In the past few years, healthcare industry has become one of the most innovative industries in the world. Being said so, it still falls behind in terms of marketing when compared with other industries on the planet. This is because HIPAA and FDA have put so many restrictions on usage of healthcare products and patient information.
Nowadays, digital marketing is the king. People have become tech-savvy and if you want to reach and engage physicians/patients, then digital marketing is the best option for you. Few of the clinics have profited a lot by using digital marketing in their day to day strategy.
According to a study by Epocrates, throughout 2013 in the healthcare industry, 86% of clinicians used smartphones in their daily office activities, an increase of 8% since the past year. Also, 53% of clinicians used used tablets at work, up from 34% in 2012.
According to a survey by Wolters Kluwer health 2013 physician outlook, 80% of physicians use browsers such as Google and Yahoo! in the diagnosis, treatment and ongoing care of patients.
If you work in the medical profession and want to take full advantage of digital marketing, here are the three main elements that you should include in your digital marketing plan.
Digitization in healthcare industry
3 important elements for digital marketing
Develop a website
A website acts a major marketing tool for your business. According to study by Think with Google, one-third of patients use tablets/mobile devices on a daily basis for research or to book appointments. You can post all the important information related to your medical services on your website. Nowadays, patients/physicians expect every hospital/clinic to have a website. Patients/physicians can explore your website to find out all the relevant information regarding your products and services. A website can easily adapt to any screen (mobile/tablet)- is simple to navigate and read.
Create a solid SEO strategy
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a combination tactics, strategies and techniques which is used by people to increase the number of visitors to a particular website by getting high rank placement in the result of search pages of a search engine. You need to create a solid SEO strategy so that you can give a tough competition to other medical practices in your local area for online search traffic. Also, search for proper keywords related to healthcare and include them in your content. Your website will be positioned at the top of search results when any patient searches for healthcare related services.
Content marketing
It is one of the most important part of digital marketing. Most medical practices have understood the importance of producing engaging content for its potential patients. By creating and publishing content online, prospective patients can easily find your services and can get proper information about healthcare. Your content can be in the form of blogs, videos, infographics etc. Each content type has its own pros & cons, so you can use any type according to your business need. Such content will increase the number of visitors to your website and will improve your SEO rankings.
In healthcare sector, remember to use these 3 elements in digital marketing to win over your competitors in the online battle.