Powerful Tips to Creating Striking Content for Your Practice

Creating an influential online content for your medical practice is significant part of marketing plan. It helps you build a relationship with your patients, increase website traffic, and turn potential patients into regular ones. The importance of panning out quality content depends on how you put forward. This does not mean reposting good content, but actually generating content all by you so that your potential clients can turn to you when they seek information, need to solve a problem, or a question answered.  It’s always intriguing to write informative content, but it’s not that easy. Here are some brainstorming ideas to keep you on track with unique medical content:

• The key to writing heart winning content so that your prospects will read is staying abreast with the recent developments in the medical industry. In this age of internet, content posted a week ago is termed outdated. It’s crucial to follow knowledgeable individuals in your practice area to stay current on the latest trends.

• Surprisingly, many practices lose big time by not listening to what their target audience is saying. Don’t miss the opportunity of peeking into what your patients have in mind about your practice. Social media connects you instantly with your target audience and allows you to communicate effectively with them.

• Planning is necessary and can help you a long way. Patients don’t really care about how your day went; they are inclined towards knowing what’s new in the healthcare industry and what you can offer. However enticing a blog post maybe, it will not generate web traffic unless that post contains some decisive information.

• Back up your content with extensive research on what topics you want to cover. An attractive title can really spark up a user to visit your medical website. In addition, if you are writing articles and blogs, make sure to submit them to reputed directories to generate maximum back links.

• Not everyone is adept at writing. It can easily be outsourced to someone who has a flair for writing medical content, preferably an experienced copywriter. If you need assistance in writing aesthetically pleasing content, you can outsource your content creation to a medical marketing agency in California.

Why Online Video is Important for Healthcare Industry

For many medical practitioners whether they run private practice or operate in a hospital, online video marketing is still an unexplored avenue. Those physicians who have seen the potential benefits of video marketing are repeatedly overwhelmed by the concept and are unsure of where to begin. 

As with any marketing endeavor, there are numerous doubts lurking around that need to be clarified. Video is no exemption. Following are some important questions to ask yourself before incorporating online videos into your practice marketing plan.

A. Why do I need video?

Video creates a connection with a potential patient allowing him/her to get the initial insight of a physician and the practice. To create this kind of perception, you need the right tools. Your website’s layout, graphics and content all contribute to how a patient perceives your practice. This is precisely the reason why video is the best marketing tool for encouraging patients to visit your practice.

B. Why video is more engaging than text?

Video explains a complicated medical issue in a simple and convenient manner. Consider this, people remember 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see and amazingly 70% of what they see and hear. Detailed, lengthy and complex content can be irritating. For an average patient looking for quick information, such type of text can bring curtains to your website. However, with an e-video you can easily convey your message and in the right manner.

C. What should be included in the videos?

A practice introduction along with patient testimonials should be a part of online videos. Patients sharing their practice experience in the videos can have a thumping effect on a potential patient’s perspective about the practice. Moreover, face-to-face communication creates a bond of faith with a prospective patient.

D. What impact does an online video has on website traffic?

There are countless benefits of online videos, especially from SEO point of view. Video content is likelier to appear more on top pages of Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc. In addition, viewer response notches up to 7 times as compared to plain text. Therefore, when your video appears more in search engine listings, your website traffic will surely increase.

An Encouraging Call-To-Action Is What Your Practice Needs

According to internet and social media experts, call-to-action (CTA) should be integrated in every online medical marketing strategy. By call to action, we understand the response you want patients to complete. But how can your medical profession utilize adequate CTA instigating patients to choose your practice? 

First we go deep into understanding what exactly call-to-action is? CTA can be graphic, text, banner, button or text on a website meant to convince a prospective patient to click it. It’s a crucial part of inbound marketing that attempts to convert a user into lead and then into patient.

A CTA targets clicks and its success can be monitored through a conversion rate formula that calculates how many times the CTA was seen over the amount of clicks.

What Are The Ingredients Of A Perfect Call-To-Action?

• Expert writers believe powerful, action oriented words in a CTA are more result-driven than other type of text. It’s all about user engagement. Words like download now, explore, discover encourage users to click. Focus on making your CTA wording precise and to the point.

• Posts containing “Like” or “Comment” are likelier to receive more hits than posts without the words included, according to a recent social media study. By being genuine, chances are users will engage in what you are trying to inform. Restrict the number of distinct actions in your CTA for it may become confusing for prospective patients.

• Make your CTA outstanding by using fonts and attractive color combinations. Blend of different colors draw attention improving the chances of users seeing your CTA. Use appropriate background to enhance the copy’s visibility.   

• Conspicuously, the size of your CTA matters. Your CTA should be large enough catch the attention of the user; it should not be so large that it appears fraudulent. However, avoid designing your CTA too small.

• While investing in your CTA, remember to give appropriate response when a potential patient tries to engage. You will get more patients if you are ready to foster and covert potential patients into loyal ones.

Earn the Loyalty of Your Patients

It’s obvious that to generate a new line of patients, you should first focus on gaining the trust of those who are availing your services. After all, patients have an option to choose your competitor. An inevitable question is asked repeatedly: How unique is your practice from others? What is that you offer different? Investment of time will help in earning their loyalty and they’ll be your patients for long time.

So, what drives patients to your clinic and how can you win their trust on the internet? If you follow these tips, am sure there will be a steady stream of patients who believe in your credentials to deliver outstanding dental care.

PROFESSIONALISM

Ask yourself! If your dental practice lacks professionalism, then how you will gain deference as an established dentist from new patients? Make sure your website, which is the mirror image of your practice is developed on the ground of reflecting your quality services and care. A beautiful design, attractive layout, clear message, easy to navigate along with quality content is the recipe of a prefect dental website. Don’t make the mistake of sending the wrong impression that your website is not up to the latest dental norms.

ACCESSIBILITY

In today’s multimedia era, patients expect their trusted services to be readily available as and when they are required. As personal computers pave way for mobiles, it’s now mandatory that your practice has a mobile website if you want reach patients on the go. It will be easier for patients to call you, locate your clinic, schedule appointments and learn about your services. Patients will commend your availability, especially when they have to ask questions relating dental hygiene.

EDUCATION

One of the best ways to earn respect of patients is to show them your knowledge base of the dental practice. Demonstrate your in-depth knowledge in the field by highlighting groundbreaking achievements, breakthrough cases on your website. Include patient testimonials also. Furthermore, you can help patients make informed decisions through your blog posts. 

By embracing these tips into your online marketing plan, you can turn your patients into loyal patients. Click here, if you want to know more about patient loyalty.

How Patients Use Mobile Connectivity to Reach Your Practice

A recent survey conducted by eMarketer caught every physician’s eye. It revealed over 100 million Americans used smartphones in 2012, a substantial increase from 93 million in 2011. If Google prediction is any indicator, there will be more people accessing the web via their mobile phones than a personal computer.

Today, it’s not god enough to have a website for your practice; you now need a website that runs on all mobile devices including leading tablets and smartphones such as the iPad, iPhone and Android.

Here’s a sneak peek into how patients use their smartphones to connect with your practice and why you need a mobile ready website in order to communicate with on the go patients.

SEARCH

When patients are on the move, they use their phones just like a laptop or a PC to search the internet and procure information they are looking for. According to Google, more than 75% of mobile users surf the internet on their devices. A patient may find it difficult to navigate your website on his/her smartphone if your website is not optimized for mobile. If a patient confronts such a situation, consider him lost to another physician offering more user-friendly mobile experience.

CONNECT

First thing, patients notice when they visit your website is the content. Make sure you provide enough information to clarify their issues, induce them to learn more about your practice and direct them to contact your office.

The attributes of an ideal mobile website includes:

• Office location and address.
• Contact number.
• Operational hours (Emergency hours if any)
• Special offers or discount coupons.
• Online appointment booking facility.
• Patient feedback and augmented social sharing.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social networking leads the pack when it comes to connectivity using mobile devices. Patients value those practices, which enable them to connect with their respective physicians. Make sure they can access your social networking profiles from their mobile devices too. 

Mobile connectivity is only going to increase in the coming years, making it mandatory feature of your online medical marketing plan to attract patients. So are you ready?

Benefits of using Online Medical Marketing

When you ask a medical marketing agency to devise a marketing plan, chances are you will receive a two-part method as a solution. Quite obviously, medical marketing plan would be divided into two parts- offline marketing strategy and online marketing strategy.

The offline marketing strategy includes the use of television advertisements, newsletters, brochures and promotions. Contrary to offline marketing strategy, an online strategy involves the use of computers and the internet. One of the ways to attract new patients is fully utilize the multiple avenues that online marketing offers.

Here are some benefits of using online medical marketing:

COST EFFECTIVE

• One of the main reasons for using online marketing campaigns is that they require minimum monetary investment as compared with traditional forms of marketing. They have empowered small practices to compete against the bigger ones.
• In a conventional marketing campaign, printing advertisements and posters would incur high costs. However, with the help of internet, you can send a digital image file via several mediums such as email or websites. This will save your precious time and money.

WIDER REACH

• An issue with offline marketing strategy is its restricted reach to a certain area or circle. Having to expand would mean more investment and potentially difficult time managing the campaign.
• This is strikingly dissimilar with an online campaign where you can reach every individual of the globe in a matter of few clicks. You can control everything from your computer without having to put physical efforts.

RESILIENCE

• The online campaign is much more compliant than traditional or offline campaign. You can make changes anytime without having to worry about the negative aspect. In an offline campaign if you want to make changes in a poster or flyer, it would be difficult to do and consume time. In an online campaign, it’s just the opposite.

Advantages of online medical marketing are many. But that surely does not mean you should quit using traditional forms. They have their own influence on people.

The Importance of 5 Ps in Medical Marketing

Apprehension rather than endorsements is what matters to patients before choosing medical practitioners. It has become inevitable for physicians to market their practices in order to develop a brand identity, reach a wider range of patients and keep appointment books full.

No matter how much of an expertise you possess in your field, your marketing skills would be tested to the core while expanding your patient base. Some physicians are hesitant to entwine a marketing strategy because of a common perception that being a physician is good enough to find new patients and keep the current ones. Nevertheless, the reality is the only way to accomplish visibility is through commencing a medical marketing campaign. Explained below are 5 Ps of medical marketing.

PRODUCT: In case of medical practice, product refers to the services you are offering. For instance, if you are a cosmetic dental surgeon, your product is the dental treatment you offer. Moreover, your official atmosphere plays a vital role in making a good first impression on patients. However, the most important attribute of your product remains providing outstanding treatment and care.

PRICE: The price for your product is not limited to what you charge. It is also characterized by the value of your services. When it comes to pricing, you have to match patients’ expectations. If they find the same kind of services at a similar price, they’ll happily move resulting in your loss. So, if you providing excellent services at affordable prices, you’ll get many word-of-mouth referrals.

PLACE: The location of your office is vital for your success. If they can’t find your office or unable to reach, you may want to consider shifting your base. Here, visibility matters and if there are any hindrances in the way of patients arriving at your office, try to eradicate them.

POSITION: Your position in the healthcare industry is judged by the distinctness of your services. What makes your practice different from the others? In order to develop a result oriented marketing plan, you must identify your practice’s uniqueness in the market.

PROMOTION: When it comes to promotion of your practice, you have to plan comprehensively. The above-mentioned 4Ps should always come first and are as much crucial as the 5th one. Promotion of your medical practice includes advertising campaigns, direct marketing and online marketing.

5 Strategies for Successful Healthcare Marketing

Do you want to be contemplated as an expert in your specialty and attract new patients to your practice? All you need is a strong medical marketing concept. It takes more than being a good doctor to generate a new line of patients. You need to develop a carefully thought out medical marketing campaign to withstand extreme competition from fellow practitioners. Whether you have been the healthcare industry for years or just started, the following strategies will help you develop credibility for your practice and attract new patients.

• Set a budget and get on with your medical marketing campaign: Develop a plan that will help you achieve your desired payer mixes. Systematize your medical marketing campaign by setting small targets along with a budget.
• Create a unique brand image and message: To get the best results, hire a medical marketing agency with an extensive experience and vast knowledge base regarding running successful campaigns for doctors and hospitals. Make sure your website, newsletters, brochures and logo have a reliable brand image and message.
• Partnerships with other practices: Referral system plays a key role in the medical profession. In order to take benefits of the referral system, try to coordinate with other practices. Apart from being result oriented, referrals are a cost-effective way to market your practice.
• Search Engine Optimization for your practice: Easy accessibility is what today’s patients like. Make it easier for them to find your website with the help of SEO. Employ the services of SEO experts so they can optimize your website to appear relatively higher on Google, Yahoo and other leading search engines.
• A copywriter to lend credibility to your marketing materials: To convey your message correctly and engulf trust among patients, a copywriter is required to author your marketing materials. Poorly written articles or blogs will have a negative impact on your practice and make it difficult for your potential patients to get the education they need.

Why Your Medical Practice Should Use Twitter

In the past few months, twitter has burst on to the scene like anything. Twitter is living up to the expectations of people. Numbers show an exponential rise in users per month. There are numerous articles and blog posts describing how important twitter is and how can it be your favorite marketing tool. As with any other business, medical practices too have developed a liking towards Twitter to promote their services. If you are not one of them, you surely need to understand what twitter can do for your practice:

Patient Connectivity: This is one of the perennial reasons to have twitter in your medical marketing plan. Nowadays, people access their emails and twitter accounts from smartphones. This would be great for a medical practitioner to grab the opportunity to remind his/her patients of an appointment or let patients know of special deals or offers.

Patient Feedback: Nothing beats twitter when it comes to patient feedback. By creating a twitter profile, you can ask patients to give their comments on your services to help improve practice procedures. Satisfied or not, patients take pride in their opinions. On a positive note, they’ll feel attached to your practice, if they have contributed something.

Medical Marketing: One of the great things about twitter is that it doesn’t require any monetary investment. However, it does require time. Unquestionably, it is the most straightforward ways of marketing- a way to convey your thoughts on a more personal level than an email or online advertisement.  

Discounts: Patients thrive on discounts and giveaways. You’ll be able to attract more patients by offering something of interest and in return, they spread a positive word. This is one of the great benefits of Twitter. You can share your tweet with all the followers. If you have something interesting to offer, twitter can become a powerful marketing tool.

How to Write Persuasive Medical Marketing Content

Whether you are revamping your website, writing an article, newsletter or flyer, the content used in your marketing materials plays a quintessential role in describing who you are and what your practice can offer to targeted audience. Follow these guidelines if you want your content to be the best in medical marketing community.

• Simplicity is the key

Remember: you are writing for your patients. So keep the sentences and paragraphs precise and to the point. Unnecessary addition to the content can be frustrating for the patients and will lose interest. However, content should be long and encouraging enough for patients to contact your office.

• Choose captions carefully 

Encouraging captions can make a vital point, steering your potential patients to the information they are seeking and persuading them keep reading and take appropriate action.

• Images are beneficial

Back the content on your website, blog or newsletter with subsequent images. If you are writing about new developments at your office or introducing a new member, support your content with relevant images. Photos or images tend to attract patients.

• Stay away from meaningless writing

Keep in mind, your content is for patients and not your friends. Keep the target audience in mind while conversing via multiple marketing avenues, or else you may lose them to puzzling medical terms.

• Make it SEO friendly 

Search engines regularly index your medical website for fresh content and make sure your content is targeting keywords you want to rank. Quality content is vital from the point of view of SEO, as it helps in improving the website’s ranking.

• Remove errors if any

Mistakes are bound to happen, so revise your content for any grammar and spelling errors. Mistakes in the content can frustrate readers and give your practice a negative image.

If you need assistance in writing medical website content, contact Practice Builders.

5 Valuable Tips to Make Your Online Presence a Reliable Source for New Patients

It’s 2013 and probably the time to take some serious personal and professional resolutions-generating new patients using new medical practice marketing strategies. Onset of New Year is the perfect time to evaluate last year’s accomplishments and failures, and reflect on your practice’s marketing goals for the upcoming year.

Before you set out for 2013 medical marketing plan, consider these valuable questions about present position of your online presence: 

• Have you incorporated a website and is it fully functional?

If you haven’t launched a practice website yet, you are losing out big. Get down on it immediately. A medical website can single handedly take your practice towards success. It is the most preferred source of information for patients. If you have created your website in the past year, now is the time to give some tweaks to maximize its potential.

• Is your website mobile friendly?

Nowadays, a mobile website is an absolute necessity because of increased likeliness of individuals towards smartphones. By year-end, more people will be accessing internet from their mobiles. It makes sense to reach an audience engaged in mobile internet. A mobile website will be an addition to your repertoire.

• How are you tackling negative patient feedback?

There will be times when you’ll get negative response from patients. You cannot control it. But, you can overcome such response by encourage positive reviews on popular directories such as Google and Yelp. With the right attitude, you can hastily cumulate reviews from your satisfied patients from their smartphones.

• Are you not social media savvy?

Sharing practice’s details on social networking sites increases your chances of being recognized, and that stands for every practice. Social media offers this tremendous opportunity to connect and communicate with current and probable patients. Your Facebook profile and blog can be linked with your website for maximum exposure.

• What is your SEO strategy?

A website without SEO is like an airplane without passengers. Without search engine optimization, it is impossible for patients to find you online. Hire an online marketing expert to execute a search engine marketing solution, which revamps your website for vital keywords. You’ll see positive results in short span.

Vital Tips for a Successful Medical Marketing Plan

Not satisfied with your marketing efforts? Want to attract a new line of patients, increase web traffic and improve website ranking?  With the onset of 2013, its time to review what lacked in past year’ marketing efforts and focus on achieving new goals set for this year. Here is a list of few ideas you can implement in your marketing plan 2013.

Refurbish your website

Working on a new marketing plan may mean designing your medical website again. If you haven’t paid attention to your website in the past, chances are it could benefit from fresh content, a new layout or a different design. A revamped look will help entice new comers and make significant first impression.

Take SEO efforts to the next level

If your website isn’t ranking in the top pages of search engine listings, you need to boost your SEO efforts big time. Try exploring new search engine marketing strategies. Pay per click advertising is one of the most influential marketing tools used to improve website ranking making it easier for patients to find your website.    

Mobile Website

You don’t want to miss out on a mobile website, especially in 2013. It’s the era of smartphpnes and tablets. Nowadays, people are inclined towards using internet on their mobile phones. If you want to reach patients on the go, launch a mobile website. 

Be a socialite

Physicians cannot afford to miss this opportunity! More and more people are using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to connect with the people and businesses in other parts of the world. Be social savvy. Use this opportunity to create awareness, interact with patients and generate leads. Build your own social presence and start communicating with patients.

Reputation Management

Managing your reputation should be your top priority in 2013. This should include implementing strategies focused on optimizing online presence in top directories and encouraging a steady flow of patient reviews.

You can expect better results in 2013 with these medical marketing strategies.

Social Media Boost For Medical Practices

Social media has proven its worth as a successful marketing avenue for multiple businesses. But have you thought of implementing it in your medical marketing plan? According to Medical Marketing and Media, the number of people featuring on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have gone up considerably. The fact is there are numerous benefits of having an active social media presence. Let’s have a look at how you can benefit your practice with social media.

Acknowledgement of your practice

With an increasing number of people actively indulging in social media, various social networking sites present great opportunity to publicize your practice. More recognition means more people visiting your practice, which means more patients contacting you. Here are some illustrations of using social media:

• Share patients’ positive feedback.
• Improve search ranking for better leads for the website.
• Generate referrals by engaging with users.

Its advantage patients

Social media also provides an opening to serve patients better through online consultations. Here are certain ways you can use to add value to patient experiences:

• Direct communication with physicians and specialists.
• Precise and correct information on symptoms, diseases and treatments.
• Updated information through blogs and articles.
• Quick updates in critical conditions.

Other Benefits

Apart from greater exposure, patient benefits and value for your staff, social media still has lots to offer. As the influence of social network grows on people, there will be more opportunities in future. Here are some more reasons why social medial will be a palpable choice for doctors in coming years:

• Gives your practice a strong backbone.
• Develops relationships with patients.
• With social media, you can control your reputation.
• Helps you withstand fierce competition.
• Creates a sense of trustworthiness.
• Improves website rankings in search engine listings.