What is Digital Medical Marketing and How Can it Benefit You?

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.