Healthcare Marketing Agency

The business of Medical Marketing

A private medical practice is a business just like any other. The offerings of a medical business are highly educated and beneficial, but they are a product that must be showcased none the less. As a doctor you should have an understanding of what you are best at treating and what it is that you want to handle. This must be thought of as the service that you want to market. Like any other service or product there is a path to conversion that should be set in place. The identification of your potential patient must be done through an acute understanding of how people search for their medical needs online. As a long term medical marketing specialist, Tidal Wave Marketing has a strong understanding of exactly how, where and when to showcase your medical expertise.

Don’t just think of procedures

Whether you are creating content, using paid marketing channels or building a patient outreach program do not focus solely on the medical terms of your practice. There are usually two polarities that occur when this happens. For a term like “chiropractor [insert city]” the competition is tight. This is the default thought and way to marketing a doctors services. This is a high value term to aim for in the long run, which will come with time and credibility. But is it also a high cost term in the short run, take a look at the average monthly search volumes and proposed cost below. There is a healthy amount, about 200+ searches each month within this target area. But the suggested cost per click is somewhere in the $13.50 range. That cost is only to drive traffic to your site, that is not a guaranteed patient. Even if your site has a moderate conversion rate of 3-5% that means it could cost you upwards of $300 for one potential patient. That may be a positive ROI for you but you must make sure you site is causing that many people to reach out to you.

On the other side of the coin a term like “turbinate hypertrophy [insert city]” which will be so lonely your marketing efforts will cease to exists. With this combination there is no historical search volumes, and there is no suggested cost. You may trickle in a few people that are more in the know medically to search something like this. But it will not move the needle in terms of expanding your practice.

This is where some brainstorming and patient education will become useful. Find the layman terms that people use when they are looking for a certain doctor or treating a certain ailment. For the otolaryngologist that is going to reduce that turbinate hypertrophy a few examples are nose doctor, ear nose and throat doctor, ent doctor, nose surgeon or nose specialist. This is not groundbreaking insight but a thought process that will widen the search area and bring your medical marketing efforts closer to the general public.

The next thought process, if done properly, will affect your medical marketing efforts greatly. Now that you have a more layman pool of terms to focus on, start to think a few more steps backwards. What are the signs and symptoms that cause the ailments and procedures that you offer? What are some of the things someone might be experiencing that could be a precursor to your specialty? When you start to dig deeper into understanding the whole process and not just the outcome you will start to attract patients either before your attention is needed or as they are trying to understand what medical care they need.

For that ENT that would be treating someone with a broken nose, sinus infections or turbinate hypertrophy, what are some things that a potential patient might be going through? Chronic infections or a untreated broken nose affects your breathing and your eyes. This can always cause puffy eyes and dark circles to occur from a lack of sleep or numerous other problems associated to these ailments. Below is a snapshot of the volumes for the past 30 days from an article about how to treat puffy eyes and dark circles. The article is extremely informative in giving easy to use remedies to treat those items, but it also asks and informs the reader. It asks the reader about any suffering from long term breathing or untreated injuries. That one article has no cost besides its creation and drives over 3,000 readers to it each month. Which in itself is a great outreach and branding effort. From those readers an average of 3-5 each month reach out and contact the doctor. That is built in reoccurring marketing at no long term cost.

Medical Marketing Overview

It is very easy to get caught thinking only about the direct medical implications of your specialty. In no way should this methodology be avoided when building a medical marketing campaign. But also in no way should the campaign be focused solely on it. Think of your practice as a service and determine who, what, and where along the path of bringing in a new patient can you identify the point where you can place your practice in front of them. As medical marketing specialist, Tidal Wave Marketing is always working to identify and develop the best ways to bring new patients to the best doctors.

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