re new at this game and you feel that achieving online success is well above your head, we are here to help. Schedule a free consultation today and we’ll bring you and your practice into the age of social media.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/5-Doctors-Who-Are-Rocking-the-Social-Media-Game-1.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-12-10 18:54:242019-12-10 22:02:335 Doctors Who Are Rocking the Social Media Game
In this podcast, we will be talking about how to review and analyze what has worked digital marketing-wise in 2019. It is important to take the time to review what has worked and what hasn’t worked, along with making sure your content is attracting the right target audience you are looking for. We dive into Google Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and more!
We also mention this AMAZING tool we have been using for Pinterest called TailWind, it has significantly increased our traffic to our website!
00:01 Amber Irwin: Hello everyone, I am your host, Amber Irwin. Welcome to Social Speak Network and welcome back from the Thanksgiving holiday break. I know everyone is so excited to be back to work. And if you are a business owner, this is the last month of the year, so we have a lot of things that we want to look at and really analyze to see what has worked marketingwise for 2019. So today I’m gonna walk you through a few different things to track what has really worked digitally for your company. And it’s really important to take the time to look at the past year, to look at your content, what’s gotten the most likes, the most shares, what blogs have gotten the most shares, what videos have gotten the most comments and likes?
00:55 AI: So it’s really important to see what your audience is liking because this time of year, you’re putting together the budget for the following year, you’re putting together your content and your marketing strategy. And so you need to know what is expected of you, for at least the first quarter of 2020 and have a plan for the year, so you can stay on track. And this has been a really big year for us as a company as well because we really stayed consistent with our marketing mission, which is key because it’s easy to get in the mode of blogging and doing videos and then something comes up. Maybe it’s workrelated, maybe, you know, whatever it is, something comes up and you fall off the track of being consistent. So by looking at what has worked and what your audience is looking for, that will help you create that strategy for the following year and really be able to stay on track and stay consistent because the content is king, but consistency is even better. That’s the Ace.
02:02 AI: So you wanna make sure that you are being consistent and you’re continuing to deliver that information that your audience is looking for. So I wanna walk you through a few things on how to monitor your year to see what’s worked. So the first thing I wanna start with is your social media. So looking at… Let’s open up Facebook, looking at just your posts, so we wanna look to see… You should be tracking each month, your likes, so you should be able to see how many likes you have increased this year. So if you go to your insights, it will tell you. You can change the insights to the past 28 days. And this is why it’s important to look at this on a monthly basis, because unless you know what that beginning number was, at the beginning of the year, you may not know exactly what that number is now. So if we go to likes, it will tell us how many likes we have and then it will tell us just the beginning of November, what we had.
03:25 AI: So, it’s important to just check in on that math monthly, to make sure that your likes are increasing. And if you’re doing paid advertising with Facebook, you should be running ads to, go to our landing page to actually collect those emails and those leads. But then you should also be doing some page ads as well to increase the engagement and likes. So you’ll have organic likes and then you’ll have paid likes. So that’s really important to know the difference between where your likes are coming from, on Facebook. Is paid advertising really working and/or boosted posts. Are you getting, when you boost a post on Facebook, have you been getting more likes and more engagement?
04:11 AI: So it’s important to take the time to look at your insights to see what is working and then when you go to your posts, you can see what times of the day people are engaging. So for us, we get the most engagement early morning like 8:00 AM So moving into our content strategy for 2020, we may wanna make sure that our posts are going out between 6:00 AM and 8:30, 9:00ish because if we… When we start posting at noon, our reach drops significantly and when we post on Facebook later in the day, at night time like 9:00 PM to 10:00 PM, it drops even more. So our primetime on Facebook, is that early morning, that 6:00 to 9:00 mark. So that’s important to know as well, so that’s the time and the days.
05:12 AI: And then I can look at all your posts published and I can see which posts are getting either an organic reach or post clicks, reactions, comments, and shares. So you wanna see which ones are getting the most engagement, and then what type of a post was that? Because that’s really important to be able to monitor. If you’re putting up just shared articles, curated content, which is important, but there’s no personalization behind it, there are no videos. It’s just always sharing content, and you’re not getting any engagement, well, that then says, Okay maybe my audience isn’t liking that. But if you put up posts that talk about client stories, patient stories, it talks about the personality of your office, showing more behind the scenes and stats, that’s what works for us. Stats, people love when we put images up of stats in healthcare for marketing. So that’s what really works for us, are stats and content marketing strategy.
06:00 AI: So Facebook is the first place I would start looking at those insights, looking at what posts have been working. You can on your posts, you can go back for the whole year. It’s just your insights that you can only go back 30 days but your content if you go into Facebook, go to your page, click on insights on the top, and then go to posts, you can then… And you can break it down to all of your posts. You can look at if you did events, videos, stories, different types of posts it will break down, but you will be able to see what posts are getting the most reactions. And that’s what you wanna start implementing more of in your content strategy for 2020. The next platform… And you’ll wanna do this for any platform that you are posting to.
07:24 AI: So we use Facebook and Instagram the most. So again, I wanna come through Instagram and I wanna look to see how many people liked it, if we got any comments, what type of comments we were getting, and then what types of posts, again, were people liking? Were they like when we were reposting from people? Were they liking when we are putting stats up, videos? So really looking at the types of posts, and then again, the number of followers you have. So at the beginning of the year, we are doing really great with Instagram Stories, and we were highlighting them. Well, as you can tell, we stopped that. We were great on posting to our feed but the Instagram Stories kind of… They weren’t a priority of ours anymore, and so these… You can even just tell in these branded images, it doesn’t match the brand that we have down here.
08:27 AI: And so here we should have healthcare marketing tips, healthcare social media, health… Because again, our target client is businesses that are in the healthcare and health and wellness industries that have one to six locations. So that’s what we need to work on, is getting our stories back up and going and reorganizing these highlighted stories. So our posts have done great.
Even with Instagram TV, we were really good at being able to stay on it and we are getting some great traction but again, it fell through the cracks and it wasn’t a priority. So looking at those analytics, how many people were watching Instagram TV, how many people were commenting? And that’s something that we may need to increase for the new year. So Instagram’s the next platform.
09:28 AI: Pinterest, I’ll get into Pinterest in a minute, but we use Pinterest a lot, and going into, I wanna talk about Google Analytics really quick. Google Analytics is a great way to really wrap your head around where all your traffic is coming from because your website should be your hub. That’s where everyone should becoming. This is where your blogs are going, this is where your videos are going within those blog posts, so your Google Analytics can give you a huge insight into what’s working. And you may wanna start here and then branch out into social media and your blog. One thing I found interesting on ours is under Acquisition and then Social, and then I just went to Overview, and I’m in Google Analytics, and on our overview for social, most of our traffic is coming from Pinterest, which is awesome. It goes Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Scoop.it, then Instagram, and then we have some LiveJournal, Twitter, Google+. But you can see it.
10:47 AI: So Pinterest, we’ve had over 1100 people come to our website from Pinterest and we’ve had almost 500 people come to our website from Facebook. So our Pinterest strategy is really, really strong, and we do use a tool called Tailwind. I’ll put that link below so you can check that awesome tool out, and it’s working. So obviously, we wanna increase our Pinterest strategy, we wanna make more images, we wanna get more content up there, because that’s where people are finding us. So this is working. Facebook is working. YouTube is working. People are finding us and then clicking back to our website. So Google Analytics is a great tool for you to really be able to identify where your traffic is coming from.
11:42 AI: And the other thing, even if you click on to Audience and Demographics, you can do… I just did the overview, but you can look to see what is the age group of people that are coming to your website, what is the gender, and what’s the interest categories. So you can look and see where people are coming from. And I think that this is important because one thing that I always find interesting is the content that we work so hard every day, every month, where are we… What’s working for us? And is the content that we’re working so hard on, is that attracting the right audience? So that’s something else to look at, to say, okay, where else are… If I’m running this content, and it’s directly around healthcare digital marketing, and our Google Analytics is telling us that we’re getting a lot of foodies coming to our website, people are interested in food and… Well, that’s not a good connect. That’s wrong… Obviously the wrong demographic.
13:00 AI: So how do we need to change our content or change our… Look at our SEO, our keywords, and figure out how do we reach that correct target market. So Google Analytics is a great tool to be able to do that. The other thing I want to mention is YouTube. YouTube is a great tool to really track and see what videos are getting the most engagement. And this year alone, I think at the beginning of the year, we were at maybe five or seven subscribers, and we’re up to 154. Now that’s still very low but in a year’s time of us being consistent, we’re getting anywhere between three and five new subscribers a month, which is great for us because we’re not doing any paid advertising on YouTube. This is all just organic but they’re finding our videos. And, again, when we are putting our videos into… When we put our videos up, we’re putting a link in the description to our blog. So they are going to our blog or to that website from YouTube, which is awesome.
14:19 AI: So it’s really important to analyze that to see what videos are working and which videos… If you thought a video would be great and it only got one view, well, why did it only get one view? And did you share it with social media? Is it on your blog? What can you do to increase that video? So, YouTube’s a great place to really look at the analytics and see what’s working. The last thing I wanted to talk about is your website. So, with Google Analytics, it will track all the traffic, and it will tell you where your traffic is coming from. One thing that we had installed on our blog is a tool… It’s a sharing tool, it’s a plugin, and this allows people when they’re on the site that they can share it to Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. So it’s a great way to see how many people are coming to your website and actually sharing those social media… Or excuse me, those blog posts to social media.
15:29 AI: And so one of our blogs, I think it was our content marketing strategy, that one had been shared quite a few times. So that shows us that people really want to understand more of that strategy, and how to put that content marketing strategy together. Let’s see here. I know it’s here. So just looking at going through your blog post, looking at each one, seeing which ones have got shared the most, and what were those topics? What were people wanting to know about? And I think that that’s really important because, again, it’s all about delivering that content to your audience in such a way that they’re receiving it, they’re sharing it, and they’re doing it. So that’s… So this one. So why is it so important to have a digital marketing strategy? This is a blog we wrote. 106 shares. 102 of those were to Pinterest. That is awesome. Four of them were on Facebook. So this shows me that, again, that Pinterest strategy that we have worked is killing it, and we wanna keep doing more of it. So, again, we have four more weeks left in 2019. If you have kids, I know that you really only have two or three weeks to really finish up this year because then they go on winter break, and Christmas is here and the holidays are here, and it’s craziness.
17:22 AI: So take time this week or next week, block out two hours and look at what has worked digital marketingwise for 2019. Take the time, jot it down, and as you’re… And at this point, you should already have that content marketing strategy started for 2020. And by knowing what types of posts have worked in 2019, what you wanna do more of, if video marketing is something that you’ve really been putting off this year, but when you have done videos, you get a ton of likes and shares and comments, that shows that you need to implement that more into the new year. If you post more… People want to feel like they are a part of your company. It’s that know, like, and trust factor. And showing more behind the scenes, so interviewing… If you are a healthcare practitioner, interviewing the doctors, interviewing the nurses, have the Friday funday behindthescenes pictures.
18:27 AI: I know this takes a little bit of extra time and planning, but I promise you this, if you do it and you stay consistent with it, you will see a huge difference in your social media and your digital marketing. You will see an increase in patients. You will see an increase in likes and comments and just that engagement, and if you need help managing this and putting together the strategy, that’s where we come in. That is our expertise, to work with healthcare professionals, to get the new patients in the door by using Google and Facebook ads, to put together the strategy for social media marketing, email marketing, and blogging. So you’re reaching your audience on every digital platform there is, on each level so they feel connected to you, and they wanna come into your healthcare practice. So if you need help, head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and schedule your free 30minute consultation today. 18:49 AI: Thank you. Have a great day.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2019-Digital-Marketing-Review.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-12-03 19:05:352019-12-03 19:05:35How to review your digital marketing strategy for 2019
As socially inclined creatures, humans have embraced technology that allowed us to connect with our family and friends. Today, social has become a prominent part of people’s lives.
With over half of the world’s population now active on social media, it’s not surprising that more and more businesses are using social media to reach their audience. Healthcare is no exception.
As a healthcare professional or organization, you need to step up your social media strategy in order to reach your target audience, boost patient engagement, and improve health outcomes.
Here are 5 tips to get you started.
Choose the right platform
There are lots of social media platforms out there other than Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. While social media can help you drive new patient leads and grow your practice, you can’t be active on all of them all the time. You need to be strategic where you spend your resources.
A great way to plan and begin your social media campaign is to identify your ideal outlets. To do that, you need to focus on your core target audience. Find out where they spend most of their time online. Build your primary social media presence around your audience’s platforms of choice. It only makes sense to fish where the fishes are.
Narrowing down your choice to just a select few platforms will not only save you time, but it will also help you get the best return on your investment.
Jump into existing conversations
Take the initiative to be a part of a social media conversation. Join existing chats and groups that offer relevant discussions. See what you can add to the conversation and what you can learn about the current topics. Inspire discussions, ask questions, and air your opinion.
In addition to taking part in the discussions, it is important to track conversations relevant to your field. This raw and unfiltered conversation can provide you with insights from your audience. You may even get new ideas that you can use on your social media marketing campaign.
Don’t make it all about you
Social media is a great place to promote your practice and get more patients through the door. But if that’s the only reason why you signed up, then it won’t be beneficial.
People hate ads. They are turned off by businesses that throw ads but do not engage with their clients. If you want to build a solid social media presence, then you need to really get on there and interact with your audience.
Go back to your core audience. Learn as much as you can about them: demographics, what they are interested in, what they need, what their pain points are, etc. Getting to know your audience will help you interact with them on a more intimate level. Once you start conversing with them, you’ll know how you can help them.
Show them that you care about them and they will feel more connected with you.
Raise awareness and counter misinformation
Social media has become an important health resource. Studies suggest that more and more people are seeking health information on social media. With the amount of information we are bombarded with each day, it is not surprising to find a lot of medical misinformation out there. As a healthcare professional, you can capitalize on social media by providing your audience with accurate, science-backed facts.
Give people a reason to follow and engage with you. Pull from your unique expertise and share relevant, valuable information about your field. Don’t get stuck sharing links to blog posts. Share infographics, videos, interactive pieces, podcasts, and other types of content.
Provide your audience with content they can’t find elsewhere. Sharing fresh and unique content will not only keep your audience engaged, but they’ll also see you as a thought leader or industry expert.
Automate social media posts
You reap what you sow is a well-known idiom. While the phrase is biblical in origin, it also applies to social media marketing.
You can’t expect great results if your page is inactive. The key is to stay active on social media and consistently provide your followers with high-quality content. How can you do that when you spend the majority of your working hours seeing patients? Social media automation holds the solution to this problem.
Automating your social media posts allows you to schedule and optimize posts for maximum engagement. Scheduling several posts in advance helps you save time while achieving consistency in your marketing efforts. Plus, it gives you control over the content you share and how you share it.
Ultimately, it also helps you get more results with less effort. Keep in mind, though, that automation can only help you save time and effort, it is not meant to make social media marketing a completely hands-off process.
Automation tools such as Hootsuite, Buffer, AgoraPulse, and CoSchedule will make things easier for you. Whether you’re looking to find new patients or engage existing ones, you need to employ social media strategies that will help you sustain and grow your practice. Contact us today and let us put together a social media plan for you and your practice.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/5-Social-Media-Marketing-Tips-for-Healthcare-Professionals.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-11-19 08:00:362019-11-18 18:55:575 Social Media Marketing Tips for Healthcare Professionals
Having an active social media presence has become mandatory across different industries, even the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, many physicians find social media marketing intimidating.
The way patients approach healthcare today is different than it was a decade ago. Today, social media is the most relevant advertising channel for you and your practice. It is a cost-effective way to increase reach, build credibility, and attract new patients.
Still on the social media fence?
Here are 5 reasons why you should include social media in your marketing campaign.
Increase reach
With over 3 billion social media users, it is almost inevitable that the majority of your target audience has a presence on popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The majority of them log in on their accounts on a daily basis.
While social media was originally created to cultivate personal relationships, you can use it to get you and your practice in front of your target audience. Your existing patients are probably already following you, but social media allows you to reach more than just the patients you see in your clinic or office.
With the right strategies, it can help you broaden your audience and bring more patients through the door. Don’t be one of the many practices that are missing out on the opportunity to reach millions of people on social media.
Build a relationship with your audience
According to a study that was published in the Annals of Family Medicine, doctors spend an average of 17 minutes with each patient. That is not enough to address the patient’s immediate concerns, much less to build a relationship. Social media gives you an opportunity to connect with your audience and communicate with them outside the office.
As a healthcare professional, you have an opportunity to help people by correcting the spread of medical misinformation, helping chronically ill people feel less isolated, and encouraging them to pursue a healthier lifestyle. Of course, you need to make it clear that you won’t be providing medical advice. This should be done in the office.
With time and consistent effort, you’ll be able to gain their trust and loyalty. If you can create the ultimate experience for your patients, they aren’t likely to go to another doctor.
Attract new patients
The internet has changed the way people find doctors. They are no longer limited to physicians in their area. Although word of mouth and referrals still rank high as a means of finding new doctors, many patients would turn to the internet to find healthcare practitioners of all kinds.
In a survey that was conducted by Doctors.com, they revealed that 63% of respondents choose one doctor over the other because of a strong online presence. You want you and your practice to be at the front of a patient’s mind when the need for your practice arises. And that’s exactly what social media marketing is for.
Social media can be an invaluable resource to attract new patients. As mentioned above, it provides a way to reach a new audience, engage with them, and promote your services. When done right, it will bring you a steady stream of new patients and grow your practice.
Patients want you out there
According to a survey conducted by the National Research Corporation, over 40% of internet users rely on social media for health information. Some would turn to social media for advice when they have questions about healthcare problems or issues.
Your potential and existing patients are already on social media, and using these platforms to get in front of them makes sense. There is already a demand for health-related content, so why not give it to them?
In a hyper-connected world, people want to be able to communicate directly with major brands in their lives, including their doctors. Take advantage of this opportunity to market your practice and services to the exact people that are looking for you.
Become a thought leader in your field
More and more people go online to look up medical information. Since anyone can post practically anything, health information online is often unreliable. As a physician, you can’t just remain quiet and uninvolved while people spread inaccurate information.
Information sharing is one of the greatest benefits of social media.
Doctors have a powerful voice. It is time for you to dip your toes into the virtual waters and disseminate scientifically-proven medical information to the general public.
Always bring value to the community. Give tips on how to stay healthy. Share information about current illnesses going around. Upload links to new research about your area of specialty. If you can make complicated topics easier to understand, then you’ll be able to help millions of people across the globe.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Why-doctors-need-to-be-on-social-media-.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-11-13 08:00:082019-10-30 17:14:215 Reasons Why Doctors Should be on Social Media
In this blog post, we are going to be talking about all things email marketing for health care centers, oftentimes health care centers and clinics are worried about remaining HIPPA-compliant while pursuing email marketing efforts as part of their digital marketing strategy period.
So you need to be aware of the technology that you’re using and make sure that you have a signed with the software of your choice. Email marketing is incredible way to stay top of mind with your patients and your prospects.
It allows health care centers to increase the ROI of their digital marketing efforts and build loyalty and trust with those in the community. Please take a look at the video below, and transcript to learn more about how email marketing can be utilized by your clinic in order to reach more prospects, book more appointments and increase the bottom line of your marketing.
Watch the medical marketing video
Listen to the Podcast
Read the Digital Marketing Transcript
00:00 Caitlin Mcdonald: Hello, everybody. My name’s Caitlin McDonald, I am the co-founder over here at the Social Speak Network, and welcome to the newest episode of the Social Speak Network podcast. In today’s episode, we’re gonna be talking about email marketing for healthcare centers. Now, a lot of times, people think that email marketing is something that they can’t do; they don’t want to break any HIPAA compliance rules, they wanna make sure that patient information remains private. However, you can still utilize email marketing to keep your prospects and patients aware of what’s happening at your practice and making sure that they think of you first and foremost when either they have a symptom that they need to come in to your specialist, or they hear somebody else needing help and support in your specialties.
01:00 CM: So not all email providers are created equal. We typically recommend utilizing an email platform, a CRM that is designed specifically for healthcare. There are a lot of great form builders out there that are HIPAA compliant; Formstack, Jobform are just a few of them that do have levels that are HIPAA compliant, so that means that the information that is stored there remains secure. So you aren’t breaking any rules by having people sign up through that. We always wanna make sure, however, that people are explicitly stating that they are interested in receiving marketing material from you. We sometimes go a step further and add text in there about… In the form itself, about receiving text messages regarding upcoming appointments, so that you can send them text messages as well, and have it just be very transparent what they’re signing up for. So for example, if it’s a request a consultation form, you wanna make sure that you’re taking those steps to also ask them if they want to join your email list, rather than just assuming that requesting a consultation also means email list.
02:22 CM: The similar sort of thing for patients who are coming in the door, maybe giving you a call, not filling out one of those forms. While they’re in your practice, you should always be asking them if they would like to receive marketing information from you, and then ask for their email address and have them physically sign a sheet of paper that says, “Yes, I’m giving this practice permission to reach out to me via email.” We always wanna have some sort of a form like that.
02:56 CM: Now, one of our favorite pieces of technology is called Influx MD, and this takes this a step further. So it doesn’t just create the forms, but allows you to create the forms and then track prospects as they turn into patients. So it goes, it brings a prospect all the way through to that first online booking. Now oftentimes, your admin will have forms and paperwork that they need to sign, new patient paperwork that they need to sign before coming in. And through Influx MD, we’re actually able to create systems and processes that automates this entire flow. So not only are you receiving their contact information and gaining approval that the individual would like to receive the marketing emails from you, but you also are able to, within that same module, make sure that you are bringing a prospect into becoming a patient. So this really increases the transparency as it relates to ROI, and how much you’re spending on advertising versus just bringing in the door.
04:16 CM: So the goal is obviously, in that first appointment, to have that positive ROI. But if you think about the entire lifetime value of a patient, this also helps to increase that as well, and do referrals as well. So in this case, we use the CRM as that initial point up to that initial patient consultation, then they’re moved over to your EMR. So it’s kinda two platforms that work side and side. Admin and staff who need access to the records can have that, whereas marketers like myself just see the reports and the data coming in.
04:57 CM: So what types of emails, when we’re talking about email marketing, should you be sending out to prospects and patients? I already mentioned one of them. Those are kind of status updates of your practice. So do you have a new doctor? Has staff changed? Do you have new nurses there? You want to provide that personal feel, that personal touch to your prospects, so that you remain top of mind, and so that they really know, like and trust your experts. Secondly, you wanna send out timely health information. Potentially you’re writing blog posts, which we’ve covered in previous weeks, or creating videos, which we also have covered in previous weeks. And so you wanna make sure that you are getting those resources and that information to individuals, and email is a great way to do that. So you’re allowing them to take their health to the next level because you are providing them with those resources and the guidance to help them live healthier, more fulfilling lives.
06:05 CM: Now the last thing is, like I said, the last general type of email that we would recommend sending out is for appointment reminders, as well as appointment follow-ups. You might see this a lot where in other industries, and it’s less so in healthcare, where you receive an email requesting a review. Now, reviews on Google still are… And Facebook and Yelp [chuckle] are still some of the most powerful social indicators that you can see online through your marketing. People who are not familiar with your practice will actually take a look at these reviews in order to help guide their decision on whether or not they want to contact you for that initial consultation. And once they contact you, they will continue to do more research. So these reviews help to give them peace of mind. So we do recommend utilizing a software tool that helps to send out these follow-up emails, and it also works with text message as well to folks who have been to your practice.
07:26 CM: So, again, just as an overview of these types of emails; so staff news and information, information about your practice, maybe new locations, new specialties, new equipment that you have, so kinda the press release type. Tips and health information, so this is the educational type of information. We do recommend even sending this out weekly, it’s a great way to stay top of mind. And you could combine the two, if you wanna just send out one monthly newsletter, you could add the featured staff as well as that health education. And then the third one is for appointment reminders and follow-up reminders for reviews.
08:14 CM: I hope that this has been helpful as you start planning out your email marketing strategy for your healthcare center. Again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald, I’m here with the Social Speak Network. And we’re just about all the way through our Q3, Q4 marketing overview for healthcare centers. This was our 10th week going specifically into a topic. But over the past quarter, we’ve talked about your social media strategy, Facebook advertising, Facebook groups, Instagram, Pinterest, blogging, lead generation, videos, running a podcast and more. So if you’ve missed any of those and you wanna dive into more detail, we have the full transcripts available at our blog. You can hop on over to our YouTube channel to view the videos or over to Social Speak Network on iTunes to listen to the audio. Thanks so much and I will see you next time.
Podcasts have become a very popular way to connect with your target audience. They are easy and convenient which is always a win-win situation when it comes to digital marketing!
Today, we are going to be covering a few tips on Why Podcasts need to be implemented into your digital marketing strategy!
00:01 Amber Irwin: Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network Podcast, I am your host Amber Irwin. And today, we are going to be covering tip number nine: Podcast Marketing. We’ve covered a lot in these past tips of how to really create that content strategy. And I wanted to talk on [00:22] ____ really about just podcasts in general, and how and why they’re so important to your content strategy. So let’s jump into the why. Why are podcasts so important? And why have they gotten so popular? And let’s start with number one. They’re engaging to your audience and convenient. So when we’re thinking of our digital experience for our audience, we wanna think of what are the things that are convenient for them, that are easy for them to consume, and still give that value, and show that we are the experts in that industry. Whatever industry that is.
01:09 AI: And you have to think, podcasts are such a great way to really be able to package all this information into one setting. So, convenience is key. People that are listening to podcasts are usually… Maybe they’re driving, they’re walking, they’re cleaning the house, they’re working… They always have them on because it’s not something… They don’t have to watch the video, they can have it wherever so it’s the convenient piece for your audience is key. Number two is that mobile experience. We talked about this with… A few of the other tips is making sure that the digital experience is mobile-friendly because most people are using their phones to do the work.
02:03 AI: And so 69% of people listen to podcasts from their mobile device. So this is a great way that they’re able to listen to your podcast. Again that convenience piece, it’s mobile, they have it wherever they’re at. And thinking of your audience, what does their day look like? Are they in the car for an hour a day or maybe two hours a day? Are they family, are they mothers where they are sitting in maybe car line [02:35] ____, are they… Think of who they are, and how much time are they spending in the car or what does their lifestyle look like? Are they active? And so they always have their phone with them, so it’s mobile-friendly.
02:52 AI: And they’re becoming… Podcasts. And number three, they’re becoming more and more popular. And this is… So according to Search Engine Journal, there were 48 million weekly podcast listeners in 2018, 48 million. And Statista data says that there will be over 115 million listeners before 2021, a 115 million. What’s really cool about this is it’s growing and growing every day and the type of podcast… It’s really like your YouTube channel. We’ll get into that a little bit later on in the tips I’m giving you, but just thinking of how many people you can reach and your target market by creating a podcast. And it’s very simple, so that was tip number three. They’re becoming more and more popular. A lot of people have their favorite play lists of podcasts in different varieties. If you talk to people, most people will have, I would say, between 5 and 10 podcasts that they listen to, and for different reasons. It may be personal podcasts they like on the personal base. They have their work ones, things that are within their industry, that they stay up-to-date with. They may have, if they are a part of different organizations, a lot of people are requiring or recommending them listen to certain podcasts.
04:27 AI: So these podcasts are… There’s everything out there. So you’re looking at what is your audience struggling with? And so if you are a paediatrician and your audience is mostly mothers. Most of the time, that’s who’s bringing the kids in to the doctors. And are those moms looking for healthy eating, are they looking for… Maybe tips for… Parenting tips. Are they looking for podcast on vaccinations, are they looking at holistic medicine, like what are they struggling with? What questions are they asking you?
05:04 AI: And to be able to put a podcast together around that, that brings me into tip number four: Brand Loyalty. You have this convenience piece, you have the content piece of talking to your audience, and now you’re building this brand loyalty. And so a podcast is something you’ll have interviews, you can find out from your audience, you know what are those topics that they wanna learn more about and be able to interview someone on your podcast. You can just talk about a certain topic just like this on your podcast. So you’re building that brand loyalty. And like I said, most people have between 5 and 10 podcasts that they listen to on a daily or weekly basis, so they’re building that brand loyalty. They are really, they feel like they know the people that are putting on or the businesses that are putting on these podcasts.
06:03 AI: And number five is they are low cost. We’re not talking a big recording studio. I’m in my home office, I have a good microphone, I have my computer. You can use an external camera or your computer camera, you may need to, depending on lighting maybe get a little light, but honestly, it’s low cost if any. The only thing you’re really gonna pay for is where you’re going to put your podcast when it’s done.
06:36 AI: And so, we’re on Podbean. And Podbean I think is like 14.99 a month. And that also allows you… That syncs with iTunes and so that gets you on to iTunes. It gets you onto the other podcast networks as well. So it’s a really good tool. But $15 a month for being able to share information that you’re already talking to your audience about already… It’s brainless, you gotta do it. This has to be a part of your content strategy. And number six is you are building that expertise and value. So every podcast… Again, a great way to start is start serving your patients asking or writing down, what are they asking you when they come in?
07:29 AI: What issues are they running into? What are their pain points? What type of lifestyle are they wishing that they would have or that they’re working towards or what are they struggling with on the home side with their family? So thinking of your industry and your audience and you’re building these podcasts around those topics, you’re providing valuable information to your audience that they wanna know about. So this ties in with tip number four of that brand loyalty. If you are providing them value and you are showing that you are the expert in that industry, that’s building that loyalty.
08:08 AI: They are going to be listening to you. And then going into tip number seven, this is content creation. So one thing I love about podcasts is when you’re thinking of your digital marketing strategy, you wanna be able to think of how people comprehend information and podcasts are obviously auditory. Videos are visual. If you have a white paper, a free download to go along with something, those are gonna be the kinesthetic learners. And so, with podcasts, if you do… Let me give you a little insight tip here.
08:49 AI: We use Zoom. There’s a paid version and a free version. And one thing I like about Zoom is you can record it, and do a video, and it also records the audio. So when you’re creating this podcast, you can put the audio file onto Podbean or your podcast platform, and then you can take the video format and upload it to your YouTube channel. So you’re able to use this content in multiple different ways. And then, what’s really cool about this too is with your podcast, you can have… Your podcast can be shared out onto your social media platforms, you can have a link onto your website that says, “Join or subscribe to our Podcast.” So it’s really creating this community of people. And again, you’re already talking about these things to your audience.
09:46 AI: So, it’s just recording it and being able to package it in a podcast, wrap it up in the box and put podcast on it. And your audience is able to get it from their phone. They can listen to it from their computer. But again, you’re providing that information to them that is valuable and that is key. So if you’re thinking about starting a podcast in the new year and implementing that into your content strategy, I would start by opening up a document or opening up… Getting a piece of paper and start writing down what does that podcast strategy look like? What are you blogging about? What are you talking about on social media already? Those blog posts that you’ve already written, we were talking about how important blogging is, and how those blog posts should be 2,000 plus words and around that keyword foundation. Your podcast should be the same thing. And you can turn those blog posts that you have already taken the time to write, you can turn those into a podcast and then take the audio file and implement it into that blog post.
10:57 AI: So people can either… They can read it, they can listen to it or they can watch it. So it’s really… Again, you’re touching every type of learning style, so your audience whichever way they wanna consume your information, it’s there for them to do. And I think that that is really important for your digital marketing strategy. So start looking at what are those pieces you’ve already written on your website and on social media? What’s your audience, your patients, your current client list, what are they talking about? What are they asking you?
11:29 AI: And start writing down some topics. And your podcasts don’t have to be super long. Again, think of your ideal, your target market, are they on the go quick, quick, quick? So they do they need to be between 15 and 20 minutes long. Maybe you do your interviews, maybe 30 to 40 minutes long. I would say whatever you do, to keep them under an hour, under 30 minutes if possible. You gotta think of… If they’re listening to them while they’re driving, what’s that drive time like? So just keep your audience in mind. But anything under 30 minutes is gonna be great. And if you keep ’em between that 15 to 22 minutes, even better.
12:11 AI: So, if you have questions or need help creating this podcast strategy, please let us know. You can go to socialspeaknetwork.com and schedule a free 30-minute consultation. And while you’re at it, subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Podbean, Social Speak Network. And we are here to help you thrive with your content strategy. Have a great day.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Podcast-Blog.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-10-30 08:00:022019-10-28 16:08:36Why Podcasts are important to your digital marketing strategy?
According to a report in the Annals of Family Medicine, 45% of physicians receive new patients through referrals. Like any medical practitioner, you want to make sure that your practice is supported by your referral partners and your community.
We know that you are doing your part in referring patients to other physicians whom you feel are the best. But are they returning the favor of referring their patients to you?
If you’re looking for ways to get more referrals, keep reading. Let’s take a look at some of the best practices your office should maintain to maximize the potential of your patient referral program.
Get out of the office
In a fast-paced hospital setting, it can be especially hard to connect with colleagues. If you want to bolster your referral network and keep your business thriving, then you need to make the decision to get out of the office, even if it’s just once a month.
Meet new physicians and healthcare leaders in your community. Reach out to existing providers who you refer to and who refer to you.
Identify physicians you want to partner with. You’ll want someone who is a good match for your practice, share your values and hold themselves to a high ethical standard.
Build a relationship
The best way to grow your referrals is to build, maintain, and improve your relationships with referring providers.
Professional referrals are based squarely on sound relationships and expertise. Doctors and their staff will only refer their patients to people they trust, like, and feel are competent.
Make a continual effort to show your referring doctors that you value their partnership. You can call them up just to see how they and their families are doing, drop by with a frappuccino for them or take them out for lunch.
In most cases, it is not the doctor, but a key staff person who actually handles the referral mechanics. If you want to grow your referral base, then you should take the initiative to get to know not only the physician but also their staff. Be certain to identify and include the key gatekeepers. Capitalize on those connections and they will be more likely to pass your business card on.
Simplify the referral process
Most doctors would simply advise their patients to book an appointment with a certain doctor.
Unfortunately, 50% of professional referrals never result in a doctor’s visit. The referral process should be quick and simple.
Otherwise, you’ll be missing out on a big slice of the referral pie. Even if the referring physician and their staff adore you, they’re not going to send patients your way if your referral process is frustrating, time-consuming, and just plain clunky.
Simplify the referral process by investing in a secure online referral portal, where they can send you the patient’s information, including contact information, suspected diagnosis, and reason for referral.
Since you already have the necessary information, it will be easier for you to decide the course of action and how quickly the patient needs to be seen. As a result, you’ll be able to serve both the referring physician and the patient better.
Make referring physician look good
When doctors refer their patients to you, it means that they trust you. Your office will serve as an extension of theirs, so they are counting on you to provide patients with excellent service.
Often, patients report back to their primary physicians about their experience. Make a special effort to accommodate the referred patient as soon as possible. Also, make sure that you take good care of the patients and treat them right.
Ensure the referring physician that there will always be room for their patients at your practice.
Be grateful
We grow up learning the importance of good manners, and that usually starts with saying “thank you”.
If a patient is referred to you, take the time to call the referring physician to thank him/her for the trust and confidence. You can also send a hand-written note if that’s your style. Let the referring practice know that you appreciate the referral.
Stay in touch with the referring physician
When a patient is referred to you, it is always vital to follow up. This is a crucial step that many physicians do not do.
One study suggests that 40% of patients that follow through with a referral never went back to their primary physician after the care is initially provided. Always send the patient back to the referring physician. The last thing you want is for the referring doctor to feel that their generous referral has cost them a patient.
Let the referring practice know that the patient has already been scheduled and that you will continue to communicate about what transpires. You want to assure the referring doctor that you’re invested in their patients’ health and that the patient will be receiving the best care possible.
Today we’re going to be talking about Lead generation. We’ve already discussed Facebook advertising and social media marketing and lead generation ties into this as well as your Patient Journey very closely.
Now as we dive into lead generation, there are some basic components that we are going to discuss. The first is having a clear understanding of what your ideal patient is looking for online, then it includes creating the messaging that’s going to bring this person into the door and get them interested in learning more, followed by the technical aspects of creating a landing page a welcome email and a thank you page. as we discussed these items were going to dive into the hero’s journey and what this means for creating advertising copy that captures the attention, build trust, and books initial consultations with your patients.
Often times we see health clinics run ads that direct people to a page on their website. While this is great for building website traffic we have found that these campaigns lead to nearly zero results and a negative return on investment for health care centers. While you want to make sure that you are helping those in your community, you also need to make sure that you are understanding how the money you spend in your advertising actually relates to an increase in revenue of your bottom line.
Please – if you know that your ads just run to a page on your website, jump into your account and pause them now and don’t hesitate to contact us for a marketing consultation.
Let’s start first with the needs of your ideal patient we’ve been talking about this over the past couple of months. You should already understand your patient Journey. What brings these patients in the door? What makes them look for your services? And how can you position the benefits of coming in to see your doctors so that it answers the key questions that you are prospects have.
Watch Lead Generation Strategy
Listen to the Lead Generation Strategy on our Marketing Podcast
Transcript of Healthcare Marketing Podcast on Medical Lead Generation
00:01 Caitlin McDonald: Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald, the co-founder over here at Social Speak, and today we’re gonna be talking about lead generation for your healthcare practice. So, we’ve already discussed Facebook advertising and social media marketing, and lead generation really ties into these as well as your patient journey which we’ve been discussing all throughout very closely. So, as we dive into lead generation, there’s some basic components that we’re going to discuss. The first is having a clear understanding of what your ideal patient is looking for online. So, then, this dives into creating the messaging that’s going to bring this person into the door and get them interested in learning more. You follow this by the technical aspects of creating a landing page, and a welcome email, and a thank you page.
01:05 CM: And so, as we discuss these items, we’re going to dive into the hero’s journey, and what this means for creating advertising copy that captures the attention, builds trust, and books initial consultations with patients. So, oftentimes, we see healthcare clinics and different clinics run ads that direct people just to a page on their website, and maybe there’s a schedule, your appointment form there. Well, this is great for building traffic to your website, we’ve found that these campaigns really don’t lead to a return on your investment. Yes, you might get a few people booking appointments. However, there’s a much better way to run your lead generation campaigns, so that you have a higher chance of getting people filling out that initial form. And so we’ll be diving into that today.
02:02 CM: So, while you wanna make sure that you’re helping those in your community, you also need to make sure that the money that you’re spending on getting people through a funnel is actually increasing the revenue to your bottom line. So if you know that your ads run to a page of your website on your website, please jump into those accounts, pause them now, pick up your phone, give us call, we are here to help you. Again, this is the number one mistake that we see health care centers and clinics make. So, again, yes, it’s awesome that you’re getting website traffic there, but are they actually been converting into patients for your clinic?
02:51 CM: So, taking a step back, let’s first talk about the needs of your ideal patient. And we’ve been talking about this for the past month or so, maybe two months, and you should already have a sense of your patient journey. So this includes what brings the patients into the door, what makes them look for your services, and how can you position the benefits of coming in to see your doctors so that it answers the key questions, concerns, and fears that your prospects have? So take the time to review your patient journey again. And, again, this can be multiple patient journeys. I just want you to think about one of them. Once you have that patient journey at the forefront of your mind, you can begin to understand how you can position the answers to these common questions and solutions to these common fears as part of the hero’s journey framework.
03:51 CM: So let’s quickly talk about the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey originates from Joseph Campbell, and really can be a framework that we can utilize in our marketing messaging. I’m not gonna go through step-by-step about what Joseph Campbell says, but more about how we can use it in your marketing language. So we actually follow this process when we are writing Facebook ads for our healthcare centers. So, the step one, first step is create an emotion. And this is really getting people involved and getting them to have a connection to the story that you are telling. Then the next thing is to determine a theme. This is an idea of how we should live our lives. Are you finding peace in your life, or are you living a life of greater success? Are you living on your own terms, and things like that? Then you can talk about the hero’s journey. So, what was their life before they started on this journey? What was the background?
05:09 CM: Then, what did you long for, what did this person long for? So, for example, if it’s somebody who has knee pain, their life before is that they could hardly get off of the couch, they couldn’t go out and enjoy the activities that they used to, they longed to dance at their daughter’s wedding and have that first dance, but they were just in pain. So you need to create empathy for the hero in your content. And so you can talk about this individual either in the third person or in the first person. We found for a lot of smaller solo practitioners, health coaches that talking about this in the first person works really well. And for larger health care clinics oftentimes having an individual tell their story works really well.
06:00 CM: So you want to show how misfortune has affected the character as a way to develop that sympathy. And you also want to make the hero likable. You can’t have a villain as that hero especially in these ads. So, the next thing is you need to present an opportunity that this main character, the main hero has faced. And so this can be an event that’s never happened to them before. So they learned a secret. They heard about a specialist in the area, they heard about one of your physicians and the services that you offer. And so the hero then takes action. And, as it transitions into this new situation, what’s at stake? What are those big questions that they have? And now it’s a chance to show how they actually pursued their goal of being able to dance at their daughter’s wedding.
07:10 CM: They took action and they accomplished their goal by coming in to see your specialist. By booking that first appointment, they were able to put their fears aside and to understand how knee replacement surgery has come a long way. And so you want to make sure that you are building up a climax and showing how this hero has taken their pain and found a solution and then actually acted on it. And then here is when you show the transformation. So you’re telling about what life was like after. You start with before, how bad everything was. They find the solution, they take action and then you have the transformation. We’ve been finding that having a testimonial within this transformation piece can work really well to provide social proof that the transformation actually worked. And if you are an expert, you are the specialist that you say you are able to help people, I’m sure you will be able to find one of those testimonials.
08:17 CM: So we really enjoy following this… Enjoy… [chuckle] We found a lot of success following this hero’s journey as we’re putting together the language that we use in the Facebook ad. So then I mentioned rather than sending somebody directly to a website that just is part of your site as a whole, really directing them to a landing page. So we take some of those key benefits that we’re identifying within this Hero’s Journey of all the things that they could accomplish after that transformation and we put those benefits onto the landing page. We can also put a video of the specialist that actually allowed that transformation to happen. And so you can do a quick video of one of your physicians, one of your doctors, or even yourself in there, just to build trust, get people to know, like, and trust your brand and to allow people to come face-to-face with who they would be meeting at your practice.
09:21 CM: From here we have that schedule appointment now. For smaller solopreneurs you could have an e-book or a checklist to grow your email list. We also do recommend that for healthcare centers. But if you really wanna see that immediate return, scheduling the appointments, having this here is a great idea. So, to build your landing page, we utilize a tool, Lead Pages. It’s just leadpages.com, you can sign up for an account there, and we build basically all of our landing pages through here, and they’re just very simple layouts. So, as I mentioned, we take the benefits, we put them on one side, we have a video, and we have the schedule now, and a headline up at the top with maybe your logo.
10:20 CM: And so it’s just very clear and crisp and has one call to action. They don’t then see all of the links at the top of the website, and start clicking around to learn more and forget that they were even there to book an appointment. This is to get people to take action immediately. From here we have lead pages actually send out an initial email to anybody who signs up for the consultation or to download a resource from you. And we have lead pages also host the “Thank You” page. So on the “Thank You” page is where you can provide even more information about the clinic, link to the website, and things like that. Sometimes we even build that “Thank You” page directly onto the website so that they can then start poking around and learning more about your practice.
11:17 CM: And how this works if somebody clicks on the Facebook ad. You’re targeting them based on interests, geographic location. Maybe there are people who have been to your website, and because you have the pixel installed on your website, or in a different landing page, you can re-market to them. Potentially you have an email list, and you can create a lookalike audience for that email list. And so you have this audience, you direct them to the landing page. After that landing page which we build on lead pages, we put the code directly onto your website, so it could be a WordPress website, you just use a plugin, it’s super simple. Other websites, you can take the HTML code from lead pages, plug it into a page on your website for more control and flexibility. Lead Pages does A/B testing, kinda just built in so you can try different designs, you could try having a video, not having a video, changing colors or language, and it will all automatically process for you.
12:25 CM: So they get to the landing page, they fill out the information, they got sent a welcome email as well as redirected to a thank you page where they can learn more about your practice. And the reason why we do this is because we really feel as though if you want to help the folks in your community who are struggling and who need your clinics support and expertise, that you need to create a system and a messaging that’s going to make it as simple as possible for them to move forward and take that next step. We have just found such great success with this process. Typically, you might start out and you might get the messaging wrong, and that’s okay, at least you’re getting the information and the data to then make a new decision in the future.
13:27 CM: So, as I mentioned before, if you are currently running ads and you don’t know how well they’re converting, or you think that they’re just going to a page on your website that may or may not have a little form on the side of the page, please reach out to us. We would love to chat, love to dive into what you do have going on, just for a free consultation where we can tell you the steps that you can take in order to optimize that advertising campaign. Of course we do also work as your external marketing department, and we can help manage those lead funnels as well. So, again, my name is Caitlin McDonald, I am the co-founder of Social Speak Network, you’ve been listening to the Social Speak Network podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in and we will see you next week.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Blog-to-grow-practice.png7201280Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2019-10-02 12:26:042019-10-02 12:26:04Lead Generation for Medical Practices
Change is the only permanent thing in life, they say. That’s never been truer in the world of healthcare marketing.
Healthcare marketing is continuously changing. Keeping up to date with the latest digital trends and consumer preference is key to remain competitive and acquire a steady stream of patients.
Keep these trends in mind when planning your healthcare marketing campaign.
Excellent digital experience
Most hospital websites focus on providing information such as the address, business hours, doctor’s bios, specialties offered, etc. As competition in the digital landscape heats up, more and more hospitals and healthcare providers are putting a greater focus on patient experience.
83% of patients visit a hospital’s website before booking an appointment. That means a patient’s experience begins with your website. Their online experience will determine whether or not they will convert from leads to actual patients.
For a better online experience, make sure that your website loads quickly and is easy to navigate. Patients love the idea of convenient scheduling. If you offer online booking or have a customer service chatbot they can communicate with, that would be a plus.
You are bound to see a high ROI if you focus on creating an exemplary online experience for potential patients.
Video Marketing
According to a study that was conducted by Hubspot, 45% of people watch more than one hour of video a day. Out of the 45%, an astounding 81% have been convinced to buy a product or avail a service after watching a branded video.
Incorporating video content into your marketing strategy can help build trust and provide a much deeper understanding of what your healthcare company has to offer. Prospective patients are now researching doctors who specialize in the procedure they’re looking for before scheduling an appointment. This is where video content proves useful.
Through videos, you can verbally and visually explain how the procedure work. This can help ease fears or uncertainty. Plus, it helps prospective patients get to know the doctor before a consultation, so they gain a sense of trust beforehand.
If you haven’t already, we urge you to start creating video content, both for your website and social media accounts, sooner rather than later.
Search engine optimization
They say the best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google. Why? It’s because 55% of users won’t go past the first three organic results.
According to studies, 89% of consumers turn to the internet when they’re looking for answers for their healthcare queries. You want your website to show up at the top of Google’s search results. Otherwise, you’ll be losing to your competitors.
With more and more people turning to the internet for medical advice, it is important to capitalize on these searches by making your website as visible as possible. To get on page 1 of the search engine results, you’ll need a strong website and an even stronger SEO strategy.
Online reputation management
Your online reputation will have a significant impact on your practice. Why? It’s because a huge majority of patients turn to the internet to research physicians.
The survey revealed that 84% of patients read online reviews to help them gain insight into healthcare providers. 86% of them will be hesitant to schedule a consultation with you if they read a negative review or comment.
To stay competitive, you need to make a concerted effort to manage your reputation, both online and offline.
Whether you like it or not, patients are going to leave reviews. The sad truth is that dissatisfied customers are more likely to leave feedback than happy customers. With a single review, comment or article, the reputation of any healthcare organization can be tarnished.
You can’t make negative feedback go away, but you can encourage happy patients to speak out for your brand. It is in your best interest to encourage patients to leave reviews.
Mobile healthcare apps
Gloomy faces of ailing patients waiting outside the doctor’s office, long queues, and a dull, monotonous hall – this is the picture one would imagine while waiting at a doctor’s clinic or a hospital about a decade ago.
Millennials are the largest U.S. generation, and they demand convenience. They are switching to providers that offer a much higher level of convenience. This is where mobile healthcare apps come in.
In today’s era of the smartphone, keeping in contact with a healthcare provider has never been easier. Patients can chat with their doctors and ask for advice about a symptom or a condition. They can also book appointments with their doctors, access doctor’s prescriptions, and even purchase medicines through their mobile devices. In addition, patients can easily monitor their health conditions themselves through apps. This helps them stay one step ahead of the disease; hence, reducing the need for invasive treatments.
Healthcare apps are also beneficial for doctors and medical staffs. They can check the patient’s reports and prescribe medicines if required. Doctors can even make referrals through the apps.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/5-Healthcare-Marketing-Trends-That-Will-Help-You-Stay-on-Top.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-09-25 08:00:332019-09-23 17:10:345 Healthcare Marketing Trends That Will Help You Stay on Top
