We’ve compiled some of our top time-savvy marketing tips for healthcare practices.
Healthcare will always be essential, but that doesn't mean you can neglect marketing your practice. The healthcare industry is big, and with technology growing and improving, you must ensure your healthcare practice is at the forefront of people's minds.
This is easier said than done. A few things are standing in your way as an allied healthcare professional. Are you too busy? Do you need to focus on your patients? Are you not sure where to start?
Keep your contact database clean and up-to-date.
The most important of our marketing tips for healthcare practices is keeping your contact database clean. This means honouring unsubscribe requests and removing undeliverable email addresses.
In addition, it's also worth determining which of your contacts are active. You can do this by looking at the contacts that consistently don't open or engage with your emails. Such contacts can damage your sender rating and deliverability.
We recommend setting up a campaign to clean up your database. This involves emails asking your contacts if they want to continue hearing from you. If they don't interact with the emails, you can assume they're uninterested and remove them from your database.
A smaller database of active contacts is better than a large database of unengaged contacts.
Invest in a blog
Blogging is a relatively straightforward way to market your practice. In the healthcare industry, there's a lot of scope for content creation, particularly educational content.
Produce regular, informative blog posts that answer your prospects' questions. As they research their health and well-being questions on search engines, they will find your blogs and, consequently, your practice and services.
Make use of social media.
Social media is key for high-street businesses like your healthcare practice. Therefore, you should ensure your social media accounts are updated with correct contact information and opening hours.
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to using social media. You may share updates, such as introducing new staff members or classes and services. You might want to promote any current offers and discounts.
Pinterest is often overlooked by businesses. However, the health and fitness industry is big on Pinterest, so you should consider the platform as an outlet for your content. With this in mind, remember that Pinterest is much more visual than other platforms. You should, therefore, ensure you're pairing your content with high-quality, eye-catching imagery.
Use SMS messaging to your advantage.
Many healthcare practices already use SMS messaging as part of their marketing, so now is the time to implement it for your practice if you haven't already!
SMS messaging can complement your automation efforts. From promoting new classes and available appointments to reminding patients of their bookings, it's a cheap and easy way to maintain contact with them.
Pay attention to online reviews.
Online reviews can be daunting for any business. After all, you don't want negative reviews to make a bad name for your practice.
However, whether you like it or not, your patients and customers leave reviews online. Such reviews play a large role in allied health professions because prospects turn to review sites to decide where to get their healthcare.
The key is to engage with your reviews. Thank positive reviewers for their feedback; respond constructively to negative reviews.
Segment your patients from the get-go.
This is one of the most straightforward marketing tips for healthcare practices! Every patient is different, so segmentation is key to successful marketing.
If your practice gives new patients forms to complete, don't stop at demographics and medical history. Use the opportunity to determine some of their wider problems, challenges and interests. This will help you market relevant services and offers to them in the future.
Bring in external help for your marketing.
Many businesses struggle to find time for marketing, and healthcare practices are no exception. Your practice is busy, and your patients are your priority. Despite this, marketing is essential if you want to grow.
An easy way to resolve this is by bringing in the experts to handle your marketing. Marketing automation agencies such as Flowbird can handle your email campaigns, social media, content creation and more. In addition, we can streamline your processes by setting up automated booking systems and campaigns.
Marketing has many aspects and varies from business to business. We hope these time-savvy marketing tips for healthcare practices will inspire you to get your marketing efforts off the ground.
If you want more ideas or help marketing your healthcare practice, contact us at Flowbird today.