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Top 6 Online Marketing Mistakes Doctors Make
When it comes to the often convoluted world of online marketing, it is easy for anyone to
become overwhelmed with systems and media channels that seem to push a new and more
complicated profit model every other day. Of course nobody expects a medical practice to have
much in-house expertise in this area, but the reality is that the perception and branding that
marketing creates is nonetheless a key factor in the decisions of prospective patients. Word-of-
mouth is a great medical advertising tool since it is backed by real experience, yet when it
comes to the intangible digital word, too many physicians are guilty of some serious gaffes as
they try to navigate the gulf between their practice and someone’s screen. Let’s take a look at 6
common online medical marketing blunders:
The most basic of mistakes, and one that completely forgets that online reviews today are, in
essence, targeted word-of-mouth advertising. For the vast majority of prospective patients,
online reviews are the only relatively objective measure of the quality of a physician or practice.
And don’t think for a minute that people don’t read reviews, recent surveys have indicated that
about 72% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. No
matter how great a doctor may be, if there aren’t at least a handful of people willing to say so on
Yelp or Google+ Local, most people will not give them a second look.
Don’t let patients leave your office without at least the promise of a review! Have a tablet in
your office connected to Google+, Yelp, etc and encourage your patients to leave a review (be
sure to set up an IP proxy however, as Goggle and the like can see when reviews all come from
the same place). You can also give special discounts and promotions to patients who post a
review. Consider putting together and printing out a simple online reviewing guide and hand it to
patients so there’s no confusion as to what to do. And don’t forget about also getting some
reviews on the many medical industry sites like HealthGrades.com or Vitals.com, as these too
can play a decisive role in patient decision.
The bottom line is: GET THOSE REVIEWS! High Volume even works against negative
feedback, easily drowning out any occasional bad reviews.
You don’t have to be a great writer or spend hours on research in order to generate blog
content, and even posting a couple of posts a month yields enormous benefits as opposed to
staying quiet. Regular new content is favored by Google, acts as a resource for patients, builds
good will and brand value and enhances social reach! The topic can be as simple as your
medical opinion on some new product, an interesting story affecting local patients or a comment
on an industry-relevant news item.
While the most effective path to take is to hire an expert firm like RX Medical Web to write
regular, relevant and SEO optimized medical content for your practice, why not start out by
instructing office staff to dedicate an hour or two out of the month to blogging? You really have
nothing to lose and a lot to gain by the simple act of creating something of informational value,
which leads us to the next big marketing mistake…
Today’s online marketing mantra is “Content is King” and for good reason. Google has made it
clear that it is constantly refining its algorithms to find and reward fresh content while competitor
Bing has explicitly included a Facebook interface into its pages. Here is where search integrates
with the social realm to use social sharing and engagement as a me sure of quality of content.
Basic blogging is a necessary start, but only the start. A physician committed to a dynamic
online marketing plan must generate content for all kinds of audiences and platforms. Youtube
marketing is one great way to get attention and doctors should always try to have a camera
handy for testimonials, before & after shots and even for recording some procedures (with the
patient’s consent of course) for the benefit of fellow medical practitioners.
Besides video, medical practices can also use images to engage their audience. Posting
pictures of new equipment, facility renovations, new staff members, office events, patient
success stories, interesting industry info-graphics and even simple daily funny or inspirational
images can make any online persona come alive and generate much more interest than
someone repeating the same boring promotional messages. Ultimately, the goal is for all of
these elements to work together (for example medical videos and images embedded into blog
posts) to create rich content that can then be shared in the social sphere to multiply its reach.
Article Link: http://rxmedicalweb.com/11435-top-6-online-marketing-mistakes-doctors-make/