You’ve heard LinkedIn is important but is it really? The short answer is yes.
LinkedIn is a social networking site that allows professionals and business people, regardless of their industry, to connect. With more than 600 million users over 200 countries, it is the world’s largest professional network on the internet. Despite its popularity, many people ignore this platform simply because they do not understand how powerful it can be for exposing and growing their business.
Do you have a LinkedIn account? Here are 6 reasons to create one or dust off your long-forgotten one.
Opportunity to network
We’ve all heard the phrase “It’s not what you know, but who you know”. LinkedIn was built with that proposition in mind.
If you’re looking to build a strong network, LinkedIn is the best place to start. It is great for building strong networks with other healthcare professionals. It has a decent search feature that can help you find people in your industry. There are also numerous healthcare groups on LinkedIn that you can join in. Use your LinkedIn connections to build a community. It is up to you to decide how much time and energy you want to put into this process.
Professionals who are using the platform are open to networking, connections, and possibly, professional referrals. When you’re an active LinkedIn user, your opportunities to interact with other healthcare professionals are virtually limitless.
Demonstrate your knowledge and expertise
LinkedIn is essentially a digital translation of your CV. It is a great place for keeping all your career information. In fact, there is an entire section available devoted to recognitions and awards you’ve won. This could be an excellent way to tell your audience that you’re good at what you do.
Many people have a Linkedin account. The problem is that their profile is incomplete. Remember, your profile is the first professional impression people will have of you. Completing your profile with your experience, skills, and credentials will increase your credibility. Think of it as your online CV. Go ahead and show off your skills, academic accomplishments, and professional successes.
Content sharing
Unlike other social media platforms, where the focus of sharing is generally personal content, LinkedIn is a suitable platform for professional content.
The open publishing format of LinkedIn provides users an opportunity to both teach and learn. Here, you can share content that reflects your line of work and presents your thoughts and ideas to a wider audience. You can share blogs that have the potential to create a buzz around your name, participate in discussions and express your thoughts or views on certain topics.
Publishing high-quality content regularly creates trust with your connections and positions you as an expert in your field. If your post is featured on LinkedIn Pulse, your reach is exponentially increased.
Tap into industry news
In today’s competitive job market, it is important to stay up-to-date with industry news and trends in order to thrive. With new regulations and technologies affecting the healthcare industry, there are lots of industry news to stay on top of. LinkedIn makes it easier for you to stay relevant in today’s evolving healthcare landscape.
Joining industry-specific groups allow you to connect and interact with industry peers. From here, you can get the latest news, post, and announcements.
Be found online
Whether you like it or not, people are going to look you up on Google. Linkedin profiles get ranked high by Google. That means, your profile can appear toward the top of the search results page.
LinkedIn is a great tool for managing and controlling your professional digital reputation since you’ll have direct control over how your online identity is presented. Plus, it will be easier for future patients to find you.
Your profile will not only appear when they search your name but also when searching for your specialty.
Further your personal branding
Your brand is what people say about you. Try Googling yourself to see what comes up. These are the first impressions people will have of you.
In today’s digital world, first impressions are formed online, and Linkedin is the best place for people to “meet” you. Your profile is a showcase of your skills, experience, and achievements. It is a great way to present your professional experience, tell your story, and the goals you want to achieve. Make sure your profile is 100% complete. Don’t forget to update your profile photo.
Remember, you will never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure that you do it right. Make one that will differentiate you from the competition and reflect who you are.
In this podcast we review the exact strategy Social Speak uses with their healthcare practices to boost new consultations and build brand loyalty online.
Please view the video at Youtube if you would like to see the screen share – click here to access.
The Social Speak Digital Strategy for Medical Marketing (our Roadmap to Digital Marketing) includes:
If you are looking to increase the ROI from your digital marketing in 2020, please reach out to schedule a consultation today! We can’t wait to learn more about your practice.
Listen to the Podcast
Watch the Video
Read the medical marketing transcript
00:01 Caitlin McDonald: Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. My name is Caitlin McDonald and I am one of the co-owners over here at Social Speak. So today, we were gonna wrap up the year talking about SEO as we’re moving into 2020. But I’m kind of pulling an audible and I really want to take the time to share the exact strategy that is working right now for our healthcare clinics. Now, this strategy is one that we’ve been utilizing for quite a while. However, it’s really working right now, so I want to make sure that moving into 2020, you’ll be able to implement this for your healthcare practice. Now, we also are available to help out as well. This is our specialty, managing the marketing campaigns for clinics and hospitals across the country. So if you do wanna schedule a free consultation, we’d love to chat with you, see if we’re a good fit, and I give you a couple of tips and pointers to get you moving in the right direction.
01:08 CM: So this strategy really utilizes a lot of different marketing techniques, but it is pretty straight forward. So I’m gonna be… If you’re on our podcast, I’ll be talking through everything. If you jump over to our YouTube channel, you’ll be able to follow along and I’ll be able to show you some of the tools that we do utilize for our clinics and if you prefer reading, the transcript will be on our blog probably next week.
01:42 CM: So let’s get started. Let me share my screen here. And as I mentioned, the first part of our process really begins with the strategy. So when we’re taking a look at the strategy, we want to focus on a few different things. First and foremost, we do still utilize social media marketing. Social media is there to expand your reach and spread your authentic brand voice online. If you’re targeting younger individuals, older individuals, it really doesn’t matter, you need to prove that you are active online and a legitimate business. One of the ways to do this is by posting to social media accounts.
02:28 CM: So doing this builds brand loyalty by staying true to your values. It also helps you stay top of mind. Yes, your posts won’t necessarily reach everybody who’s following you online. In fact, it’ll probably only reach a couple of people, so we utilize ads to help with this as well. However, if somebody is actively looking for you, most likely your Facebook page will show up high in the search results so you wanna make sure that you are active there. And then, Facebook and social media also help you cultivate relationships and attract clients.
03:03 CM: The second piece of the strategy that we follow is blogging and SEO. Creating content, any content isn’t gonna work anymore, it’s creating the right content at the right time for your target market. So what does this actually mean for you? It means creating timely information so that you are found online, and it helps to build trust with your audience. For a couple of practices, what we are doing is doing physician interviews or interviews with your staff and transcribing those in a Q/A format, so that you are answering the questions that people are actually looking for online in a way that’s easy to digest and where they can really start building trust with the physicians in your practice.
03:55 CM: And then the last way is through lead generation. So with lead generation, really, our goal is to capture prospect information. Yes, you have to be aware of being HIPAA compliant, but we’ll dive into that. So here, you need a strategy to boost your new leads, to shorten the sales cycle, or that cycle for actually getting a prospect in the door, booking a consultation, and then also to increase your recurring revenue. So if you know somebody who typically comes in for one procedure, then ends up coming in for follow-up visits for something else, it might be good to focus on that first procedure and getting leads for that so that you can then share information through email marketing or in the office itself to get them booking those follow-up appointments as well.
04:52 CM: So this is where it gets really fun and it’s actually putting together that plan and diving in to do what you need to be doing for your marketing. So this is our roadmap to digital marketing and really goes through all of the different steps. Today, I’m gonna be focusing mostly on this lead generation piece. So, in lead generation, we’re really reaching people during their patient journey. So, as I mentioned, we’re figuring out what symptoms they have, what problems they’re experiencing and how they want to live their life differently if they come in and see you.
05:33 CM: So when we’re doing this, we’re utilizing Facebook ads for brand awareness and to get leads, Google AdWords for search targeting, and this is a great way to get people when they’re making that decision about who they’re gonna work with, and Facebook ads for re-targeting. So here, Facebook and Google really are the ad networks that we are utilizing for this. So I’m gonna jump on over here and I have up Google AdWords. Most of you probably already have an AdWords account. However, if you call… This is kind of a nice little tip, if you’re just getting started, tipping your toes in the water, you can actually call up this number here in the top of the page and a representative can help you set up your first campaign. If you don’t have someone on staff who knows how to set up AdWords, I do recommend utilizing Google’s own network of consultants who can set that up because it’s complementary. And again, a great way just to get started. Now, as you’re building more in-depth campaign, setting up conversion tracking and things like that, I do recommend working with an expert. Our team has a team of experts on staff who can help out with setting up campaigns, restructuring them from what Google originally sets up or what a previous agency has set up to make sure that they’re actually working for you.
07:08 CM: We oftentimes come into clinics and see that the geographic area isn’t quite right, or maybe a mixture of different services are piled into one ad group. All of these things can be detrimental for your practice. So an example of this, I just did a search for “pediatrician, Marlborough, Mass” and there are three that come up. But if you take a look, there’s no ads here. So if you are a pediatrician around there, it’s a great thing, [chuckle] a great opportunity for you. But what you’ll see is there are oftentimes fewer ads than there are doctors and other listings that come up. So that’s a great way to make sure as you are creating your campaign, that you’re showing up up here at the top. I don’t have Facebook up, but Facebook is very similar as well. Oftentimes, a health clinic will come on in… Or, excuse me, a marketing agency will come on in, they’ll set up a Facebook account and, or even someone on your staff. And one problem that we’ve seen is that oftentimes, these ads aren’t targeted for your audience correctly. So you want to make sure that you are being very specific in your targeting at least at the beginning, so that you can learn who’s responding to your messages and who isn’t.
08:42 CM: For Facebook, for example, let’s say you are working with individuals who have non-healing foot ulcers. Typically, this is caused by diabetes, so you can actually target people who have shown an interest in the National Diabetes Association, for example. They’re not gonna say on their profile that they have a foot ulcer, but they are going to be following, or most likely going to be following or have expressed interest in a national organization or a magazine, or another coach or something like that who has targeted them already. So this is a great way to kind of refine your messaging.
09:26 CM: Additionally, let’s say, your practice focuses on, I had pediatrics before, what you can do is you can target people, potentially, who just got married, or who have a toddler or have a… Or following other parenting pages. And this might be a great way to narrow down your target market there. Now, within those ads themselves, there are a few things that you need to really do in order to see a return on your investment. So one of the first things that we utilize is lead pages. Now, lead pages is not HIPAA compliant, however, you can embed a form on here that is HIPAA compliant so that the leads go into your system, the lead capture system, and the landing pages are just hosted on your website, built by lead pages.
10:30 CM: The reason why we do this is because we want them to be very specific and tailored towards that one service and towards that one target audience. So if you’re targeting a, I don’t know, a family member of somebody, who has somebody else in the family who’s suffering from addiction, you’re running ads to raise awareness about the support and resources that are out there, that landing page is gonna be different than what you want to appear or the language that you want to have that’s geared towards that person who’s suffering themselves. So here, lead pages is just the tool that we utilize. You can build a landing page just through WordPress, but we love lead pages because it is very easy to alter the page style, it allows you to do AB testing, so create two different versions of the same landing page, and have lead pages automatically show which one, whichever one, and then over time, you can tell which one is performing better. It also has great graphs. So typically for healthcare centers, we utilize conversion tracking a few different ways on lead pages itself. We want to optimize the number of people who are clicking on a link.
11:51 CM: Here’s a little example right here to schedule a consultation. That will then open up a pop-up, on that pop-up is the form that you create through that third party. So, on lead pages itself, we can’t tell how many people have then filled out the form, but that’s why we use the Facebook Pixel and Google Tag Manager. So here, lead pages, again, it’s just a great, easy way to set up those landing pages and test them. And have it be where it’s just a single page rather than going to… And I’ll just click on, I don’t know, one of these… So let’s say this is your website, this is the UMass Memorial Health Care Center. So if somebody goes to this page from an ad, there are so many other places to click. So we found that that is not good for increasing your ROI and conversion rates. So having a page that they go to where it’s just that single page with the call to action of scheduling a consultation, it works really well. Then there’s a question of what content should you utilize on that page and in the ads. So we actually have a form on our website, and I’ll put this in the description, socialspeaknetwork.com, work with us, onboarding lead generation.
13:27 CM: And this is geared towards kind of a broader audience than just healthcare centers. But you can fill it out and here you can select free consultation is what you’re trying to get. But then we have questions here that really will help you identify those key concerns, key questions, key fears of your patients, your target patients, and we have the questions so that they lead you through exactly sort of what you need in order to create the ad text as well as the text for the landing page. And so, we help you kind of really identify and nail down your target market and then create a story around it. So, in this story, we often do actually start with a sentence or two that’s somebody’s story. It could be your own story, a patient testimonial, or even just a made-up story that fits in with the benefits that you can provide for your clients, for your patients. From there, we go into the benefits of actually coming in to see your practice, and finally, the call to action to schedule a consultation. Creating a doctor video around this as well is also a great way to increase brand awareness.
14:56 CM: So again, work with us, onboarding lead generation, the link is down below. But you can just go through this exercise, and at the end, I believe that we do have, even go through an email sequence that you can utilize at the end, when you click submit, we will send you in an email those answers that you put in there so that you can then copy and paste or utilize them, you could also print out that form if you don’t wanna submit the information. However, we’re happy to chat with you about the process as well. So those story ads work really well on Facebook. And then, on Google, we’re utilizing headlines and short calls to action to contact you.
15:52 CM: Now, once somebody clicks on an ad, they go to lead pages, then what happens to them? If you don’t have to be HIPAA compliant, we recommend utilizing MailChimp. It’s very cost-effective, it’s a great way to get started, and it has wonderful bells and whistles that a lot of the big boys have. So it’s a great way to create those welcome series, as well as quick follow-up emails and everything.
16:22 CM: Now, if you are HIPAA complaint, we highly recommend utilizing Influx MD. It looks like not all the images have loaded on here, however, we have a great relationship with them. And so, a lot of our clients utilize us to help facilitate the creation of emails and everything, and basically, Influx MD takes somebody from being a prospect to scheduling their first consult. From there we’re really able to track the ROI. Influx MD is able to tell through our tracking where the patient or the prospect originally came from. It can automate and systematize the process of sending those initial questionnaires and forms that somebody needs to fill out. And then it can directly sync up with your patient management system. We really like it, just because it helps with the customer relationship as well as the lead management and then it has that sales and email marketing automation as well. So it really reduces the burden on your staff and helps prove how effective the marketing is. So, we utilize this a lot. We utilize Google analytics and we utilize Facebook Pixels as well, just to see where leads are coming from, see the cost per lead and everything like that. So, let me just jump back over here, see if there was anything else. Okay, and this is… It’s actually just a health coach, but it kind of shows you that process with the landing page, they click the button, here’s the form, and then they get a drip sequence of emails.
18:13 CM: So if you have been wondering if your marketing is working for your healthcare practice, maybe you didn’t quite have as good of a year in 2019 as you had projected and hoped. This process is really what we’re seeing to work right now. So we start with the Facebook just having information going out to your accounts to build trust in your brand, then we utilize blogging as one piece, and a physician interviews as another piece of your SEO strategy. What we’ve really been seeing work well for SEO is building back links. And so, submitting your website to different directories, different websites to have the link added to content. We have a whole team that’s working on that. It is a very manual process, but we have seen tremendous results there because you do wanna make sure your organic listing or your website is showing up organically as well as the ads and the map listing and everything. And another piece of that SEO is building reviews on Google and on Facebook, just so that you can have that social proof. So those reviews work really well to make sure that your map listing is showing up higher, as well as social proof.
19:42 CM: And then, it’s running the ads. So we run ads based on interest targeting on Facebook, keywords on Google, and then retargeting ads on both Facebook and Google, to make sure that if we’ve already paid for somebody to get to the site or landing page, we are recouping some of that cost by showing them repeat ads. Of course, we haven’t collected any information about them, it’s just based on the cookie on their website, that Facebook and Google are in charge of. [chuckle]
20:16 CM: From here, we utilize or we recommend utilizing a tool like Influx MD to make sure that you are remaining HIPAA compliant as you are emailing and creating relationships with these prospects who have become leads. And throughout this whole process make sure that you have the Google Webmaster tool… Excuse me, Google Tag Manager, so that you can track conversions, as well as clicks for phone numbers, or map clicks. And the Facebook Pixel installed on your site so that you can really track the ROI from Facebook ads.
20:53 CM: So I hope that this has been helpful leading through the actual techniques and strategies that we utilize for our clients. If you do want to schedule a consultation, we are more than happy to schedule a time for you. And we’d love to learn more about your practice, your target market and what you’re currently working on and struggling with right now. Thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you in the New Year on the Social Speak Network podcast
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.
In today’s podcast, we talk about how Instagram and Pinterest play an important role in your digital marketing strategy.
Some people may overlook these two platforms thinking either they are for a younger crowd or their target market is not using these platforms, but that’s not true. Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms and Pinterest is being used as a visual search engine, it’s just like Google but all pictures!
I highlight the following points:
Tips & Tricks to utilize Instagram to it’s fullest potential
How to Upload videos to Instagram and Pinterest
Tools to help maximize your Pinterest efforts
00:00 Speaker 1: Hello. Welcome to the Social Speak Network Podcast. I am your host Amber Irwin, and in today’s episode, we are gonna be covering tips four and five, which were Instagram and Pinterest. And I wanted to go over these two together because they really compliment each other in your digital marketing strategy. So, I wanted to show you a tool that we use for Instagram and Pinterest, and really when you’re figuring out that strategy with each of them. So, let’s talk about Instagram first. Instagram is… Instagram and Pinterest are both visual… So with Instagram, links do not work in your content, the only link that you have in your profile is in your bio. There’s a couple of tools like Linktree, that link will be in the bottom, that you use, which is a free tool that allows people to click on to that. So I think ours is Linktree/Social Speak. And, we have multiple links on that platform, so we have a link to our website, to our blog, to our YouTube, to maybe…
01:12 S1: We have different offers up there. So Linktree’s a great free tool to use to be able to have multiple links in your bio. Because otherwise you’re always saying ‘link in bio’, and you have to make sure you’re changing that out. But if someone’s looking through your Instagram account and you’re talking about one product but that link’s not there anymore, it gets a little confusing. So using a tool like Linktree and having a link to different products or services or blogs you’re talking about is a good idea. With Instagram… There’s a couple of different aspects of Instagram that I want to talk about. First is consistency. Just your news feed and with this is… You’re going through and these are just normal posts that are being put up. So this is just as you scroll through your news feed, these are your normal posts, square images that you’re putting up.
02:09 S1: A couple of added benefits to Instagram that you really wanna take advantage of is Instagram stories and Instagram TV. So when you’re doing a video on your feed as just like a normal post, that video can only be one minute long. When you’re doing Instagram stories, those videos are a 15-second long. So, Instagram TV (IGTV) can be 10 minutes, so take advantage of that space. You’re gonna have a different audience on Instagram compared to Facebook or… If you’re using Twitter or LinkedIn. A lot of our clients get a better response from Instagram than they do Facebook, just a different crowd, different algorithms as well. So with your Instagram account, you wanna make sure you have that strategy. And our tip one was creating that strategy. So, in that strategy, you should have put together, what are those topics you wanna talk about? What videos do you want to do? And, it gets a little tricky with Instagram because you can do your videos horizontal, just make sure you’re in the middle of the screen because if you’re talking like this then… So make sure you’re just in the center of the screen when you’re doing them.
03:33 S1: Vertical videos work the best on Instagram, so sometimes you are recording for dual purposes, so sometimes I’ll set my phone on my computer vertically and record from my phone and my computer, and then the one that’s on my computer, I upload to YouTube and Facebook, the one that I’m using on my phone, I upload to Instagram. So it just kind of depends, you gotta figure out what works best for you. But taking advantage of Instagram stories… And… Hey, we are the first ones to say, “We were really good at doing Instagram stories for a while and then we stopped, and we were seeing… That’s where a lot of those kinds of behind the scenes, the real-time information is great with Instagram stories; it really allows your audience to see who you are as a person and as a company. It’s great if you did an Instagram take over.
04:29 S1: So maybe you have a different employee each week or maybe a couple of times per week, take that Instagram account over, do some behind the scenes, talk about who they are, what their expertise is; just a fun way to really just let your followers know who you guys are as a company. So that’s a great way to use Instagram stories. They only see it for 24 hours, so if you don’t highlight that Instagram story, it’s poof! It’s gone in 24 hours. So a lot of people will use this Instagram stories area as event promotion or specials like, “Only for 24 hours, we’re gonna have this special. So when this video’s gone off Instagram, that special no longer exists. Get in with your membership today, get in with this exclusive offer.” So people love Instagram stories for that. And when you highlight them, if you go to an account and you see these circle icons, these are highlighted stories.
05:32 S1: And you can have different themes. So based on what you do, if you’re a wellness center and you do chiropractic massage, maybe you do holistic medicine, or naturopathic medicine, these will be different so called boards. And you can highlight different stories at any time. So, once you create these boards… Or these… I’m gonna call ’em boards. Once you create these boards, we have one for core values, for business tips, Instagram story tips, just tips for you. So as we do different stories, I can highlight them to go back to these different boards. And so, it kinda helps people know what it is we do. And especially in that coaching space, it’s important for people to know maybe you have a personal life. Maybe if you’re a wellness coach, you have exercises, eating guides or eating tips, whatever that is. So take advantage of that for your audience to kinda go and get those resources.
06:39 S1: So you have your news feed, you have Instagram stories and you have your Instagram TV. So using all of these pieces allows your audience to really engage with you, and the key to this is just being consistent. So whether you’re posting every single day, three times a week, four times a week, figuring out that schedule. And then with Instagram, direct messaging is really a big thing, so people are commenting or asking questions, making sure you’re responding to them within 24 hours. Have your notifications on or have the team you’re working with make sure that they’re checking those notifications and those messages. Sometimes you’ll get ones that are spam, and you know they’re spam, but other times people are just asking questions. You can use an app called Repost, and this allows you to re-post content from other accounts giving them credit; so that if you’re running out of ideas of, “Okay, what should I be talking about?” then you can use Repost, and it’s just like sharing an article on Facebook, but you’re sharing that post from their account.
07:54 S1: So with Instagram and Pinterest, as I said, they’re both visual, so the biggest thing is making sure that people know what they’re looking at so each image is clear, if you’re having content on it, and let them know what the post is the about. And so moving into Pinterest, being able to utilize the images that you have on Instagram on Pinterest as well. So cool fact with Pinterest, you can upload square images, you can upload the vertical images and videos to Pinterest. Think of Pinterest less as social media and more as a visual search engine. I think it was 65% of women search Pinterest for their needs, whether it’s medical, home, DIY; that is their search engine, that’s their Google. And I say, “Yes because I’m always on Pinterest searching for something, whether it’s content ideas, social media tips, home tips with activities with my daughter, wellness tips as far as we used to do to make our own soap, how do you do that, essential oils, whatever it is, Pinterest, you can find everything on there.
09:17 S1: So Pinterest is that visual search engine. And I want to talk to you about a tool we use that’s called Tailwind, and I’ll put a link to this below, but Tailwind… And I wanna show this to you… Tailwind is a really cool tool that we use. It is a paid tool; this is one tool that we do pay for, it’s $14.99 a month, but this allows us to schedule Pins to Pinterest. And what it allows us to do is with Pinterest, you wanna make sure that you are… You always have Pins going out, anywhere from three to eight to 10 a day; you definitely want that rotation continuing. And so with Tailwind, it will actually monitor to know how many posts you should have each day; some days based on our traffic, based on our audience, we have more than other days. And so the weekends, the beginning of the week are a lot heavier, for us, than the end of the week. And so Tailwind creates this process for you and different times.
10:41 S1: So Pinterest, again, it’s like a Google machine, so people are on there in the morning, they’re on there late at night. And so Tailwind calculates when your audience is on Pinterest, and they schedule those Pins to go out, which is super-cool. The other thing that I love with Tailwind and Pinterest is if you’re blogging, you write this awesome blog, you create your images, you pin it to your board, you put it on your social media, but then what? Like you’re writing a blog each month, but each blog is good to repurpose content; you can create what’s called these Smart Loops, and this… What does is you tell Tailwind what images you want to be… Like we have 230 active Loops right now, which means we have a ton of different images, all from our blog, that will continue to be posted, and that they’re posted to different boards, so they’re always being reused because we’re always gaining new followers.
11:53 S1: So with Pinterest, it’s not necessarily about growing your followers to thousands and thousands like it is with Facebook and Instagram, but it’s more about creating that content that people want to share, and the end goal with Pinterest is really to increase that website traffic, that’s the key, is that website traffic. And by using a tool like this, it allows you to see what are the most popular Pins, what are people clicking on, what are they liking, who’s re-pinning what, so it allows you to really dive into those analytics. And so using Tailwind is a great tool, and it keeps us organized. This is… We do this once a week, and then Pinterest is done; you’re already making those images for your blog, and so if you have… If you’re doing lead generation, and you have a content upgrade, you wanna make sure that you’re creating those images around that; so this is just a good way to be able to help you take your Pinterest account to the next level.
13:05 S1: The other thing why I like talking about Instagram and Pinterest with this is a couple of things; with Tailwind, you can link your Instagram account to Tailwind. So if you’re really, really good at posting to Instagram… We have some clients that are posting every single day, and that’s valuable content. You can click Schedule from Instagram, it’s gonna link to your Instagram account, and it’s gonna pull up all of the posts. So this makes it easy to make sure that all that amazing content that you’re putting on to Instagram also can be shared to your Pinterest account with the right boards and making sure that audience sees it as well. So it’s so easy, all you have to do is click Schedule, you pick the board that you want it to go to, and bada-bing, bada-boom, you’re done.
14:08 S1: This is why I really like Instagram and Pinterest together because they do complement each other. That content that you are sharing to Instagram can easily be shared to Pinterest. So, being able to use a tool like Tailwind, and I will put a link in the description with that so you can see that as well, but having a strategy for each of those is really important and then being able to track your analytics with where that traffic’s coming from. So you gotta think of it like this, with Instagram and Facebook it really is… Let’s just stick with Instagram and Pinterest. Instagram is really about getting the engagement, getting the likes, getting the comments, getting the [14:55] ____ messages, and building those relationships. You may not get a lot of website traffic from Instagram because of how the platform is made. You can’t share an article on there and have a link in the content, and people can’t click through to that.
15:13 S1: As I said in the beginning, you have Linktree where you could say, “link in bio.” They click on that and then go to that blog post. You’re not using Instagram for website traffic; you’re using Instagram to build those relationships. Pinterest, you’re using to drive that traffic to your website. You want people to see your blogs. You want people to click on to them. You want them if you have a website that has product on there, whether it’s digital product or physical product, you wanna be pinning all of those images with the right description, with the link back to that page to Pinterest because as people are searching, especially in the health and wellness industries, because if people are searching for essential oils for better sleep, kids’ fever, or whatever it may be, and you have a line and you keep pinning, this is a resource so people are able to click on it, buy it. I’ve bought so many things off of Pinterest because I follow this person; I look at what they’re pinning. I go to their website. I cyberstalk them. I know that sounds crazy, but that’s what we do.
16:31 S1: So, using Pinterest to the fullest potential is huge. And the other piece with Pinterest is using it as a resource for your audience. And what I mean by that is you’re gonna have multiple boards for your business, so you’re gonna have a business account, you’re gonna have your… Like for us, we have email marketing tips, Facebook marketing tips. You’re gonna have all these different boards, and thinking of those boards as keywords, what are people searching for, and how can you use them as a resource for your current audience? So I always like to use Home Depot, for instance, has a really good Pinterest account because they have backyard ideas, bathroom lighting trends, bathroom project ideas. So, they make this a resource for their audience. And I love that because if I’m always going there, it’s a trusted source, I wanna be able to go and see, “Okay, what can I use to redo this as a DIY?” They’re putting this resource here for me to look at and then all I have to do is click on that, “Oh, and they have it in store. Oh, that’s so cool.”
17:58 S1: So if you are a wellness practice, you wanna create your boards based along your services, but then also think of, what are your clients asking you, what are their needs, what are they searching for, and how can you create a board that is a resource for them? And that content that’s on those boards doesn’t have to be all original content. The content that’s on our boards, we did not write all of that content or make all those images. A lot, I would say 70% of our pins, are re-pins. So we have sources like CoSchedule, HubSpot, a couple of other sources that we love, that we get all of our information from that we wanna share. So having those sources that you’re already maybe sharing on Facebook or you’re going to for your own information, see if they have a Pinterest account, start re-pinning their stuff. So that’s really what Pinterest is about, is that sharing platform.
19:03 S1: So, I hope that in this podcast, that made sense with the Instagram and Pinterest, how they work together and how they really tie in to your overall strategy because they’re both really important to have, and that’s why we focused a lot on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for our clients because I really think that you’re being able to touch all areas of where your audiences are at online. So, if you need help with identifying what these strategies are or how to use Pinterest or Instagram for your business, please let us know, schedule your free 30-minute consultation today; we would love to help you discuss that strategy, those ideas and get you Instagramming and Pinteresting right away because I know once you start doing it, you’re gonna be able to see the results and be able to utilize them as tools for your practice. So, if you have questions, let us know. Please remember to subscribe on either Podbean or iTunes for our podcast. We have a weekly podcast to help you organize your digital marketing life. Until next time, we will see you guys later, and remember, head over to socialspeaknetwork.com and schedule your free consultation today. Have a great day.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/How-to-use-Instagram-and-Pinterest-for-your-Wellness-Practice.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-09-03 08:00:152019-08-22 19:48:43How to use Instagram and Pinterest for your Wellness Practice
Today’s podcast is about Facebook groups and how to utilize Facebook groups to get in front of prospects, to build a community around your services, and really create that brand image where you are sharing valuable information and building conversations with your target market. So Facebook groups really have a few different purposes.
You can view them as a forum on Facebook, you can view them as a way for people to connect with a community around a certain topic or even in a specific location. And we have seen great success for wellness coaches, dietitians, nutritionists, wellness centers, healthcare organizations, creating groups were their own prospects and members as a way to make sure that they have more consistent communication with those individuals.
Listen to the Podcast on Facebook Groups for Health Care
Watch the Video about Facebook Groups in Health and Wellness Marketing
Read the Transcript
00:00 Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Social Speak Network podcast. I’m your host, the sweet Caitlin McDonald, the founder over here at the Social Speak Network, and over the past couple of weeks, and moving forward into the next, maybe even a couple of months, we’re going to be talking about the top 10 things that your wellness practice Health Care Center can do on digital marketing to see a return from their investment. And so today, I’m going to be talking about Facebook groups and how to utilize Facebook groups to get in front of prospects, to build a community around your services, and really create that brand image where you are sharing valuable information and building conversations with your target market. So Facebook groups really have a few different purposes. You can view them as a forum on Facebook, you can view them as a way for people to connect with a community around a certain topic or even in a specific location. And we have seen great success for wellness coaches, dieticians, nutritionists, wellness centers, healthcare organizations, creating groups were their own prospects and members as a way to make sure that they have more consistent communication with those individuals.
01:42 S1: Now, in order to make this happen, you have to really make sure that you’re not making the group about you. The group has to be about fostering a community, fostering conversations, and relationships and making sure that you’re not just talking about your own services and your own business. Yes, it’s a great way to share content that you create, but that content that you create, as we’ve said over and over again, really needs to be educational information that your target market and your prospects can take and run with. So for example, let’s say you are a health coach and you have new programs that are coming out. And so these programs, you really wanna share to your community. Now, you could go ahead and share them to your Facebook group. But rather than doing that, I would recommend creating a behind-the-scenes information that somebody might be able to find more expansive version of within the group, excuse me, within the program itself. However, you’re sharing just enough to get them started on the right path. This allows people to do it themselves if they want to, or to understand your expertise, so that they can turn to you for help with guidance down the road.
03:09 S1: Now you don’t wanna just be in there, posting about the group, excuse me, posting about your services individually, because this turns people away, it’s not interactive. Instead of doing that, post questions, answer questions, hop on Facebook live just in front of your group members and really try to foster that, those conversations. Now, it is important to note that right here, I’m talking about a group that is specifically to build a community around your services, and your practice. However, there are a lot of other more broad groups that already exists on Facebook. So, before you create that next group on diabetes, let’s say, make sure that there aren’t groups already out there that are doing a great job. If you’re trying to recreate something that’s already out there, it’s going to take a lot more time and effort to get people to join your group, because they’re already invested in these other groups. Now, I’m not saying don’t do it [chuckle] Facebook Groups are great thing to create, for your practice, but it does definitely take more time if it’s already existing in your space and in your specialties.
04:33 S1: Now, what you could do, if there is a group already made in your area of expertise, is go ahead and join that group. Offer guidance and ask questions, comment on other people’s posts and really start positioning yourself as an expert in that space, and as someone who is trustworthy or as an organization that’s trustworthy. And doing this helps you get that brand recognition, but again, you can’t talk about your services in somebody else’s group. Typically, there are guidelines about this, and it’s just not very professional behavior. We call this in, I mean in most industries, coaching clients from somebody else. And yes, a lot of times, your clients may have worked with somebody else in the past, but you don’t wanna be too salesy as you are trying to build that trust, and really come across as a figure in the space. Then the next tip about utilizing Facebook groups, and this is going back to creating a group yourself, is to be really specific about the purpose and to recognize that it’s going to be difficult to manage the group by yourself.
05:51 S1: And so in terms of understanding and being specific about the group’s purpose, this really helps set the expectations for your group members as they’re joining the group, what they’re going to see, what type of content they’re going to see, and how they can utilize the group to help further their own knowledge, education, and health. And so you want to, if you have a specific purpose and you’ve written the guidelines for the group, it’s important to actually stick to those. So somebody joins, they see the guidelines, maybe they answer a few questions before being approved, then you have to make sure that you are really sticking to those guidelines and being truthful yourself as well as holding other people accountable. Then the second piece there, was [chuckle] inviting other admins and managers to the group. So, in a group, you can have multiple managers. We recommend not just having one person in charge of the group. This really makes it so that there’s less… What we’ve seen in our experience is that there’s less interactions if there’s only one manager. When there are more managers you can even help foster discussions between one another, and people always can have their questions answered more quickly.
07:13 S1: So you can either divide the management based on your own expertise and what topics you are comfortable talking about. Or you can divide it by day of the week, or even time of day. Depending on how active your group is, you might even need somebody on call over the weekend to make sure that those questions are being answered. If somebody’s posting something in the group, and nobody is commenting back in replying, people are going to stop writing back. Now, having multiple group member, or excuse me group admin also makes it easier to keep new conversations forming in the group. So by this I mean, let’s say it’s been a quiet week and no members are really posting anything. As a manager of the group, you can then go in and post something to start spurring the conversation. Maybe you have the first week of the month, you have a standard question that goes out and you see how it changes over time. Maybe it’s asking people for their favorite exercise routine or their favorite activity of the season with their family. Potentially, it’s posting recipes that have to do with a single ingredient that’s timely or seasonal. So all of these things are things that you can do to help boost that engagement on the group, and because you are managing the group, that helps you prove your own expertise and position within the space.
08:47 S1: One other thing I recommend is having individuals introduce themselves when they join the group, and by doing this, you are getting people one, committed, two, participating in the group. If the first thing they do once they join is they start posting in the group, typically they’ll keep on doing it. If you don’t ask them to introduce themselves, oftentimes, they’re not going to. And then another thing that you can do is make sure that when somebody’s requesting to join you ask them questions prior to joining. So you can ask them what topics they’re most interested in, so that you talk about those topics, and for their email address. Now, this email address, if you have a disclosure there, you can mostly add that to your newsletter as well, or you can check to make sure that they’re already on your newsletter and they have to be part of on your newsletter in order to then join your group. So it’s a great way just to build your email list as well.
09:53 S1: So above all, the biggest takeaway when it comes to Facebook groups is really making sure that you are being considerate of others. You aren’t selling yourself too much and that your really, your main goal is to build that community and those relationships with the members of your group. So again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald. I’m the co-founder over here at the Social Speak Network. And thank you so much for tuning into our podcast on Digital Marketing for Health and Wellness Practices. Next week, Amber is going to be diving into utilizing on some tools for social media. So be sure to stick around there. You can download and subscribe to, our podcast on iTunes as well as Podbean and it’s also over on our website, the socialspeaknetwork.com. Thanks so much, and I look forward to seeing you soon.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Podcast-Youtube-Image-fb-groups-healthwellness.png7201280Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2019-08-28 13:13:112019-08-28 13:13:11How to Use Facebook Groups to Grow a Health and Wellness Practice
Digital marketing is becoming the new wave of healthcare marketing. With the growing competition in the healthcare industry, it is important to stay on top of digital marketing and keep your organization at the forefront of change.
Ever wonder what it takes to create a successful healthcare marketing campaign?
We listed down some tips that you can incorporate into your marketing plan right away.
Know your target audience
A successful healthcare marketing campaigns starts with knowing who your audience is and what they value. To produce great results, you first need to create a well-defined persona profile.
Vividly picture who is it that you want to attract to your doorstep and what matters most to them. The more specifically you define your audience, the more likely you are to inspire a positive response.
Carefully and precisely defining your target audience will ensure that you’re not making the wrong assumption about what your audience values. Plus, it will improve your efficiency since you’ll have a good idea about what media to use and how to shape a compelling message that brings a response.
Combine healthcare and social media
Today, social media isn’t just a place for family and friends to stay in touch. It also allows doctors and medical experts to connect with their current and potential patients.
Now that you know who your target audience is, use social media to reach your key audience. Tapping into online communities and sharing health information can be a game-changer in your healthcare marketing plan. Keep in mind, though, that each platform has its own voice and audience. When you create social media content, make sure that the message is tailored to different audience and channels.
Make wellness a lot more fun
Health and wellness is a serious topic, but that doesn’t mean that your campaign should be boring and uninspiring. Let’s take cues from UnitedHealthCare’s successful healthcare marketing campaign – We Dare You.
UnitedHealthcare created an interactive campaign that dares people to make one small change to live healthier lives and document it on social media. Each month, there are new challenges and quizzes aimed at inspiring people to live a healthier lifestyle. There are prizes involved too.
The multi-awarded “We Dare You” campaign not only led to healthier habits, but it also fostered an interactive online community of brand loyalists.
Establish an email marketing plan
Email marketing is an effective means of transmitting messages to your current and prospective audience. In fact, studies suggest that email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers as compared to Facebook and Twitter. When done right, it can help you grow your practice and reach a larger amount of patients.
With email marketing, the audience is openly receptive, and relative cost is low, and the rate of return can be exceptionally high. You can promote your services in a cost-effective way while building a relationship with your patients.
Google yourself
Studies suggest that physicians and other medical practitioners receive up to 45% of new patients through referral. Though most patients would consider the referral of other doctors, family, and friends, the majority of them will run a Google search of your name and check out your reputation before booking an appointment.
The survey revealed that 60% of patients wouldn’t book an appointment with a medical practitioner that has bad reviews. This is why you should Google yourself now.
By running a quick Google search of yourself, you’ll have a good idea of how your practice looks from a consumer’s perspective and know where to start when creating your digital strategy.
If you unearth some negative results when you Google yourself, try to have the post taken down. But if that doesn’t work, then the best thing you can do is to suppress them with positive content.
Be a source of helpful information
In today’s digital world, most people’s inclination would be to open up a browser in Google and research about their own or their loved one’s condition. With so many people turning to the internet for answers, it is important that healthcare marketing is there to be a helpful and supportive guide.
Regularly post high-quality content that answers people’s questions and help them learn more about medical conditions they may be searching or procedures they may have to undergo. It is also a good idea to share important and relevant medical information to help people improve their health. This will help build your credibility and position yourself as an authority in your field. People may not run off and make an appointment, but you will be in their minds the next time they get sick.
In this podcast episode we talk about how Facebook Ads work and the top benefits for having a Facebook ad campaign running for your wellness business.
The first benefit is getting in front of new people, new prospects. So you’re actually helping your business see an ROI from the social media efforts that you have.
The second thing is that you are nurturing those relationships of people who have heard about your brand or your practice, but haven’t taken that step to come in and learn more or meet with one of your staff. Running these Facebook ads helps you make sure that you stay top of mind to the people who haven’t yet come in.
Then the third thing that it does, is it helps you re-engage with the patients who have been in to see you and just need a reminder every once in a while, that it’s time to come back in and schedule their next appointment.
Take a listen and read the transcript below!
Facebook Advertising for Healthcare – Digital Marketing Podcast Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald, one of the co-owners over here at Social Speak, and in today’s podcast episode, we are going to be talking about Facebook ads. Facebook ads are really important for health and wellness businesses and for healthcare.
Facebook Ads help you establish brand recognition and brand trust quickly and easily. They also allow you to get in front of the right people at the right time. Managing Facebook Ads for your healthcare business is really to not only build your prospect list, but also to nurture those prospects.
Last week, Amber talked some about creating a social media content calendar and figuring out how many times to post and what topics to post about, and so this is taking your social media presence to really another level.
Types of Facebook Ads for Wellness Center
On Facebook, there are a few different ways that you can advertise your business. There’s organic posting, there’s boosting those organic posts, and then there’s a whole slew of different ads that you can run from the Ads Manager.
In our digital marketing for healthcare we try and focus on the conversion ads. The reason why we do this is because it helps tap into Facebook’s algorithm for figuring out who’s going to be most likely to take that next step, and we’ll get into this in a few weeks, but that next step often is signing up to be a lead on your website.
This is something I’m going be getting into in a few weeks here. However, I did want go through a couple of real life Facebook campaigns that we’ve managed for some of our clients. The reason why I’m bringing up real Facebook Ad campaigns for some of our wellness clients is because I want to set the stage about the amount of time and effort is can take to nail down and optimize a Facebook campaign that’s going to work for your unique offerings and your unique target market. So let’s dive in.
The first business that I want to highlight is a Healthcare Education Association. They provide healthcare resources and education to constituents online and through live conferences and events. This group has a tremendous following, however, they are trying to grow and boost their new members. Over the years, just because of some ideological differences between some of the older members and the newer members, they have dropped some of their old membership base. Now they’re trying to really grow with new members that are more aligned with where their organization stands. This healthcare organization had only ever run boosted posts before. Yes, this does boost an organization’s exposure and engagement, but are you really seeing a return from that investment?
This is where the Facebook conversion ads come in that we created.
The Social Speak process with Facebook ads, typically, is having some sort of free resource or free download, even free consultation, that somebody can sign up for when they click on your Facebook ad. We’ve used webinars, e-books, and, in this case, we took articles that the client had previously written and bundled them together in the form of an e-book. Our first ads tested out the interest in this resource, which audiences lead to the most clients and conversions, ad what imagry and text were most effective. In this first go, there were three different audiences, but we did not see anything more than a 1% conversion rate. We spent about $160 in advertising budget spread across our A/B tests and saw one lead come in. Giving these tests a rest, we moved to the next digital project.
When optimizing Facebook ads for your wellness practice you shouldn’t just work on testing how you position your free resource or content upgrade, but also what offer is going to align most closely to the needs of your target market.
At this stage, we moved on to their next resource that we could offer and we did this a few different times, and we came across a quiz that they had. After repackaging the quiz so that it lived directly on their website we were ready to capture the leads directly into their email system rather than going through a third party. With this quiz, we found that through running the leads ads on Facebook rather than sending somebody to a landing page, we’re able to get the cost per lead down to almost $2. Additionally, we tried two different other campaigns, one for a fact sheet, and one for an e-book, focusing on a different topic, a different service that they provide from the first e-book, and each of these were able to get a sub $3 cost per lead as well. We’re still in the process of testing new services to promote new offers to promote, new educational resources to promote for them. We’re building another quiz that has to do with that second topic that we are talking about with them, and through this process, we’re continually able to decrease that cost per lead and get consistent results.
The reason why I shared this one first and kind of that failure story of spending $160 for one lead, is that your whole staff and your whole board needs to have the expectation that optimizing Facebook ads does take time. And so yes, you want to have an end goal of, I want to only spend $10 per lead, $15 per lead, $1 per lead. You need to have that goal, but you need to have the expectation that you’re not going to be there right now. So for this organization, we want that cost per lead to be lower, and we are working to get there. But we are testing out different audiences, different offers, different ad content, as a way to get there. I think in all, we’ve run over 100 or 150 different ads for them, that maybe it’s the same ad text but a different picture, different ad text, same video, or different audience, same audience, merging audiences together. And so it really is a process where you need to let the data speak for itself. And if it doesn’t stick on the first try, try again. So have kind of that budget in mind and that end goal right into the forefront.
The next client I wanted to share is a dietitian and health coach. She has been working with us running ads for over the past year. For any ad campaign, we do recommend giving it at least six months to make sure that with that first example is process that you are giving it time to really figure out if you’re getting results or not. Afterwards you have to then convert the leads into actual folks who are booking appointments with you, coming in, signing up for those paid services, or purchasing a product from you. So with this health coach, this dietitian, she has been running ads long before we even first sat down with her. And for her, our technique is really to focus on each of the different e-books, downloads, free offers that she has. She is very geared towards sharing educational resources, as are most of our clients. And for this client, we’ve had a few home run offers, timely offers, holiday diet tips and back to school tips and things like that, that have worked really well; with landing pages getting 60-70% conversion rates. However, the cost per lead has still been a little bit higher.
In this recent campaign, she had a great idea of grouping all of the resources together and having a complete resource library that folks who enter their name and email would gain access to. We created a new conversion campaign for this and a new landing page. And rather than creating individual ads for each of the different items that we want to test, we used Facebook’s, it’s not new, but newer feature where you can actually test multiple headlines, bodies and calls to action in each of the ads that you’re running and images or videos. And then Facebook will automatically pair and match and test the different items for you. So it takes a lot of the guess work out of creating those 100 or 200 different ads to make sure that you’re testing all of the different combinations. So for her this new campaign, we’ve been able to bring her average historical cost per lead from about $3-$4 all the way down to $0.50 cents. Now at this 50-cent mark, she is just pushing money towards this campaign and we’re continuing to see Facebook’s algorithm lead to better and better results. Now for her, because she is getting this quantity now, we are making sure that we still have that quality.
We’re working on that next part of the campaign, which is that email marketing follow-up. And here, we’re testing to make sure that that open rate and click rate on her emails actually is going up rather than going down as we’re getting more quantity in there.
Setting Goals for your Healthcare Facebook Campaign
The goal for your Facebook campaign should be within the first, I’d say, three months to really start seeing movement in a positive direction. And that could be starting with a cost per lead or conversion of $60 and working it down. But you don’t want to throw all your money at something until you see that upward momentum towards positive return. So for this dietitian for example, we are telling her to throw money at the campaign because it is currently working, and she’s getting conversions from it. If it was that first example that I gave, we did not spend their whole monthly budget until month three [chuckle] when we were finally able to push the dollars behind a campaign that was getting the results in the price point that they needed.
Always start small, test multiple things at once, and utilize Facebook’s ability to really optimize the campaigns for you.
A trick for optimizing a Facebook Ad Campaign
Now, one of the tricks that we have for tapping into how Facebook can optimize this is utilizing a landing page or a lead page sort of alternative. You can put this directly on your WordPress website or Square Space website. We typically use LeadPages, which is a software to build the lead pages. You can send an automated email afterwards and test to make sure that it really works. I recommend doing this for your business, your healthcare center as well. But of course, if you need any help, we are here to help.
As I wrap up, let’s just talk again about those top benefits for having a Facebook ad campaign running for your wellness business.
The first benefit is getting in front of new people, new prospects. So you’re actually helping your business see an ROI from the social media efforts that you have.
The second thing is that you are nurturing those relationships of people who have heard about your brand or your practice, but haven’t taken that step to come in and learn more or meet with one of your staff. Running these Facebook ads helps you make sure that you stay top of mind to the people who haven’t yet come in.
Then the third thing that it does, is it helps you re-engage with the patients who have been in to see you and just need a reminder every once in a while, that it’s time to come back in and schedule their next appointment.
In terms of what to expect, don’t expect results in the first day. Yes, you might get lucky and you might find that combination where they are coming in right away. Most likely it might take upwards of three months. Now, don’t spend your whole marketing budget in those first three months. Wait for you to see that upward momentum and that path towards getting a positive ROI. From there, give it another three to six months to really run its course and make sure that you are getting after you get that lead, that prospect, that you are then getting someone in the door.
In health care, yes, there are services that need immediate bookings of appointments and somebody needs to come in right away for a consultation or even a surgery. However more often than not, for health and wellness, it’s about educating, teaching people why they need to come in and getting them to know, like and trust your brand. Again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald. This is the Social Speak Network podcast. You can follow us on Podbean, on iTunes or head on over to our website to check out our blog posts and social media as well. I’ll see you next time on the Social Speak Network podcast.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Podcast-Youtube-Image-healthwellness.png7201280Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2019-08-14 02:50:032019-08-13 23:05:46Facebook Advertising in Health and Wellness
As doctors, you tell patients all the time that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Although we often use this axiom when referring to health, we believe that it also applies to your marketing strategy.
Knowing how to market health care services is important, even if you’re happy with your current patient volume. With so much information available online, patients no longer feel the need to visit clinics or hospitals near them. They can easily switch health care providers anytime. The last thing you want is to find out your patient database is nearly empty.
You are not guaranteed to keep up your patient volume forever. Having a planned medical marketing strategy will help keep your brand at the forefront of people’s mind.
Here are some tips on how to market health care services and grow your practice.
Referral marketing
Doctors and other medical practitioners aren’t entirely clueless on how to market health care services. In fact, many of you have been using this marketing strategy for years.
In order to make referral marketing work for you, you have to unleash your inner extrovert and put yourself out there. Make sure you get some face time with physicians, massage therapists, yoga instructors, health coaches, naturopathic doctors etc. These people can be great resources for referrals.
Professional referrals are based squarely on sound relationships. Patients, health care professionals and their staff will only refer someone they trust – someone they feel is the best. You have to make them feel comfortable about you – both as a health practitioner and as a person.
Referral marketing is not just about getting more people through the door. Rather, it’s an ongoing process of finding, attracting, and retaining patients.
Establish or enhance your social media presence
Social media marketing requires a lot of time and effort, and we know that time is something you may not have in abundance. But the benefits of social media are simply too great to ignore.
Advertising your practice on social media can help new patients find you with less effort on your part. It also allows you to connect with other professionals and your patients.
Devote the time to make daily updates and postings. Publish content your audience would be interested to read. Share some tips to educate patients. Share relevant information about your field of knowledge. By educating your audience, they will see you as a helpful doctor who is invested in keeping them healthy.
You don’t have to manually post all your social media content. There are lots of tools out there that will automate your social media publishing and scheduling.
Focus on branding
When we think of a brand, big companies such as Coca-Cola and Apple often comes to mind. As a medical practitioner, you can’t create your brand, can you? Of course, you can!
A brand’s identity is how a business wants to be perceived by its audience or customers. It is how you are currently perceived as a medical practitioner.
Having a strong brand allows you to build a positive image that makes people expect a certain level of quality from you. It helps people trust you and makes them want to work with you. Ultimately, branding can help increase referrals and expand your practice.
Professional website
Today, more and more people are using the internet to research treatments and find health care practitioners of all kinds. They’d want to learn more about you before making an appointment.
If you don’t have a website, then you’re seriously limiting your visibility online. It will be difficult for potential patients to learn about you and your practice. This puts you at a disadvantage.
Having an up-to-date professional website allows you to represent your brand the way you want it to be. Plus, it allows you to easily communicate with potential and existing patients about new services and offerings. Ultimately, it reduces the amount of time your staff spends on the phone by providing basic information and answers to commonly asked questions.
Final thoughts
For decades, medical professionals have gotten by without spending time and money in marketing and advertising their practices. Living in the digital age, having no online presence is simply not an option.
The internet has changed how people experience health care. They would turn to the internet to research health-related topics and treatments, and even shop around for health care practitioners. If you know how to market health care services, then you’ll find that there are lots of opportunities to grow your practice and reach new patients.
The Social Speak Network Podcast recently went into more detail about digital marketing for health care services, as well.
Top 10 Tips to Increase your Digital Marketing Presence in the Health & Wellness Industry
In this podcast episode, Social Speak Network co-founders discuss 10 Tips to Increase your Digital Marketing Presence in the Health & Wellness Industry. Over the upcoming weeks, we will be diving into each of these in more detail.
1) Social Media Strategy
2) Facebook Ads
3) Facebook Groups
4) Instagram
5) Pinterest
6) Blogging
7) Lead Generation
8) Videos
9) Podcast
10) Email Marketing
Watch the Episode
Read the Digital Marketing for Health Care Services Podcast Transcript
00:01 Caitlin McDonald: Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m one of your hosts today, Caitlin McDonald, and we’re also joined by Amber Irwin.
00:10 Amber Irwin: Hello everyone.
00:12 CM: In this episode, we’re gonna be talking a lot about tips to increase your digital marketing presence in the health and wellness industry. So we work with a lot of different businesses and organizations in health and wellness ranging from Pediatric centers to massage therapists, nutritionists. And they’re always asking, how can we increase our digital marketing, how can we increase our exposure online, so that we’re reaching the right target market? So today, we’re gonna be going through the top 10 tips to increase your digital marketing presence. And then over the course of the next few months, we’re gonna be diving into each of these more specifically. So either Amber and myself, will be really focusing on one of the tips moving forward, and this episode really is designed to be an overarching strategy, that kind of paints the picture for the next few months.
01:07 AI: Exactly. So let’s dive into the first thing that will help you have a clear direction of where you’re going. And that is having that strategy, whether it is just a social media strategy or a digital marketing strategy, again, with that overarching picture of What do you need to do? So, having a content calendar. With social media, and really, digital marketing as a whole it’s… Consistency is key, and if you don’t have that content calendar and that organization of what you need to do and what you need to prepare for, it’s easy to forget about it and not do it. So having a calendar, knowing how many times to post with social media is really important, because sometimes… The other day, we had somebody say, Gosh, three times a week seems like a lot. I think it should just be one time a week and we’re like “No.”
01:58 AI: So knowing your audience, whether that’s every day, maybe it’s just during the week or maybe your audience is on social media more during the weekends, so knowing your audience and knowing when to post and then also what platforms to use. So we’re gonna be talking a little bit about Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, but there’s also Twitter and LinkedIn. So knowing where your audience is playing is really important, so Caitlin, why don’t you talk to us a little bit about the Facebook ads and Facebook groups.
02:27 CM: Perfect. So Facebook is one of those networks that we all wanna forget that it’s there, but we can’t forget that it’s there. [chuckle] And over time, it’s been more and more important to have an actual advertising spend. So you’re not only paying somebody just to manage the account and post the three times or more per week, you also then have to spend money on Facebook in order for those posts to be seen. And so over time, these ads have gotten more and more complex as well, so it used to be that you could just click and boost a post, and now what you have to really dive in and create an ad that’s specific for one segment of your market versus another.
03:14 CM: So let’s say you have some services that are more tailored towards women, or moms, or another section that’s more tailored towards baby boomers or children. You need to create different ads and different audiences for each of those so that you’re really speaking towards the networks they are. Now, in terms of the budget for Facebook ads, really this depends on your service. I think the most important thing here is to pay attention to those key performance indicators. So how much is each lead costing you? How many leads are then converting to schedule a follow-up appointment? And of those follow-up appointments, how many folks are then coming in for secondary services, sending referrals and things like that? So we currently have ads running for some companies where the cost per lead is $20-$30, we have other ones where it’s less than a dollar, closer to 50 cents per lead.
04:16 CM: And these are converting at the same ratio of lead to then signing up for services. However, the person who’s paying $30 per lead is completely fine with that cost, because their service is more money in general. Then there’s the next part of Facebook groups. Now Facebook groups are a great way to find your target audience, in communities that are already formed and it’s also a great way to create a community around your own services or offerings. So, we recommend joining groups and so this could be the admin on your account or the business owner. Maybe someone on the Board of Directors, joining groups on Facebook that align with your target market’s interests and posting on there, commenting, sharing articles that you’re writing and everything like that. And then also having a group that you manage for your own organization that just provides a little bit more information. So that your target audience can continue learning and building that trust with you and you building the trust with them so that when it’s time to come on in for that next appointment, they know where to turn. Amber, do you wanna dive in now to some of those other social media networks?
05:39 AI: Yeah. So let’s talk about Instagram first. So, Instagram is… A lot of people, this… Instagram’s a little overwhelming, I think. People don’t necessarily understand it or they’re… And most of the time, it’s just images and videos. You can’t put a link in the content. You could put links in your stories if you have over 10,000 followers. And below in the comments, I will put down a free tool. That’s called Linktree and that allows you to have multiple links within your profile, within your bio area there. So you have a link to your blog, you have a link to maybe a special offer, your YouTube channel, etcetera. So I’ll put that in the comments below. But Instagram stories are really important to make sure you are doing… And these are fun for… Maybe it’s a tip of the day, behind the scenes, introducing a new practitioner.
06:34 AI: These are just quick 15 second clips, or you can do images too. And they only see it for 24 hours. So this is a great way, if you are… If you have an event, if you are having a special on products, maybe it’s a blowout sale on just inventory you have in the office. This is a great way to just have those stories be more like your VIP area. You can track the analytics on those, so it lets you know how many people watched each story and who those people were. So then another step is follow up with them with a private message of saying “Hey, I saw you liked our story. Are you interested in our products? Or if you have any questions, let us know.” So it’s really about building that relationship.
07:16 AI: Instagram TV is really important. These are for your videos that are anything over a minute, because remember, on your News Feed, your videos can be one minute long. And on Instagram TV, they can be up to 10 minutes long. So taking advantage of that. And what Instagram TV has started to do is any time you upload a video to Instagram TV, it now gives a one-minute clip on your News Feed. So before, we would upload a video and then create a post about it, and now Instagram does that automatically for you. So you can have a cover photo in that, you can have a title and a description and put, “Hey, check us out.” What’s that call to action? So, “Sign up today on our website, check us out on YouTube.” So it’s important to make sure that you’re using all of the bells and whistles that Instagram has for you.
08:06 AI: The more you use… So, on Instagram stories, the more if you are doing like a mention, if you’re doing a gift, a hashtag, a sticker, the things that they already have there for you, they like that. And so, you show up more in the algorithm. It’s kind of silly, but they love it, so do it. And then obviously, the hashtags for Instagram. So make sure you’re doing your research. The one thing I love about Instagram is if you type in a hashtag, it’s gonna tell you… Like, if you search for a hashtag, it’s gonna tell you how many people are talking about that hashtag. And then you can also follow that hashtag and see everyone that’s mentioning it. So, it’s good just for that research.
08:47 AI: Competitors, what are they talking about? What posts are they putting up? What engagement are they getting? And then for you to be able to create content for your audience and see what people are wanting to know about. And don’t always use the same hashtags. ‘Cause a lotta times, you’ll see the exact same hashtags in the exact same order on every single post. Do not do that. You’ll see formatting where it’s the post, three dots, and then hashtags. You can have, we usually say, between five and 10 hashtags per post. And then in the comments, if you do a first comment, you could have up to 30 hashtags. So hashtags play an important role in Instagram.
09:28 AI: So from Instagram, I wanna move into Pinterest, because Pinterest… These are both very visual platforms. And Pinterest, I really think of Pinterest as more of a visual Google. This is really where, if your target market is women, mothers, you have to be on Pinterest because this is where we’re finding our information. Whether it is, is this normal? To home remedies, to stretches, to work outs, to… Whatever it is to home interior design. This is where women are finding the majority of their information. So Pinterest, use it as a resource for your clients.
10:08 AI: If you look at, I’m just gonna throw out Home Depot. I think Farmer’s Insurance does a great job. They organize their boards as resources for their audience. So they have home gardening tips, they have like organic plants. They have all these boards that their audience really wants to know about. And so, using Pinterest as a resource for your clients helps build that value and that relationship. The other thing Pinterest is great for is building traffic back to your website. So, Caitlin’s gonna be talking a little bit about the logging and lead generation. And Pinterest is a great way to build that audience back to… Or that traffic back to your website and creating the right images.
10:52 AI: So again, in the comments below, I will put a really cool tool. Secret, a tool that we use for our clients and it makes Pinterest… It’s amazing. It really helps drive the traffic to your site, it helps you organize and schedule your pins, and it gives you suggestions based on your search history of what you should do. So Pinterest, it’s… I think that it’s something that is just a really great way… If your clients are asking a question and you have what we call power partners or a list of people that you recommend, you can pin from them too. So you can just have a board that says, “Resources” or “Referral partners,” and start pinning from their website to that board. So it gives your audience one place to go, it makes it easy and it’s, again, driving that traffic back to your website and your power partner’s website. So, that is Pinterest for ya.
11:49 CM: Awesome. And Amber mentioned this, but Pinterest really is like a search engine, which brings us to blogging and search engine optimization. And so starting… I guess this isn’t one of the points that we’re really diving into specifically, but I do wanna bring it up. One thing that’s important to remember with search engine optimization, is that there are a lot of other places that your website can be found or your organization can be found besides just your website. So yes, you want your website URL to show up and be kind of in the top 10 results on Google, however you can have your Pinterest boards and your pins show up in Google. You can have your YouTube content, we’re gonna get into videos, but you can have your YouTube content show up in the top 10 points of Google, your directory listings.
12:42 CM: All of these things really work together to help boost your website, but also just boost your overall brand presence online. So really keep that in mind as you’re working on search engine optimization, that it’s not just about doing one thing, it’s about doing a little bit of everything in a very smart way. [chuckle]
13:06 CM: So let’s jump into blogging. Blogging is one of our favorite tactics when it comes to boosting your presence in digital marketing and in the digital world. And basically, what this means is creating a well-written article and publishing it on your website. Long gone are the days where you can only write a post of 350 or 750 words. These articles should be a lot longer, meaning, between 1500 and 5000 words, and there are tools to figure out what’s the best length for a specific topic. And they should include lots of different types of media such as videos, Pinterest pins, little snippets of text that are easy for somebody to click and tweet. And so, you wanna make it as easy as possible for this blog post to then be shared to different networks.
14:05 CM: So our typical process for writing a blog or an article includes starting with that keyword research. So here, we like to focus on what are the main things that people are looking for if they want to come in and book an appointment with one of your specialists or physicians? So what are the top concerns that they have? What are the symptoms they have? What are the main questions that they have? From here, you can research what people are actually searching for online. And there are a few ways to do this. One of the easiest is just pulling up Google and starting to type in whatever that topic is, and Google will actually put in there related search terms, they are the phrases that people are really using. And so that’s a great thing to put into Google, or excuse me, into your blog post.
15:00 CM: Then, after you have kind of the idea of what that topic should really be… And as I’m doing the podcast episode specifically about this, we’ll talk about some of those tools that our company uses for it. [chuckle] But we won’t get into that now, because I could go on and on about that. But the next thing that you do after you have that basis of the keyword research is actually creating a blog outline. When I create a blog outline, sometimes, I’m already up to 500 or 750 words, and I haven’t written in an ounce of content. All I have are the headers and the sub-headers and a couple of little bullet points under each of them. So it makes writing a longer blog post a lot easier in the long run.
15:43 CM: After this, it really, as we mentioned is about formatting it and then sharing it. And so one of the good ways to share it is to have some sort of call to action in there as well, and so this brings us into the lead generation part of your website presence and digital marketing. And so, for lead generation, we always recommend having some sort of content upgrade or offer that you’re promoting, and so each of the blog posts that you write can then include a little snippet about that content upgrade or call to action, as a way to entice people to take the next step about learning more about your business and organization. For this lead generation piece, we always recommend having really valuable free information or free content that somebody can then gain access to. This could be a resource library that’s just for your subscribers, or it could be something like booking a free consultation as well.
16:46 CM: Both of those work tremendously well in health and wellness. And then, in order to actually collect the names and email addresses, we recommend setting up a landing page, and you can do this just on, let’s say, a WordPress website or a tool like LeadPages or somewhere else, where you collect their name, email address and sometimes phone number, you can play around with kind of conversion rates there, have them download or gain access to whatever it is, and then sign them up for your email newsletter. So we’ll jump into email newsletter later. But we brought up video a couple of times, I [chuckle].. With blogging and social media and everything. So, Amber, do you wanna jump into videos?
17:30 AI: Yeah. So I love that blogging is growing into this so much more than just contact. In a blog, like Caitlin said, you’re gonna have a lead magnet, you’re gonna have an image, you’re gonna have that Pinterest image, so you can pin that back to Pinterest, and you’re gonna have videos. So I… You’re really touching every type of learning, whether they’re kinesthetic, visual, audio. Because with videos, people, and a lot of times, people will watch videos without the sound, so captions are really important, because whether they’re at work or they’re just in a place where they can’t hear, their kids are running around… Whatever it is. So videos are a great way to really allow your audience to get to know who you are.
18:16 AI: And these videos can be on… Again, it goes back to that content calendar that you’re gonna be putting in place the first step. Because, maybe you have a tip of the day in your blog post, whether you have it broken out in different sections, you could have a video for each section, so it just maybe goes into a little bit further detail or showing them how to do something so they can read it and they can see it. And they can put it together based on how they need to. Maybe it’s recipes are really great for videos. So videos are just such an important piece of your digital marketing. And there’s a few things that you’re gonna do with these videos once you have them. Obviously, you’re gonna upload them to YouTube, and when you have them onto YouTube, there’s… And I’ll get in more like Caitlin said… As you go into these videos more in detail, we’ll give you all the tools that we use.
19:05 AI: But with YouTube, you’re gonna wanna create playlists and there’s a lot of little things that you could do with your videos to make sure that they’re getting seen more. So, YouTube is gonna be your hub. From that, you could put them into your blog post, you can upload them to Facebook into these groups that you’re gonna be a part of, but then also onto Instagram TV. So a couple of tips when you’re doing videos. When you’re doing an Instagram TV video, have your phone vertical. When you’re doing a… Most of the time, if I’m recording a video for YouTube, I’ll just have it from my computer or turn your phone horizontal. So it doesn’t matter, even if you do a video vertical for YouTube, YouTube… There’s no more black bars, they have the image back there, so it looks really good, but having these videos on all of your platforms is really important because, again, it just… It brings that name to face and you’re able to answer questions. A lot of times what we see with pediatricians, they will get questions, they’ll take notes of weekly questions that they’re getting from their patients and then at the end of the week, they’ll do maybe an FAQ Friday and they’ll answer some of these questions that the parents had or they’ll talk about a topic.
20:23 AI: So again, it’s listening to what your audience is looking for and asking for and doing those videos around their needs. And this is, again, where those Facebook groups come in, because you can do videos just for that group, based on those questions that are coming in, so you can get really intimate with your clients and then you have ones that are just for YouTube that anyone can view. So, videos are really important, and again going with the videos, taking it a little bit further with podcasts. So Caitlin, let’s talk a little bit about podcasts before we kind of wrap it up with the email marketing piece. Podcasts are hot right now, but everyone wants to do one. What are, how do you start your own podcast and what are a few tips people should know?
21:12 CM: Yeah. So with podcasts, the process is a lot easier than you might think. There are hundreds, maybe not hundreds, but there are a handful of free podcast, kind of hosting companies, or ones where it just costs under $10 per month to sign up for it. We use Podbean. There are a bunch of other ones. With Podbean, we also can hook it up to iTunes. So our podcast is on iTunes. And it’s something that, as long as you’re being consistent, it just provides that extra little piece of personality behind your organization. So, it’s a great place to take the content that you’re sharing in those videos and turn it into a podcast episode.
22:00 CM: It’s also a great way to interview people. So let’s say, you have 10 physicians on staff, go through and interview each of them on anything from kind of giving a little bit of a personal background to who’s in your practice through to their specialities. If you’re an health and wellness coach, reach out to other health and wellness coaches who might have a slightly different perspective and having this podcast and being the interviewer automatically positions you as an expert and also gives you a great ideas for what to do for your own practice if you ever are stuck finding clients, let’s say, or with… Maybe one regimen isn’t working for a client, you always… It always works.
22:45 CM: So tap into the knowledge of the people that you’re interviewing, and see what else they recommend, any other solutions that they recommend kind of turning to. So it’s a really fun, easy way just to have a different piece of media that you can share on your website, and then it also provides a great basis for blog posts. So, [chuckle] you do the podcast episode, you record it for YouTube, you upload it to Podbean or wherever, to iTunes, so then you can share that, you can share the video and then you’d make a transcription of it using one of the many softwares that are available online and you have a full blog post kind of without doing any work that then goes on your website, helps with that search engine optimization and provides a different type of content to share online as well. So podcasts are hot, they’re one of… It’s one of the growing, quickest growing avenues online for marketing your business and practice. So I say jump on the bandwagon, give it a shot.
23:55 AI: Exactly, and then once you have your blogs and your podcast, then that kinda comes into that email marketing piece. And email marketing kinda plays two roles in your digital marketing because you’re gonna have, whether you have weekly updates. We do a weekly digital marketing email or a monthly newsletter and so I’ll talk a little bit about those monthly newsletters and weekly emails, and then, Caitlin’s gonna talk a little bit about how that email marketing plays a role in your lead generation with the automation piece. So when you have and again, everything comes down to consistency. So when you are creating all this content, you can kind of see how it’s this little spider web and how everything connects, but your website is your hub of where everything lands and so, your whole goal is to have everyone, have all these resources back to your website. So email marketing, whether these are patients, people you’ve met at events, people that signed up for your lead generation, you wanna make sure that now you are communicating with them, whether that is weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, it doesn’t matter, as long as you pick what you’re gonna do and commit to it.
25:09 AI: So the worst is you get an email. I signed up for something, I’m so excited. I get that intro email, I love it and then I’m like, “I haven’t heard anything from them. What’s going on?” So making sure that you have that plan and you know what they’re talking about. So again, your newsletters are gonna be more content that’s just for them. So again, this can be a video that’s maybe just an FAQ video. Asking people to join your Facebook group, giving them tips, maybe it’s finding other articles of resources that you have approved that you want to send out to your audience. So, really, it’s tips giving a lot of value, that’s where people… You’re gonna keep them reading. And then at the end you would have your links to your blogs, you would have your links to your social media, but really come up with original content for your newsletter. So Caitlin, how does email marketing play a role with lead generation?
26:07 CM: Yeah, absolutely. So with lead generation, and as Amber just mentioned, somebody is really excited. They just signed up for whatever resource or free consultation that you decided to offer as that content upgrade, and now you need to make sure they know who your organization is and that they… So, know, like and trust you. And so, email marketing and creating automated email campaigns for that first two weeks of your relationship with this new prospect is really important. And so, we recommend not only having that weekly or monthly newsletter, but also having an automated email campaign that every new subscriber’s signed up to. And so with this, you’re trying to be educational, you’re trying to provide even more content that’s gonna benefit this prospect. And then, over time throughout those first two weeks, you can introduce some of your services, you can have a video in there, interviewing one of your physicians or the person that this individual might see.
27:19 CM: And your goal really is to get them to trust you enough, to want to sign up for one of your paid services, or come on and schedule that initial meeting with you. Because, just because somebody signed up for the email list doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily ready to take that next step. So having this email marketing is something that’s really easy to create and have play in the background, and continue building that trust so that you don’t have to sit there and email or call every single new sign up. So, it really helps with getting people to know, like, and trust your brand.
27:55 AI: Yeah, I love it. So as we said, over the past following weeks… Or upcoming weeks, we are gonna be going into more detailed tips and tricks on each one of these points, so you have a better understanding of how it can work for your business and why it’s so important to your digital marketing strategy, because really, it seems like a lot, but they all flow together. So you can’t just do one piece without doing another piece, so we’re gonna show you why and how to do each of these. Until next time, we will see you guys later, if you have any questions, comments, please let us know and we look forward to chatting with you on our next podcast.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Podcast-Youtube-Image-amber-and-caitlin-1.png7201280Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2019-07-24 17:22:552019-09-06 13:36:19How to Market Health Care Services Plus the Top 10 Tips for Digital Marketing in Health Care
This week I had the pleasure of interviewing RodThomas is a Director of Regional Sales for Scorpion Healthcare, an award-winning digital marketing partner that has helped more than 250 hospitals and healthcare providers improve their digital presence and achieve their business goals.
Rod has consulted on digital strategy for healthcare organizations of varying sizes and services – including individual provider practices, private orthopedic groups, addiction treatment centers, small rural hospitals and major health systems. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and lives in the Chicago area with his wife and two amazing children.
In this interview with Rod, we focused on tracking marketing efforts, sticking to a digital strategy, and making sure your business goals, and patient empathy, stay at the forefront of digital marketing efforts for the healthcare industry. We covered:
How Inbound Marketing, Web design, and traditional marketing work for healthcare brands.
Current trends or wellness practices with digital marketing in 2019.
Why you shouldn’t just track Cost Per Click and Impressions with your digital marketing campaigns.
The top 3 things that a healthcare center should be doing online to see a return from their SEM efforts.
The top strategy that should be followed, but often marketing teams get wrong.
Learn more about how to use Digital Marketing for your Healthcare center.
Biggest Takeaway from Podcast
One of the biggest takeaways I have from today’s podcast is the role that empathy has in your digital marketing. It is so important to be empathetic and everything that you do online, you need to connect with a customer, with a client, with a patient who is going through a difficult health choice.
Now, maybe the health choice seeing simple for you, potentially, you’re a dentist, and somebody needs to come in for a routine cleaning. This could be somebody who is absolutely terrified and has had negative experiences with every dentist that they’ve worked with up until stepping in your door and sitting down in your seat.
So you need to understand as we’ve talked about in multiple episodes that customer journey.
What is their patient journey as they’re going from recognizing that they might have a problem to finding a solution, to actually calling up and scheduling appointments, and how can we be empathetic to them in their situation, every step of the way?
Yes, the main goal of digital marketing and online marketing is to increase your bottom line revenue, but in order to do that, you need to make sure that your story and your marketing and messaging is empathetic to the customers who are out there.
Watch the Digital Marketing Interview with Scorpion Healthcare
Listen to the Digital Marketing Podcast
Podcast Interview Transcript
Hello and welcome to the newest episode of The Social speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald and I am so excited to have Rod Thomas on our show today. Rod Thomas is a Director of Regional Sales for Scorpion Healthcare, an award-winning digital marketing partner that has helped more than 250 hospitals and health care providers improve their digital presence, and achieve their business goals.
Rod has consulted on digital strategy for health care organizations of varying size and services including individual provider practices private orthopedic groups addiction treatment centers, small rural hospitals and major health systems.
Rod is a graduate of Northwestern University and lives in the Chicago area with his wife and two amazing children.
Caitlin McDonald: I’m so excited to have Rod on the show today, let’s give him a warm welcome. Welcome Rod, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Rod Thomas: It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you for asking me.
CM: To kick things off, tell us a little bit about your background in digital marketing.
RT: Well, I’ve been at Scorpion for over two years now and that’s really where I got my start in digital marketing. I’ve been solely focused on health care digital marketing in those two years. I entered into the space as a corporate employee and I’ve worked over that time, I’ve worked with a lot of different organizations. I’ve worked with rural hospitals, critical access hospitals. They have a unique set of circumstances, unique challenges, all the way up to large multi-hospital systems, which is another game.
I provided digital marketing for addiction treatment centers and individual doctor practices or larger physician groups. So it’s within healthcare, but even within healthcare, even though it seems like a very specific vertical, there are a lot of different the groups, business goals, and challenges that each group of faces on a regular basis.
I’ve enjoyed learning about all of those different aspects of those groups and helping them figure out what you can do online to make connections with your community because it’s all very different.
CM: That’s right, some of the messaging that you have with all of these different types of practices has to be very different. Someone dealing with addiction is going to be very different than the customer lifetime journey of somebody who needs a knee replacement. So it’s really how do you speak to both of those?
RT: Even within hospitals, I mean you have a critical access hospital and a primary objective of theirs is just to keep their market from feeling like they have to go to a big city to get a higher level of care. They often have fewer resources than the other hospital, the urban hospital, so that’s their focus.
But if you look at urban hospitals, they have competitors down the street. They are competing against all the other organizations that serve that market.
Even those two comparisons of rural hospital trying to just maintain its market versus a larger hospital in the city that’s trying to elbow its way up with the competitors, that has down the street, shows how different your digital marketing goals need to be.
CM: So Rod your business is really a one-stop solution for technology and marketing. How does this differ from a typical approach to digital marketing?
RT: Well, I don’t know that there is a typical approach. There are so many companies out there that do digital marketing; they’re not a lot of barriers to entry into the place into the space.
You can build a website and basically say, “I’ve got experience managing Google AdWords and Facebook and Facebook campaigns.” And you’re off to the races. So there are, there’s a lot of competition out there.
I think you’ve got people who build websites, on certain platforms or whether it’s an open source or proprietary platform. Then there are other agencies like us that do digital marketing. You’ve also got agencies that are more broad-based agencies that do everything from print to TV and film, branding of all of your entire marketing service line and channels.
I’d say what sets Scorpion apart is our specialization in digital marketing combined with our history and the technology platform that we’ve built.
We’ve been in the business for 18 years – that’s a pretty substantial history, and we’ve invested over that time in our platform and our systems. We are really pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and being able to drive efficiencies with that system. Having a platform where you have the website, you have your landing pages, you’re able to track and have transparency on all of those entry points into the system, so to speak. So that if, not to get too into the weeds here, but if somebody clicks on an ad, and they look at the landing page, but they don’t convert, for example they’re not making a phone call, or filling out a form, but later they come back to your website. If it’s on our system, we actually can see them, we’ve noted them, and can narrow it down to, “He clicked on the ad,” we realized when he comes back he’s not necessarily an organic lead. He is someone who actually saw an ad, they just didn’t convert until later.
But that platform, it has a lot of intricacy built into it that gives us a big advantage in the space.
CM: Awesome, and I’m assuming you’re going to come back to talk about that a little bit more when we talk about Scorpion, but let’s keep going with these digital marketing questions. So what current trends are you seeing for health centers with digital marketing in 2019?
RT: Well, healthcare tends to continue to be slow to adapt.
I’m going to give healthcare a bit of a pass on one end because health care is just different. It’s not the same as shopping at Amazon, or Target, or Best Buy Online. You’re dealing with HIPAA issues, you’re dealing with personal or private, personal health information. So there are different obstacles in healthcare to do this responsibly.
But that being said, healthcare is just not been as advanced in terms of addressing the opportunity to connect with their community online.
And when they do make an aggressive move they often just get it wrong. So that’s a trend, that’s one trend.
The other trend I would say just in terms of digital marketing in general is video.
Video is king. That type of content is really great. People respond very differently and have a closer connection with video. We’re just seeing a lot of that’s paying dividends down the road.
If you’re investing in that video and having that open to using it, that’s a huge strength.
Utilize video to help your healthcare practice stand apart online
CM: Are there any tactics that were expected to perform well or had a lot of hype, but failed to take hold or deliver the results that they want to in 2018?
RT: I don’t know that there are tactics. I think we’re often monitoring the platforms that are in popping up online like Snapchat for example, or both which maybe not to me, people know about, but those types of platforms that are all of a sudden held up as the next opportunity to connect and they don’t really take shape or don’t take hold the way that would you anticipate. And I think that comes back to a very key component, which is understand that we can’t control consumer behavior.
CM: Yes, That’s key. We can’t force people to interact on Snapchat in a way that they’re not doing naturally.
RT: Twitter is the same. You can’t force Twitter to be a platform that it’s not. And so what we have to learn to do is just be respond to what consumers to the consumer behavior that we’re tracking online and getting a message that’s going to resonate with the right person at the right time, on the right platform.
CM: I think that that’s a really interesting point. You always want to pay attention to what the data says, but you also need to pay attention to the messaging that you’re actually putting out there and if it aligns with the actions that people are used to taking on that specific social media network.
RT: You can’t just throw it out saying, “No, this is never going to work.” Find a way, if you really want to make it work, find a way to make that messaging really stick with the people who are on that network, it and find a way that you can connect with them.
The message may be on point, but it just may be the delivery system that’s wrong.
CM: So what are the top three things that a health care center should be doing online to see a return from their digital marketing efforts?
RT: Well, first of all, you have to get your economics right you have to tie what you’re doing to your business goals and we tend to get squarely on this, we… So these are business issues. You have to consider what the lifetime value of a patient is. What does that revenue look like that you’re going to generate from a patient and what is the cost of acquiring a patient?
There is a mission to healthcare, and we hate kind of talking about the economics of it, but if you’re not taking care of the economics of it, you’re going to be out of business.
So say if you’re spending more than you’re taking in, you won’t be able to serve that mission.
And so I often kind of frame this in terms of… “Look, if you take care of these business issues, you’re going to improve more business, but you’re also going to improve the health outcomes of the people in your community because you’re going to be connecting with the people who need your service, quicker, getting them help earlier, hopefully and getting them back to their life healthier and with better health outcomes.” I went off the tangent here, but I get your economics right.
The second thing I would say is, develop a strategy and stick with it.
People often are saying… “Well, I tried it for a while, I’ll try it for a month and didn’t see anything,” but that’s not adequate.
Develop a digital marketing strategy and stick with it for your healthcare organization
If you’re trying to dip your toes in and out and trying to really make a lot of adjustments and try this and then try that and try to just pull levers to see which one’s going to work, you’re not going to see the return.
Be thoughtful about developing a strategy, and then put it on the field, so to speak, and watch it. You’re not going to get it right, right away, so it’s going to require some adjustments. Don’t give up on that.
And then the third thing I would say is that you have to track everything with digital marketing.
Digital marketing is not like putting an ad in a newspaper, in the old days, or even putting a billboard. With digital marketing, you can tie consumer behavior to a marketing campaign.
How many patients are we getting in the door off of this marketing campaign?
With this, you know what’s working.
In Healthcare Marketing Look Beyond Cost Per Click
This goes beyond the number of impressions or just to cost per click. If you just know the cost per click and you’re monitoring your results based on the cost per click, then you’re monitoring the wrong thing because that’s not tied to revenue.
Track Marketing Metrics Related to Revenue
You could waste tons of money just trying to get to the low cost per click, because it’s just somebody clicking your ad, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the right person.
So really making sure you’re tracking the back end, to say, “How are we doing in terms of generating patients in revenue with this digital marketing campaign investment?”
CM: And I like how Scorpion, with your own system, you have a way to track it, it not only if somebody became a patient or a lead that first time that they click the ad but also if they came back a week later, a month later after they’ve already seen the ad, and they come back to your website, to then book an appointment. I think that that’s so powerful because it provides even more information about that cost to acquire a patient will bring that down and really show you the long-term effects of the strategy that you have in place.
RT: Yeah, that data is important and even with that system, it’s difficult, so it’s not perfect, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
There are a lot of different data points. It’s not just somebody clicking on an ad and I shouldn’t say it’s not always… Somebody’s just clicking on an ad calling you. And that’s a conversion. This ad may be a point that they’ve talked to their friends, they’ve looked at reviews. There are a lot of different points online and offline that go into establishing trust, and that’s really what it is, connection and trust with a potential patient but the data is important, even though it’s not perfect, it’s important to make sure that what’s happening if you’re investing that money.
CM: Yeah, absolutely, so what is the top strategy that should be followed, but often, marketing teams get wrong?
RT: The top strategy as opposed to the tactic?
CM: And I want to try making a difference here – you can answer the top tactic as well. I think both are very, very important.
RT: Yeah, I think that’s good because the marketing tactics change. The tactics, as we discussed, even with different practice vs an orthopedic group, the tactics are going to be different if you’re trying to connect with a dad or a guy who’s out to a playing softball on the weekends in in a league, that’s going to be a different tactic to connect with him versus connecting with, say somebody like my father who’s in the ’70s and golf and needs a knee replacement, but he’s not looking for it.
Those are different. So, you’re going to have different tactics for your target market and who you’re speaking to in the marketing strategy.
The top strategy that should be followed but often gets wrong is empathy, it is really empathy.
Focusing on the patient.
We think the technology is the just launching a pay per click campaign, and these tech tools are going to get the job done, but it is important to realize that it is a tool.
So it’s an avenue, it’s a way to connect with someone. It is not the connection. Google, Facebook, YouTube, these are delivery systems. And so effective marketing is not about how much you’re doing, it’s about connecting with the patient putting yourself in their shoes, understanding their fears in the moment, the need that they have at that moment, in time, and then treating them with empathy.
It’s, it’s the first chance you have to serve them as a patient and if you can serve them as a patient before they’ve even picked up the phone or set up an appointment, you’re going a long way to winning them as a patient in your office.
CM: Yes, that is so important. It’s important in any industry, you have to really know your story and those pain points of your consumers or patients. So I love that answer, thank you.
RT: Yeah, yeah, I’ll say one of the things, and something that I hear a lot when I get on a call. So I was like… We need to be doing social media are we are not doing it, we need to do it as a… It’s almost like we have to check it sounds like we have to check that box.
CM: Yes, and it’s like, well, first of all, yes, there’s a great opportunity on social media to connect, but not just to do it to do it if you’re just going to do it and say Hey, Happy 4th of July from you, the doctor group, or Happy Memorial. That’s not that check in the box.
RT: Oh yes, but it’s not really thinking in terms of where you can connect, how you can connect with someone. So that’s the difference. I would kind of specifically differentiate the two.
CM: Yeah, that’s great, that’s great. So your business, Scorpion Healthcare, is to top rank digital marketing agency for Healthcare practices. Can you tell us a little bit more about your company, and the services?
RT: Sure, we’ve been in business for us at 18 years, we actually got our start in the legal industry back in the day, so the scorpion started as a marketing… Marketing agency to help law firms develop the websites get found online through SEO and through the ads to help lawyers connect with potential clients and help them build their client base.
We branched out since then. And we do home services, and we also have done healthcare for over 10 years. Our chief revenue officer and I’m going to paraphrase what he says here, he says, “we’re in the Oh-No verticals.”
In other words, everything was fine. yesterday, something happened in day and all of a sudden… Oh no, I need a lawyer or… Oh no, I need a plumber or… Oh no, I need a doctor.
And so, those moments or people are reaching for their phones now, it’s like, “Oh no, I got a need and I pull out my phone.” So that’s where the connection point is.
So over that time, we’ve developed a… Our own system, I’ve talked about, it’s a platform that is a CMS that holds the website and from the very beginning, when we started developing with SEO. We’re doing SEO services, we’re doing paid ads where on any channel, that’s online any different connecting points. So, primarily we’re taking about Google or Facebook, but that could weigh and programmatic or native advertising and retargeting and go targeting all of those different tactics. We we’re doing listings management, we’re help in a reputation monitoring, we’re doing content marketing. So as much as we can provide in terms of one partner for our clients that will solve as many issues of their digital footprint their online presence as possible, so that they’re not trying to juggle multiple vendors and trying to get everybody to work nice together.
So that’s really as we stick to really being very specific in terms of delivering our technology and our marketing expertise.
That’s our team that knows can talk and understand what business goals a particular company are, and then develop strategies based on those goals, and then help them monitor it and optimize it over time. That’s an important aspect of what we do as regularly checking in, following what’s happening, and making adjustments as we go.
Whether the business objectives are changed or whether the market has changed, if there are market conditions that require a change, that you have to make sure that you’re just not assuming that everything is working now, the way it worked even two months ago.
CM: Yeah, and I mean really a lot of digital marketing and sponsored advertising is at the whim of whoever you’re doing the advertising through. We recently saw a change with how lead optimization campaigns we’re working on Facebook and our testing almost exclusively now using the lead form directly on Facebook, rather than sending someone to a landing page. And how does that conversion rate differ? And that’s something if the platforms never changed, then I would make marketing a little bit easier, but consumers change, the platforms change and everything, so you have to really stay on top of that, right?
RT: The rules change in… So, absolutely it.
And Google’s always makes changes. Facebook so they’re trying to optimize and make sure the… So when they make a change, you’re not going to know this, fact you may not know exactly what the implications are.
CM: Lastly, are there any digital marketing strategies that your team is currently testing that you don’t think many other agencies are implementing for their clients?
I would say this platform that we’re developing on is really unique and so the advances we’re making in terms of machine learning and it’s a form of AI, where the platform itself is tracking conversions and across multiple variables, and adjusting based on those variables.
So in other words, you have industry standards, there’s certain benchmarks in the industry and I throw out I’ve heard typically mobile devices convert at a 20% better than desktop. So let’s just say that is about average, right?
And so then, is going to track that, but it’s also going to not assume that 20% is the standard it’s going to investigate, it’s going to take a look at the specific campaign, the specific industry, the specific market and it maybe in a particular market that that’s actually higher it may actually these campaigns may convert it at like 30% on mobile or less, it could be less.
And our system is what we’re developing the system that’s going to adjust the spend and adjust the budget, based on those variables that are unique to the specific campaign, unique to the specific client. So it’s adjusting geographical targets, it’s adjusting time of day, adjusting device.
It could be keywords, it could even be on the ad to content to… We have constantly been doing AB testing and a lot people do a AB test, but I have a system that is doing it automatically, as opposed to a person coming in and taking a look and having to do that comparison. I think that, I know that that is going to change the game.
Yeah, I for our clients when this system is and we tested it in a lot of different verticals and it’s really effective when you see a machine just kind of making those adjustments and shifting tactics and shifting budgets on the fly based on the actual data that it’s seeing and that’s a very powerful tool that comes from 18 years. It’s not something that someone can put together right right a way.
And being able to bring that to someone like a sole practitioner, a small Orthopedic Group, or other verticals, a couple of guys who are a couple of lawyers, or even a plumbing company being able to bring that type of power to their campaigns – it’s going to change the game for them.
CM: So powerful, so powerful, it’s exciting, it’s exciting to…
RT: I’m excited about our team that is very good at this. We get to… Often, we have meetings where we’re talking about it, learning more about it, and it is exciting to see what they’re doing and how this could really help potential clients at that way.
CM: So is there anything I should have asked but I didn’t?
RT: I mean you could have asked about my golf day but that would have been a, I’ve been Chicago coming out of the winter and my golf game is terrible.
That’s not a good question, no, I don’t think so, I know no this has been great. And I don’t know that there’s a lot of things you could have asked, but it’s been a pleasure talking to you. I really, I get a kick out of figuring these things out with clients and so it’s, it’s always a puzzle because each office is different in each market is different. My day is never the same. It’s always taking somebody where they are, whether they are just starting out, or whether they’re already farther down the road and they’re trying to get better.
CM: Definitely, definitely. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on our show and to answer these questions for the interview, I know that you spend some time thinking about what your answers were going to be, so I really appreciate that, and it was very insightful in hearing all of the insights.
It was wonderful having you on the show.
RT: Thank you so much, that was my pleasure, thank you for asking me to join.
CM: So thank you again to Rod for being on our show and talking more about the insights he has with Scorpion. Now, one of the biggest takeaways I have from today’s podcast is the role that empathy has in your digital marketing. It is so important to be empathetic and everything that you do online, you need to connect with a customer, with a client, with a patient who is going through a difficult health choice.
Now, maybe the health choice seeing simple for you, potentially, you’re a dentist, and somebody needs to come in for a routine cleaning. This could be somebody who is absolutely terrified and has had negative experiences with every dentist that they’ve worked with up until stepping in your door and sitting down in your seat.
So you need to understand as we’ve talked about in multiple episodes that customer journey.
What is their patient journey as they’re going from recognizing that they might have a problem to finding a solution, to actually calling up and scheduling appointments, and how can we be empathetic to them in their situation, every step of the way?
Yes, the main goal of digital marketing and online marketing is to increase your bottom line revenue, but in order to do that, you need to make sure that your story and your marketing and messaging is empathetic to the customers who are out there.
So again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald. You’ve been listening to the Social Speak Podcast, please be sure to subscribe on iTunes or Podbean and we look forward to seeing you in the next episode.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Podcast-Youtube-Image-rod.png7201280Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2019-05-22 15:07:272019-05-22 15:07:27Engaging Patients and Prospects with Empathy - Interview with Rod Thomas of Scorpion
As a healthcare practice, it is really important to stay top of mind with your current patients and also future patients. By using digital marketing there are so many ways to stay connected.
One question we get asked a lot is:
“How do we increase our engagement and promote our practice with digital marketing?”
Well, that answer is a little tricky since there are many different options out there. It’s more of a combination of different tools to make your digital marketing work for you. In the digital marketing world, it is about trial and error, seeing what your audience responds to the most and how to start those conversations.
In this blog, I am going to talk about 5 ways to help increase your engagement and promote your practice.
Word of mouth and referral marketing are still the best ways to grow your practice, but with people being able to access information from SO many places we have to be a little more creative and think outside the box to build those relationships and loyalty.
Once they have come into your practice you want to make sure you stay top of mind, more importantly, you want to make sure you have good online profiles so it is easy for your audience to refer you.
How many of you have wanted to try something new with digital marketing but just don’t know where to start or what to try?
Social media marketing is one of the most popular ways to get in front of your current audience and potential new patients.
You can do this organically or implement paid ads as well. This is not an overnight success, it does take time, but it does work!
Let’s talk about the 5 Ways to Help Increase Your Engagement and Promote Your Practice:
1. Instagram
We have been talking about Instagram a lot this year and we will continue to do so, it is one of the fastest growing social media platforms with the average age 35-65-year-olds. Instagram is all about the visuals, from building a strong brand presence on your feed, having font styles on your images, color scheme, image theme, etc. this makes your feed look clean and interesting. Let’s dive into how to master Instagram Stories
This biggest thing with Instagram right now is the Instagram Stories, these stories only stay up for 24-hours, so this is a great place for:
One really cool thing you can do with these stories is “Highlight” them, this saves them into an area about your feed pictures, you can categorize them so all your stories go to the correct boards. This turns into a great resource for your audience, each video on Instagram Stories can be 15 seconds long, you can record a 45sec to a 1 min long video and then use this app called CutStory and it automatically cuts your video into 15-second increments for you to share.
You can also create branded Instagram stories images with Canva, they have different themes you can choose from, you can use your own font styles, brand colors, logo, and images.
Now, you may be thinking what if I do a video that is more than 1-minute long, where should I put that? Well, don’t worry, Instagram has you covered and that is where IGTV comes into play. This is similar to YouTube but it allows your audience to watch the full video on Instagram, they don’t have to leave the platform.
A few ideas to create IGTV videos around are:
New mother tips
Birthing Plan
Vaccines
Physical Therapy
Counseling Tips
National Observance Days
Surgery Tips
New medical practices
Interviews with nurses and doctors
Instagram has a lot of bells and whistles you are able to tap into and really grow a long-lasting relationship with your audience.
2. Video Marketing
It’s 2019 and it’s all about the videos! Video marketing is huge and will continue to grow. Videos are great because it allows your audience to connect with you quicker. We wrote a blog a few months ago about “How to Create a Strong Video Marketing Strategy” videos are something you either love or hate.
Videos can be educational for your audience, videos with closed captions are even better. Here are a few good stats about video:
Let’s dive into the statistics behind healthcare marketing with video:
About 46% of people say they’d be more likely to seek out information about a product or service after seeing it in an online video. (Source: Eloqua)
Video is now the sixth most popular content marketing tactic,as 70% of B2B marketers use some form of online video with their overall strategies. (Source: Eloqua)
Of the 80% of internet users who watched a video ad, 46% took some sort of action after viewing the ad. (Source: Video Brewery)
The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video. (Source: Mist Media)
Video and e-mail marketing can increase click-through rates by more than 90%.(Source: Mist Media)
Video equals higher viewer retention. The information retained in one minute of online video is equal to about 1.8 million written words. (Source: Brainshark)
Video attracts two to three times as many monthly visitors, doubles their time spent on the site and has a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
Blog posts incorporating video attract three times as many inbound links as blog posts without video. (Source: SEOmoz)
59% of senior executives prefer video over text. (Source: Brainshark)
Having a video on the landing page of your site makes it 53% more likely to show up on page 1 of Google. (Source: Mist Media)
When you think of video marketing, most people think you have to have a studio, pay a professional, take a lot of time on editing, props, backgrounds, and more. In all honesty with the technology of the newer smartphones and HD cameras, you can really shoot your own videos in office. Actually, the more authentic videos are the ones that get the most engagement online.
A couple of things to remember when shooting a video from your smartphones when you are recording a video for Instagram be sure to have your phone vertical, and when shooting a video for YouTube, Blogs, or Facebook you will want your phone horizontal.
Let’s start recording! Be Authentic, real, give value, and have fun!
3. Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are climbing higher on the list for digital marketing, gone are the days where just having a Facebook page worked, Facebook pages work great if you plan on spending money on ads.
There are a ton of Facebook groups out there that your practice can join, you can even start your own group.
For example – Let’s say you are a women’s medical office, Your services include OB-GYN, birthing center, primary care, pediatrician, etc. But, one special thing that your office focuses on is wanting to help new mothers with education. Vaccines, breastfeeding, car seats, home care, feeding, etc. Most of your patients come from within a 25-mile radius of your office, you can create a group on Facebook called “Tips for New Mothers YOUR CITY” in this group you can invite your current patients to join, post daily, as your group continues to grow you will post two or three times a day. You are creating a community of women that are going through the same thing and want answers. You can allow the members of the group to post questions and concerns for your practice to answer. This is a wonderful way to create trust with your patients. You can then start to mention the other services your practice offers.
In this video below, I will show you how to start a group from scratch and also how to search for groups to join.
4. Email Marketing
Email marketing is NOT dead, I know some may think that email marketing and newsletters are a waste of time, but they actually work great. It is a convenient way to stay top of mind with your patients. With social media marketing and the algorithms it’s hard to really know who has seen your organic posts, then to monitor the engagement. Now, the insights and analytics on the social media platforms tell you how many likes, comments, and shares you had on posts. With email marketing, you can actually see who opened your emails, who read them, and who clicked through to your website.
There are a few ways to incorporate email marketing into your plan:
Content Upgrades, also known as Free downloads. This is a piece of content you put together for your ideal patient to download, in order for them to download it they have to submit their name and email. For example – if we go back to the example in number 3, you could create:
Newborn checklist
Going home checklist
Breastfeeding Tips
New Momma Myths
Top 10 products to have at home for your new baby
etc.
This pdf would then be uploaded to your website and linked into MailChimp or Leadpages to create a landing page with the form for name and email, you can then push this out to social media, your current email list of current patients. Over time you will create quite a few content upgrades. Make a list of different checklists, ebooks, resources you can create for your patients now and then you push that out to gain new email subscriptions to grow your email list. This is an example of what a sign-up form looks like:
Newsletters – You can send weekly or monthly newsletters to your lists, in some cases you may have multiple lists and can customize a newsletter for each list based on your audience. It is important to understand what your audience wants to know about so you can pack your newsletters with valuable content. It doesn’t matter if you do weekly updates or monthly, what matters most is consistency. Whatever you choose to do be sure to stick with it. You can also incorporate your videos into these emails, this allows you to build those deeper relationships!
5. Blogging
Blogging serves dual purposes, it is great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and it allows you to show your expertise. When you are promoting your practice on social media your end goal is to get them back to your website to sign-up for your email list, book an appointment, or fill out paperwork, how do you give them an incentive to go back to your website?
When blogging just like everything else we have spoken about it is all about consistency. One blog per month or two, as long as you do one each month, these are no longer 300-500 word blogs, these are cornerstone blogs which means 1500+ words per blog. We recently wrote a blog on how to share your blog, in that post there is a FREE download, a blog checklist, you can download it here.
Your blogs should cover content that your audience wants to learn about, whether this is myths around vaccines, childbirth, new momma tips, etc.
This is where you tie the above 1-4 items into your blogging. In each blog post you will be:
Making an image you can share onto Instagram
Make a “teaser” video for Instagram with 3 inside tips from your blog
Create a longer video for IGTV about your blog
Create videos to go inside your blog post – you will place these videos on YouTube then insert them into your blog posts
Your website/blog is your hub, you want to drive traffic to your hub. Once your blog is complete you can then share it to multiple platforms with links back to your site, this helps reach new potential patients as well.
As you can see through these 5 different marketing platforms, they each allow you to grow your practice and connect with your audience on a deeper level. They all work based on consistency and planning. This is why having a digital marketing plan is so important.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/How-to-Use-Digital-Marketing-to-Grow-your-Healthcare-Practice-Blog.png800800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2019-05-15 08:00:412019-05-14 19:25:06How to Use Digital Marketing to Grow your Healthcare Practice
