Tag: medical

Competition for patients didn’t use to be as difficult as it is today. Gone are the days where it’s just you and maybe two other competitors vying for the attention of new patients. With the medical industry fueled by consistent technological advancement, competition is fiercer than ever, and medical practitioners have to employ the best medical marketing strategies to keep their practices growing.

Healthcare Marketing

The Center For Disease and Control Prevention defines healthcare marketing as the following:

“Health Marketing is a multidisciplinary area of public health practice. This innovative approach draws from traditional marketing theories and principles and adds science-based strategies to prevention, health promotion, and health protection. Drawing from fields such as marketing, communication, and public health promotion, health marketing provides a framework of theories, strategies, and techniques that can be used to guide work in public health research, interventions, and communication campaigns.”

But it’s not just the doctors who need them. The whole industry, including healthcare providers, medical equipment manufacturers, pharmacies, and other healthcare services, employ health marketing strategies to ensure the longevity of their respective businesses.

Medical Marketing Service

Marketing, as mentioned above, draws knowledge from beyond the medical field, particularly in communications. As such, doctors may not have the full skill set required to market their medical services. For this reason, consulting with a medical marketing service provides a whole host of benefits. 

A medical marketing service can be an agency or an individual professional who specializes in medical marketing. Many of these services will give you 360° services to cover all your marketing needs. Some samples of the services they offer include:

• Digital Marketing (Includes online advertising)
• Content Marketing
• Reputation Management
• Medical website design
• Social Media Campaigns (including setting up your Facebook profile)
• SEO Optimization

The range of services may be overwhelming at first, so it’s best to consult with a marketing expert to determine the strategies that will work best for your practice.

Marketing Strategies For Your Medical Profession

As with many things, coming up with a marketing plan for your practice or institution needs time and patience, as there is a process to determine the most efficient strategies to be implemented.

In your first meeting with a marketing professional, they will assess your current business status and marketing practices. Be prepared to answer questions about the following:

• Ongoing marketing efforts such as your website, running online ads, and other online content
• Your business goals
• The main message you want your audience to take away
• The budget you are willing to spend
• Business details such as location, services, price range, the profile of current clientele
• Target audience details such as socio-economic segment, age group, specific medical conditions you treat, among others

There is no need to worry if you do not have all this information immediately during the first meeting. The marketing expert will help you identify the missing factors before developing the plan.

Next comes the identification of business goals. Are you looking to get more clients? Rebrand? Are you seeking help to address a crisis or a persisting issue? The plans need to be clear, as the strategies will be tailor-made to accomplish the objectives.

To help you think about the services you think you might need, let’s define the different strategies a medical marketing service can offer, as mentioned above.

Digital Marketing is an umbrella term that includes a mix of relevant online tools and platforms for the most effective marketing campaign. As shared in CoFounder Magazine.

No matter the industry, no matter the business model, every business can benefit from investing in digital marketing. There are many correct ways to invest in your business. Still, digital marketing is one of those overarching solutions that will help your entire organization grow and succeed.

Some tools include:

• Content Marketing—Content marketing can help you gain and grow a loyal audience with educational content that provides value to your potential patients and adds to the overall brand experience. More than just giving product information, you equip patients with valuable insights that only you can provide, engaging readers and keeping them coming back for more details.
• Reputation Management—You found out that your practice is often compared to your competitor and that your target audience sees no clear distinction between you. Through rep management, you can shape the public’s perceptions about your brand.
• Medical website design—If you still don’t have a website or if your website isn’t bringing customer leads as you anticipated, marketing experts can help you fix your site—from tweaking the design to adding and optimizing content—to help you get the most out of your online investment.
• Social Media Campaigns—Having a presence on social media, especially on Facebook, is a necessary piece of any digital marketing strategy. It helps you quickly reach a broad audience and can be one of the quickest ways to generate new leads. Depending on your goal, you can have engagement campaigns and growth campaigns to increase your page followers and engage with your audience.
• SEO Optimization—As defined by Google, SEO optimization is the process of making your site better for search engines so that you show up in local search results. After you’ve improved your design and user experience, you can now work on optimizing your content to help you improve your search rankings.

Know the Most Effective Marketing Strategy For Your Practice

When coupled with all the responsibilities of being a doctor, developing a marketing campaign from scratch can be a daunting task. To ensure that your marketing plan is right for your business, we recommend that you consult with a medical marketing professional to help you promote and grow your medical practice.

As the world moves deeper into the “digital age,” healthcare professionals who have not yet built a website for their practice will find themselves falling behind.  For doctors, physicians, and other healthcare providers, an investment in your medical website is essential to growing your practice.

But just having “a website” for your medical practice isn’t enough anymore. Users, and the Internet itself, have become too evolved for a basic page or two to make a difference. A truly modern website should be designed around functionality and grounded in the user experience. Paired with the appropriate marketing strategies and techniques, your medical website will stand out. It will not only help you raise your profile but also improve your practice’s online reputation. When more people get exposed to your website, you’ll attract more potential patients who will schedule appointments, which will ultimately benefit your practice.

Having a Modern Design for Your Medical Website

Frequently, the first exposure that potential patients have to your practice is through your website. Since a lot is riding on that first impression, there are a few things you should do to make sure that your site makes a positive one.

Keeping your Website Design On-Trend

Your website design should not only be custom to your branding as a medical practice, but it should also follow current design trends. It’s a good way to make your website appear timely and also helps set your practice apart from your competitors.

Using a Central Content Management System

To improve the user experience, your website content should be consistent across all platforms. Using a central content management system helps assure that when a potential patient searches for the name of your clinic, one of your doctors, or anything else associated with your practice, there are no discrepancies in how you show up. This consistency makes it easier for potential patients to find you online and also improves web search performance — bringing you higher up in search results. 

Regularly Updating Content

When visitors know that you might have something new to share, they will keep coming back to check-in. That is why it’s important to add and update your website content regularly.

Posting the latest healthcare news as it relates to your practice and your patients is one strategy that can be very effective. You can also highlight your knowledge by creating your blog posts, or sourcing articles from trusted medical associations. It allows patients to use your medical website as a resource tool, which helps you improve your online presence and further establish your specialty in the medical field.

If you know how to use the right keywords to do some basic search engine optimization (SEO), regularly publishing relevant content can provide a big lift to your website’s search engine ranking.

Protected and Streamlined Medical Information

Healthcare information is sensitive and needs safeguards, following privacy laws and standards to avoid the risks of data leaks and breaches. These are some measures your medical practice needs to ensure data privacy and security.

SSL Certificates

Ensuring that your website has a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) guarantees that all information passed between the web server and the browser remain encrypted and private.

ADA Compliant Procedures

ADA compliance refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design. This law prohibits discrimination against anybody who has a disability. It requires you to design your website to be useable by people who have any number of disabilities. 

Some of these accommodations may include using easier-to-read fonts, large font sizes, providing text transcripts for video and audio, alt tags for images, and other features. 

Patient-Friendly Features

Your website tools should anticipate and be customized for the needs of your patients. One of the key features of any medical website should be a patient portal. The patient portal serves as a single location where your patients can book appointments, fill out forms, access patient information, and perform other necessary tasks, and includes all necessary links, sites, and services.

These tools also help your website rank higher when searched online because the security measures that protect the flow of information on your website help the Google algorithm recognize your site as a legitimate, reliable medical practice resource.

Importance of Functionality

Every doctor’s website should be designed with the patient’s needs in mind. Here are some ways to improve your website’s functionality and, by extension, your patient’s online experience.

Mobile Responsive & Cross-Browser Compatibility

With the increasing ubiquity of mobile devices, your website needs to be able to adjust for the smaller screen sizes and touch functionality of smartphones, tablets, and similar devices. It should also be compatible with different browsers and be accessible for all. 

Easy to Navigate User Interface

Integral to your website’s design should be its usability. It needs to be easy to navigate with easy-to-find, easy-to-use menus and navigation. If potential patients can’t learn more about your services or locate the information they are looking for quickly and easily, they may get frustrated and leave your site. Therefore, your site should have intuitive features that provide your users with a seamless and stress-free experience.

Design & Function Works Together To Attract New Patients

Get Ranked Higher

With a modern design that works seamlessly and the backing of the appropriate marketing tools (such as SEO), your medical practice’s website should consistently appear towards the top of the search results. And when you include relevant content, people are more likely to keep coming back to your website instead of going to others. This relevancy helps your site rank higher not only on Google but on any search engine.

Improve Patient Conversion Rates

Your website’s goal is to attract more people because of its presentable and intuitive design and to make it easier for people to avail themselves of any services and information that they’re looking for. And when your patients can find what they need, that means that they can find you as well. And once they do, they are more likely to come through your office door.

Summing It All Up

It’s important to constantly innovate if you want your medical website to stand out from the rest.  When your website is uniquely designed to your brand and created with patient needs in mind, your medical practice will grow exponentially. Officite has the skills and the tools to help you take your medical website to the next level.

To learn more about our solutions and explore our design gallery, click here.

With the global pandemic still ongoing, it must be scary to go out- even going to get a yearly check-up at your doctor’s can be a challenge. The risk of going to a hospital might not be worth it during these trying times. We can’t blame you. The number of cases is going up as the days go by. But what do you do when you need a health professional to check up on your health at times when you’re feeling unwell? Surely there must be away. Fortunately for you, with the help of the internet, there definitely is away.

It is not a shock that the internet is especially accessible during this time, which means you can pretty much do anything you want and get anything you want with a click of a button. But what are these things that make you easily click these ads, websites, and articles? How do your recent search results affect all of these things? The question to that is straightforward. With the help of digital marketing, your searches are easily detected by the internet. You might be wondering what digital marketing is, what it does exactly, and how it affects you or the business owner. This article will tackle everything about digital marketing, how you can apply it in your business or company, and a recommendation of the best online reputation management company.

What is Digital Marketing and Why is it Essential?

When you think of marketing, what comes to mind? It can be many things. Digital marketing can be considered as TV commercials, print ads, phone communication, or old-fashioned physical marketing. This kind of marketing can be effective, yes. But nowadays, people are stuck to their phones, laptops, computers. The amount of screen time per person has gone up since the start of the pandemic, so print ads aren’t as effective as social media marketing. So what is digital marketing exactly? Many say that digital marketing is the future. Digital marketing refers to any form of online marketing. This can be in the form of a clickable advertisement, social media page, website, blog, image, video content, and many more. Because everyone is online nowadays, digital marketing is essential to a brand or company. This is due to the capabilities of online reputation management that reach a wide array of customers worldwide.

We will be joking if digital marketing doesn’t take up space in social media. If you need to reach a certain group of people, digital marketing and public relations are vital for your business or company. People seeing marketing strategies and advertisements online are a norm nowadays. They rely on many online advertisements to learn about a brand, company, or business, so marketing strategies are important. If you want to improve your online reputation, you can get creative and think of marketing tactics that you can experiment on. For businesses and individuals who need help in website design, SEO services, reputation monitoring, customer support, online presence, and many more, there is a wide range of reputation management firms or online reputation management services that you can hire for your small businesses.

For example, you are a doctor who owns a clinic. As we have mentioned above, it cannot be easy to go outside during these trying times. This means it is hard to reach patients that you can help—especially children and the elderly who are easily affected by the pandemic. Luckily, with the help of online reputation management services, you can help reach everyone. So how does this work exactly?

How Digital Marketing Works

There are many strategies that online reputation management can do for your company. Here are some that are best for a small business or clinic:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is one of the most important strategies for online reputation. Reputation management companies offer this process because it improves your website so that it ranks high in search engines such as Google. Typically, the more keywords and phrases that are related to your business, company, etc., rank higher, the more people will see your website. An SEO aims to get more publicity for your website and attract people interested in your services. This is a great way for small business owners such as yourself to earn an online reputation.  If you are a doctor or dentist looking for patients, it is best to use SEO as a reputation management strategy.

• Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

PPC is a form of strategy that relies purely on an auction-based system. PPC advertisements show up in many search engines. So how does PPC work exactly? Reputation management services bid on keywords that you would like your ad to show up on. When a user searches a keyword related to your business or company, an ad pops up and appears at the top of their search results. It is a straightforward strategy- If a user clicks on your ad, you then pay for their click.

• Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the most used strategies, especially today. It is commonly found on social media sites in videos, photos, and blog posts. With so many social media influencers all over the internet, content creation is a strategy that is easily used by any business. This is also best for small businesses that want to gain publicity. Typically content marketing is less of a sales-oriented strategy and more of informational content. This can also mean that people can also give negative reviews or positive reviews as well. Content marketing is a long-term and on-going strategy that delivers an impressive ROI. This strategy is highly recommended for those looking to increase their brand image.

There are many more digital marketing strategies to choose from, but it all depends on your wish to hire an online reputation management company. Many reputation management services offer different strategies. The problem is, which reputation management company is the best one? Your online reputation is essential if you want to reach a certain group of people. In this case, patients are looking for clinics that have the best doctors. Not only that, clinics or hospitals that guarantee safety protocols. The best strategy is to boost your online reputation and social media presence. So which is the best reputation management company, and which reputation management companies offer digital marketing services that cater to healthcare professionals? The answer here is simple. Officite, a professional online reputation management company, is the answer to your problems. 

What Is Officite?

Officite is the number one online reputation management company chosen by several leading state and national healthcare associations. They are dedicated to helping healthcare practices build, manage, and improve their online reputation and presence. They offer services that are designed to help connect health practitioners to patients online. This reputation management company offers services from web design to innovative digital marketing solutions.

The Benefits of Officite

Officite offers many digital marketing services that guarantee positive content for your website. They are the top reputation management company that will definitely boost your online reputation. They offer services such as website design and hosting, telemedicine – a cloud based engagement solution that helps health practitioners effectively communicate with their patients online, search marketing and ranking- combined to make the difference between your website being burred pages back to appearing where patients will actually see it, reputation management- a strategy in which Officite uses word of mouth by offering online reviews for consumers, social media/blogging- a strategy best for small business to rank up their online reputation by connecting with their customers via social media, patient education- an educational content tailored to your area of practice that patients can view while they look for symptoms online, secure emails and forms- to keep your communications HIPPA secure to ensure that your patients can trust you with their most confidential information, doctor portal- to manage you entire online presence, call tracking- a system that allows you to record incoming calls from prospective new patients, e-store- an e-commerce to your website in one platform that lets you sell wherever your patients are whether it be online, in the office or wherever, facebook advertising- a system to get your practice advertised on the most popular social media website- Facebook! and online booking which offers easy, intuitive calendar scheduling with fully integrated features that give you more appointments by letting clients book available time slots directly from your calendar.

If you are looking for online reputation management companies, Officite is the best option for a health practitioner like you! Your online reputation matters so that you feel more seen on the internet. We encourage you to check out public relations strategies. To get started with Officite, Click Here.

As a podiatrist, word-of-mouth recommendations and local print advertising are very reliable in marketing your practice. But have you ever considered including digital advertising techniques in your podiatry marketing repertoire? There are other ways to grow your practice that do not need to cost you as much as you might expect. You can become capable of breaking down that last barrier to let potential patients know you exist so you can take your podiatry practice to the next step and beyond.

Social Media Marketing

To get started on digital marketing, let’s start with the essential must-haves. This one is pretty basic, so many doctors should see that they include it in their advertising to-do list.

Social media marketing is essential to a lot of practices. Some use it as an alternative to building their own website, which will have its own domain. Compared to a “.com” address, a Facebook page is free of charge and makes your practice accessible to millions of attentive users. You will be able to make your brand name familiar to thousands of online ‘passers-by’ when one of your posts is randomly included in many people’s newsfeeds. There are many social media platforms out there, but of all of them, you must ensure that you have a foothold on Facebook.

Still, there are many others you can try. Instagram and Twitter are just some other popular apps you can use to market your podiatry practice. Via Instagram, you can post photos of your office so that people can become more familiar with its location and the technology you have invested in. You can also post inspirational photos and quotations to encourage people to try your services out. Twitter can also be a good way to communicate with possible patients. You can gain thousands of followers, which can transform into new clientele. On Twitter, you can reply to tweets about podiatry-related concerns. You can also use it to communicate with current patients so that you can tell them when you might be unavailable.

One important function of these applications is their ability to legitimize your practice in the eyes of the public. They also make your practice more accessible. One limitation of a website is that visitors have to know the online address to access the site. There is a lesser chance of a stray click compared to the opportunity presented via a social network. On Facebook, when patients comment on your post, you become visible to their social circles without them having to mention your practice to their network directly. These days, having a social media profile is also akin to getting your phone number listed in the old phonebook. It makes your practice more trustworthy when a patient can contact you at any time of day—because social media never sleeps!

Search Engine Optimization

If you haven’t heard of SEO before, it’s time for you to get acquainted with it so you can work it in your podiatry marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about producing text content. Whether these are words that you type on your Facebook post or text that you enter into your website blog, these keywords will help lead more people to your podiatry practice.

The first thing you have to do to make SEO work for you is to think of your business’s right keywords. These might be about different services you offer or the common questions you get from your patients. Even information about your business location forms helpful keywords that will put you on the digital map. Once you’ve already collected all of the right keywords to use, you can proceed to the next step. 

Secondly, you have to make sure that you frequently create the best content to include the chosen keywords. These articles might get posted on your website or Facebook, and other social media platforms. As long as you ensure that your content includes the essential tags you have previously identified, these articles will go the extra mile to leading new patients your way.

The alternative to SEO is paid ads and special placements on Google. Using this advertising plan might cost you per click of a visitor. Meanwhile, on Facebook, you can also run sponsored ads to define your marketing budget and promotional time length. Either of these options will definitely eat a hole in your capital over a long period. On the other hand, if you use SEO, you might even be able to write the content yourself, making this marketing plan absolutely free.

Now and then, you’ll have to get familiar with other keywords you might be able to use so that you can keep your site relevant to online searches.

Claim Your Online Listings

If you have an office, this means that you have a physical location in the real world. Many healthcare services miss out on the opportunity to grow their practices when they forget to claim their pinned locations in popular maps like Google Maps. Don’t be one of them!

Another way to create more traffic in your general direction is by waving a digital sign showing exactly where you are to the people looking. One way or the other, you might even already be on Google Maps without having been made aware.

A further advantage of claiming your Google spot is the presence of reviews. Since Google is already the most popular engine around, more reviews are found and trusted by consumers. When you own your listing, this gives you the capability of addressing concerns mentioned in patient feedback. It will also be a good strategy to boost your position in search results when local patients try to look up podiatry practices and doctors in their area.

Regular Podiatry Newsletters

Did you know that a staggering 98.4% of Americans check their email every day?

Let’s face it; podiatry is a particular healthcare concern that doesn’t occur to many people. But once you have a patient who particularly appreciates your services, there is a big chance that he or she will become a repeat patient and go as far as referring your practice to their friends who start experiencing similar issues.

If you already encourage signups at your website, like booking an appointment or sending payment, invite your patients to subscribe to your email newsletter. This regular email can contain information on the latest developments in podiatry or rising occurrences of certain conditions. It can be a great strategy for brand recall as your patients who willingly sign up for these newsletters will be able to keep you in their mind. This will help them in remembering you easily once they need to avail of your services.

Final Thoughts

No matter which digital marketing strategy you choose, it is important to see that you are employing one strategy in your podiatry marketing. These practices will go a low way of introducing you to new people who previously didn’t have you on their radar.

Are you ready to take your podiatry marketing to the next level?

The Free Google Tools You Need To Give Your Practice a Boost

What can one say about the importance of Google that hasn’t already been said? As a search engine, it is the clear leader, and appearing in Google search results is essential for getting found online. But Google is more than a search engine, it’s a marketing machine with robust tools you can leverage to grow your practice.

In this article, we’ll take a look at several of those tools and how you can make them work for you, beginning with one that you should start using right now.

Continue reading “The Free Google Tools You Need To Give Your Practice a Boost”

Back in 2019, nobody could foresee what 2020 had in store. As events unfolded and the pandemic took hold, we all had to learn to deal with a world that was changing, seemingly by the day. With change as the new constant, and social distancing the new norm, people have relied more than ever on the Internet to connect with friends and family, as well as to shop for everyday essentials and research service providers, including medical professionals. You can take advantage of this shift and reach new potential patients with the right set of online and digital tools.

What follows is an overview of some of the most important things to consider, so you can keep your practice running, growing, and even thriving, into 2021 and beyond. Continue reading “3 Ways Your Website Can Help Your Practice Flourish in 2021”

Leverage these tips and tricks to jump-start your practice and start generating new appointments.

Continue reading “Ready to Reopen.”

Why Now Is a Good Time to Focus on Marketing

Even though we are a long way from “normal” many practices are beginning to scale up as communities start to reopen.  Although there are no manuals to reopen your practice in these unprecedented times this post serves to highlight a few things you should consider doing today to get ready for tomorrow. Continue reading “Turning this Moment Into Momentum”

One of the most effective strategies for a healthcare provider is a modern, professional website combined with search marketing solutions that match the increasing demand for healthcare services in search engines.

Because search engine optimization takes an average of four to six months to fully gain momentum, you’ll see the best results by starting as soon as possible.

Here are some of our best resources you can browse to build a foundation of understanding to implement these strategies into your online presence.

Continue reading “Our Top Resources: Everything You Need to Get Found Online”

Working in the field of healthcare, you receive protected health information (PHI) from patients on a regular basis.

This most often takes place via intake or consent forms or by communicating with your patients over email.

Because you’re subject to HIPAA regulations, your patients’ personal information and communications must be kept secure.

The easiest way to keep them protected is to use secure forms, electronic signatures, and an encrypted email platform. These can often be integrated directly into your website.

Beyond complying with HIPAA regulations, these technologies allow you to take a professional ethical standpoint in your digital communications with patients.

Continue reading “How to Safeguard Personal Health Information Online”