So before talking about how digital marketing is affected the healthcare systems in a good way, let’s see what exactly is digital healthcare marketing?
Does it mean that your dentist has started posting before and after snapshots in his online ‘Smile’ Gallery on Facebook? In addition, will your orthopedic surgeon share videos and testimonials of patients who have made a miraculous recovery from a partial knee or a hip replacement? Does “digital healthcare marketing” -described as the emailer and newsletters that you received from your primary physician reminding you of your upcoming physical? Or does it mean all of the above? Well, digital media is all of the above. It keeps evolving as the century goes by.
Healthcare Marketing has evolved in both ways- online and offline media.
When the internet came to use of billions of people in the 1990s, it forever changed the landscape of digital healthcare marketing. Since then, hospitals have led the way by creating small hospital websites because this industry has always had enough resources to invest. These web-sites used an array of combination of original creative content, stylish graphics and design, hard-coded webmasters, and original photography. The goal of making such websites was to let the public know about the healthcare services and prices that their doctors, physicians and pharma companies are offering.
Over the 2 decades, websites have become increasingly more complex as well as sophisticated, as healthcare advertising has continued to evolve. At first, customers had to manage through a website to find the phone number of the hospital/ doctor. Early websites were often built for aesthetics and show their value in the market instead of best practices for direct response techniques.
Today, as the internet and technology keeps serving us with endless possibilities, a local private physician practice can also compete with well-established hospitals. It all depends on the type of healthcare marketing they are doing. Small physicians start their healthcare marketing with their websites, with original content as a hub for all advertising activities. These days, not only websites but there are a variety of ways to capture a potential patient’s key interest on a website, including:
1. The best and easiest way –– Organic Searches
The first and easiest way for a potential patient to find your details online through healthcare marketing is through a basic organic search. This search is completely based on what kind of keywords, phrases and formulaic density you have used in your website. If you’ve successfully hired an expert in SEO keywords and Google Analytics reporting, a normal patient can easily find you with a simple type on Google. This is the power of Organic searches. Make sure your hire a content writer to write your website since it can be ignored by major search engines if you have the wrong keyword density.
2. The most important way to build a business –– Paid searches
Google has already created the PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ad industry. With this they have made millions and billions of dollars, pennies at a time with- paid search marketing. PPC ads are those ads which appear as the short, three-line ads you see at the top. Hospitals take the best advantage with this, by listing out their prices and services with flashy words. If you want to be successful in getting more potential patients –– and to compete with bigger hospitals –– this is your chance. When compared with organic search, PPC is best left to the experts who have proven track records and understand the nuances of PPC ads.
3. The king of all digital marketing –– Social Media
It’s no doubt that the best way to engage patients in always Social Media.
Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and many other social media platforms continue to grow their fan base and popularity. You should stretch your maximum healthcare advertising budget in this sector to engage potential patients immediately.