At Wildcat Digital, we know how hard it can be to compete in the healthcare industry. Not only do you have to compete with other healthcare providers, but you also have to compete against the NHS in some cases. That’s why healthcare marketing is so important. In this article, the experts at Wildcat Digital offer the tips and tricks they learned when creating an award-winning healthcare marketing campaign.
So, why is marketing in healthcare important? Healthcare marketing can help you to boost your brand, both online and offline. It can also help you to secure new clients, engage and retain existing clients, and increase your overall competitive advantage.
Read on to learn more about marketing in healthcare and why it can be so beneficial. Our marketing experts also provide their top healthcare marketing strategies to help you hit the ground running.
Why Healthcare Marketing is Important
If you’re a private healthcare business, you’ll likely know how difficult it can be to secure new clients. It can also be difficult to keep and engage your existing clients. Depending on your niche, you might be battling public perceptions too. That’s why marketing is so important, especially in areas of high competition.
There is a world of amazing benefits to marketing healthcare businesses. All it takes is a suitable strategy and the right people behind you. Whether that’s an internal team or a healthcare marketing agency.
Benefits of Healthcare Marketing
The top benefits of marketing your healthcare practice include:
- Find new clients and drive more qualified leads.
- Increase your competitive advantage.
- Keep current clients engaged throughout their journey with you.
- Enhance their customer experience.
- Keep clients long-term and improve customer loyalty.
- Empower clients to make smarter, healthier decisions .
- Position yourself/your business as an authority/thought leader in the industry.
- Build your brand.
- Build your online presence.
Who Can Marketing for Healthcare Help?
Marketing can help all kinds of healthcare practices. Even the NHS employs marketing techniques! Here are a few that can benefit the most from a strong healthcare marketing strategy:
- Physiotherapists
- Healthcare training providers
- Acupuncturists
- Massage therapists
- Private healthcare clinics
- Gyms & fitness coaches
- Nutritionists
- Care homes
- Chiropractors & Osteopaths
Healthcare Marketing Strategies That Will Help to Build Your Business
Now you know why healthcare marketing is so important, it’s time to look at the how. Below are our top strategies for marketing a healthcare business.
SEO
Whilst not a quick fix, SEO is a great marketing tool for improving your online visibility. It can also improve your search engine presence. This is particularly important in the ever-growing digital landscape.
One of the easiest things you can do to improve the SEO on your website is to conduct keyword research. You’ll then need to optimise your web pages for these keywords. This helps Google to find and rank your website for relevant search queries.
There’s a lot more to SEO than keyword optimisation but it’s a great place to start. If you’re not sure though, get in touch with Wildcat Digital today for a free consultation. As an award winning healthcare marketing agency, we’ll point your digital strategy in the right direction.
Our campaign with Your Sexual Health, one of the UK’s leading private sexual health testing providers, saw strong results including:
- Increased blog traffic by 60%
- Gained 106 new top 3 search rankings
- Achieved a 212% increase in revenue since January 2021
PPC
PPC (pay per click) adverts are a great way to push your brand in front of the right people in a much quicker way than SEO. But, it’s worth noting that PPC and SEO also work very well together.
PPC advertising is most commonly used on search engines like Google. It can also be used across social media platforms and as ads on websites. This kind of paid advertising can earn quality leads and result in a huge ROI. Other benefits include:
- Cost effective.
- Fast results.
- Easy to control and test.
- Target your ideal customers.
- Not easily influenced by search engine algorithm changes.
- Improves SEO strategy.
Get started with a PPC campaign with a few simple steps:
- Set parameters
This should consider who you want to target, the theme of your campaign and the type of campaign you will run. It should also consider how you will measure the success of your ads.
- Create goals & metrics
This will help you to determine ROI. Think about brand awareness, lead generation, sales and site traffic. Consider the reasons why you turned to PPC in the first place.
- Choose a campaign type
Where will your ads appear? Choose between:
- Search ads
- Social media ads
- Display ads
- Remarketing
- Google Shopping
- Perform keyword research
Keywords help search engines know when and where to display your ads. Select 1-5 relevant keywords that are closely aligned with the specific theme of your ad.
- Set up analytics and tracking
Set up a free Google Analytics account to help you understand how your website and ads are performing. This provides valuable insights that can help you to tweak and tailor your campaigns to be more effective.
Are you interested in running PPC campaigns but need a little help? Wildcat Digital’s team of experts build campaigns in a smart and sustainable way that drives the right traffic to your website. Get in touch today for a free consultation.
Our Google Ads campaign for one of our top healthcare clients consistently achieves a 6:1 return on ad spend ROAS. This generated a solid and consistent source of ongoing bookings from all over the UK.
Social Media
Companies often underrate the power of social media. Done right, it’s a great way to:
- Increase brand awareness
- Interact with clients
- Establish yourself as an authority
- Increase website traffic
- Generate leads
- Gain insight into your clients
- Advertise (see PPC)
- Create your brand
But first you need a good social media strategy to keep you on track and aligned with your goals. Here’s why:
- It creates direction.
Without a strategy you’re posting blindly. Plan ahead and tailor every social media post to your company goals, brand, values and to the purpose of the post. Do you want to sell, educate or entertain?
- It allows you to measure and improve.
Without monitoring and measuring your social media activity, you don’t know what’s working and can’t gauge an accurate ROI. Plus, keeping an eye on how things are performing can provide you with valuable insights for future posts.
- Consistency
Having a clear strategy with a posting schedule ensures that your channels remain active and consistent. One of the biggest barriers to success with social media is inconsistency. It doesn’t integrate your brand with your audience and can make it harder to gain new followers. Plus, it may even drive away existing followers.
It will also help you to stay consistent with your brand, tone and values.
A social media calendar is a great way to keep consistent. Plan out what posts you want to release on what days, using which channel. You can also account for the person responsible for the post, images and resources, links and more.
Customer Experience
A good customer experience is vital in a service-led industry like healthcare. Whatever your niche, your clients are looking for a great experience. This is a key way to stand out from your competitors.
Customer experience will naturally cover the service you provide – are they satisfied with the service you provided? But, it also covers things such as interaction with employees and other customers, touch points, pain points and more. Everything that you do (or don’t do) impacts their perception of your business. This may determine whether or not they come back to your business. It can also impact word of mouth.
Build a Referral Programme
A referral programme can be a great healthcare marketing strategy. This is especially true if you’ve got your customer experience under control. This strategy uses word of mouth and personal recommendations to grow your client base. But, unlike pure word of mouth, referral programmes are run by marketers providing initiatives to referrers.
Benefits of a referral programme include:
- Targeting a more precise audience.
- Gaining high-value, trusting clients.
- Ability to measure customer satisfaction.
- Identify loyal customers.
- Increase brand awareness.
- Increase conversion rate.
- Increase customer engagement.
- Improve customer retention rate.
For a veterinary healthcare client, Wildcat implemented a referral area for specialist services such as Ophthalmology and Dermatology. This allowed customers to self-refer for a second opinion. Alternatively, other vets could refer their customers for specialist services. This helped to increase patient registrations to the point that Knutsford Vets has recently expanded their surgery to accommodate more patients and increase their service offerings.
Consider the 4Ps (product, price, place, and promotion)
The 4Ps, also known as the Marketing Mix, are literally one of the oldest tricks in the book. They’re the Grandfather of marketing and stand for:
- Product – what are you selling?
- Price – how much do you charge? How does this impact customer perceptions?
- Place – where do you promote your product/service? Where do your typical customers go to find such services?
- Promotion – what promotion strategies do you use? How successful are they? How do your customers find out about you?
It’s one of the easiest healthcare marketing strategies out there, but the 4Ps will help you to clarify things when marketing your business. It will also encourage you to consider what your customers want, how you stand out from your competitors and help you to identify opportunities.
Healthcare Marketing at Wildcat Digital
In this blog, our healthcare marketing experts have given you their top tips on marketing for medical practices. But, if you don’t quite have the time, skills or confidence to do it yourself, get help with our SEO for Healthcare service. We have experience in helping a private sexual health clinic achieve a 500% growth in organic sales in just 12 months. We can help your healthcare brand do the same.
Chloe Robinson
Content Strategist & Team Leader
