No matter what industry you’re in, the key to success lies in brand awareness. This is just as important for private medical practices as it is for retail stores.
It takes between 10 and 14 years to become a doctor. During this time, you learned how to heal people and make their lives better. Although your services are fundamental, patients can’t come to your practice if they don’t know it exists.
Additionally, you need an effective marketing strategy to show consumers why they should choose your practice over your competitors. If you want to establish a strong customer base, you must learn the ways of digital marketing to keep up with the modern world.
We’re here to help. Keep reading for our quick guide on how to increase brand awareness and generate more leads for your private medical practice.
Develop a Patient-Friendly Website
Your private practice website is the staple of your online presence. When people are sick or are looking for any kind of medical treatment, the first thing they do is look online. The exception is in emergency situations when they rush to the ER.
However, most of your patients are going to come to you through your website. You’ll only establish a strong customer base, however, if it’s user-friendly.
Make it easy for prospective patients to navigate your site and find what they’re looking for. They should be able to quickly find out what you do, where you’re located, and when you’re open. The easier it is for them to schedule an appointment through your site, the more leads you’ll generate.
Lastly, make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices, as 85% of Americans own smartphones. These are the devices most people will use to access your site.
If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it will load in an improper format, making it slow and difficult to navigate. This will increase your bounce rate and you’ll lose out on a ton of potential patients.
Use Search Engine Optimization to Increase Your Online Presence
Having a high-performing website is important, but you need to implement an SEO marketing strategy to drive traffic there. It won’t generate any leads or help you build a strong customer base if it’s invisible online.
Boost your SEO rankings by:
- Registering your private medical practice site with Google My Business
- Publishing blog articles full of relevant keywords
- Using link-building strategies (internal, external, and backlinks)
- Using title tags and header tags
- Writing meta descriptions for each page
- Using images and videos with embedded metadata
- And more
This particular method of digital marketing is difficult for the uninitiated. If you’re not good at writing or don’t have the time, creating blog articles for your site might not seem practical.
This is also true if you don’t know anything about SEO. In either case, we recommend working with a digital marketing company to help you establish your search engine visibility.
Develop an Email List
Now, let’s talk about email marketing. This is one of the best ways to create a strong customer base because email lists focus on a “primed” audience. The people who subscribe to your email list are those who are already interested in your services.
The question is, how do you develop your own email list?
Use other marketing platforms like your social media profiles and website to encourage consumers to join your email list. For maximum results, you’ll need to offer an incentive. As a private medical practice, your incentives could include:
- Free exams for new patients
- Free annual checkups
- Discounted services
- Exclusive access to online content
- And more
Alternatively, you can get help from email marketing specialists, like us. For example, our doctors’ email list has close to 240,000 emails on record. You can use our services to tap into this verified market.
Create an Effective Email Marketing Campaign
Having an email list doesn’t equate to a strong customer base. You need to do something productive and effective with that email list.
Develop an email marketing campaign geared towards your target audience. It should serve two primary purposes.
On the one hand, it needs to promote your services and provide a compelling call to action. This is the marketing message you’ll use to get people in the door.
On the other hand, your email campaigns must provide something of value to the subscriber. What reason are you giving them to continue opening your emails? If they don’t have an incentive to open your mail, you won’t see an increase in patients through your email lists. For more help, check out our email marketing tips.
Build Brand Awareness on Social Media
Finally, when building a strong customer base, you can’t ignore social media. The vast majority of adults use social media, most of us on a daily basis.
As a private medical practice, you can use these consumer habits to your advantage. Create an account for your practice on Facebook and Instagram to start.
Here, you can start attracting followers from people in your community. Use organic (unpaid) posts to define your practice, post about new articles on your blog, post informative content, and build a relationship with your followers.
Supplement your organic posts with paid social media ads. These are incredibly effective for spreading your brand awareness to people outside of your general sphere of influence.
Paid promotions offer valuable insights about ad performance and your target market. You can also choose which users see your ads based on location, age, gender, and other important demographics. That way, you can streamline your marketing budget by targeting the right consumers.
Do You Want to Build a Strong Customer Base for Your Practice?
Establishing a strong customer base will take time. Follow the tips listed above to accelerate the process. But remember, marketing is a never-ending process that requires patience and expertise.
If you need help bringing in new patients, ask for it. Contact us today to learn more about our how our company can help you generate more leads and build a strong customer base through email marketing. We would love to use our experience and expertise to help you grow your private medical practice.
