Top Digital Marketing Strategies for Hospitals 2020
Keeping up with the modern trend is the must thing nowadays. Including businesses and professions in pharmacy, doctors and hospitals are focusing majorly on digital spaces. As of 2020, the number of Internet users in India are more than 500 Millions. This means that most of your hospital’s patients and potential patient’s can be reached and communicated with, effectively on the internet. The best part is that marketing online is that you have full control and are enabled to apply your tactics whenever needed. There are digital marketing strategies for hospitals that really work today. Lets deep dive straight into digital marketing strategies for hospitals which will provide you with great results.
Proven Digital Marketing Strategies for Hospitals
Website
For a hospital’s online presence, a fully functional website is a vital thing. Hospitals can give insights and showcase various facilities provided, services and specialized in. The more information you can give patients about your hospital, the more trustworthy they feel in using your hospital services.
Having a responsive website is the most important thing in the digital world. A website that loads quickly, filled with user intent information and optimized on both desktop and mobile.
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing is a channel that is unavoidable for hospitals. The traffic generated by other search engines is minimal as compared to Google. Focus on making a top appearance on Google search results. SEM is a paid advertising method to get a top position on a search engine for your desired set of keywords (search terms). Google offers this feature through their search advertising platform called Google Ads . Hospitals can target search terms related to locations, specialties, treatment options etc.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Organic method of gaining top spot on search results is by search engine optimization. It needs tactical and specialized practices to optimize your website for SEO friendly and better search ranking. In terms of redirecting quality traffic, SEO stays ahead of SEM. But unlike SEM, SEO requires time to reflect results on the search engine. Just like SEM, we can find and target keywords based on location, specialties, treatments offered etc.
For business directory listing, you can start from Google My Business for local SEO results. As of Google My Business, it also acts as a place to collect customer reviews for your hospital which can contribute to your online reputation. SEO works by creating quality content and building site authority. This is dependent on a lot of aspects. Other than keywords, there are on-page SEO practices that you need to get right.
Content Marketing
SEO and content marketing go hand in hand when it comes to making it on top for search results. The page is ranked when users find it useful and have full information which they were looking for. So a major part of the focus in digital marketing should be paid to content marketing. Good content can add a valued mean to consumer search. Once a piece of content on your hospital is found applicable, it helps to build authenticity on your services and positive reputation.
Hospitals have the ability to talk about a wide range of health topics that a consumer will find helpful. Create informative/educative videos about your field of practice and share them on various channels. Write detailed blogs about different remedies and how you can cure them. And the best part is that hospitals have access to the best doctors in the field, who can write content. If presented in an efficient manner these topics can gain you more audience and good results on ranking.
Social Media
Some of the best hospitals in the world, have their social media strategies done right. A survey states that a significant amount of the time someone spends on the internet is spent on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. So this is one of the best ways to engage and communicate with users on the internet, by creating engaging posts and offering a chance for people to share their views.
A good practice is to combine social media with content marketing. Hospitals can use the social media platform to promote by boosting posts to targeted audiences. And also share content regarding health issues or promote services that social media users can find very useful.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing is one powerful method to be in touch with your audience. It also compliments content marketing in a great way. When you have interesting content on your website, it is easy to get visitors to your website. But that’s not all, you can turn these website visitors into email subscribers by offering them a free lead magnet. This can be a free download like an ebook, checklist or something that adds value.
Once you convert each of your website visitors into email subscribers, it is easy for you to reach them again whenever you want to. This can be automated with drip email campaigns and triggered emails to save a lot of time and prevent mistakes.
Email marketing, unlike social media, is more personal and has the best ROI. You can send informative content, special treatment package offers, updates about your hospital specialties etc. to your email list.
Chatbots
Chatbots have massive potential for successful implementation across the healthcare sector and patients today are taking control of their healthcare choices more than ever before, demanding greater convenience and easy access to information.
3 in 4 people interact with chatbots to know more about services, and more than 57 % do so regularly. Attracting and retaining patients in this environment requires improving each digital touchpoint for patients, both before and after their visit.
Chatbots for hospitals are particularly important for booking appointments, service bookings, care management. It also automates some of the hospital operations which burden the care teams like frontline care, follow on care and timely assistance to prevent ER. Most significantly it engages patients on the web, phone lines or social media.
