As the world becomes more and more digital, companies are focusing the bulk of their outreach and marketing efforts on the internet. This includes medical practices. The importance of staying connected with your current audience and reaching out to potential new patients online is indispensable. Here are the 5 elements that come together for a medical practice to create a really stand-out digital strategy:
Engaging Website
As a medical practice in the modern world, your website is your representative. Current patients may visit for reasons such as contact information, business hours, and the latest blog posts. Potential patients will likely visit your site to find out who you the physicians are, what the reviews are like, what conditions are treated and what insurance is accepted. With so many reason for visiting your website, you want to put your best “face” forward. Keep these in mind include: quality and consistent content, enticing videos and photos, and quick load time.
Social Media Presence
Maintaining a social media presence is an important (and not always easy) element of your practice’s overall digital strategy. Aside from your website, your social profiles are how you are represented to the world. Shaping the perfect online image for your practice takes time and effort – with a seemingly endless list of ways to improve. Best practices to keep in mind for your social strategy should include: engaging with your audience, providing value (information, education, entertainment..), striking the right content balance, and finding the right posting frequency for each platform.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a long-term game. There is no quick fix for a low search engine ranking. Quality SEO takes a significant investment of both time and energy. Success in improving a site’s search engine ranking comes by a continual process of strategic planning, executing, evaluating and repeating. When evaluating the SEO strategies for your practice, here are the top things to keep in mind: on-page best practices, consistent blog posts, strategic keywords and phrases, and social media usage.
Patient Engagement
Patient engagement is the practice of providing convenient access to information and communication to deliver the best possible healthcare experience. A solid patient engagement strategy will improve your operations productivity and strengthen patient commitment to your practice. Though it can seem like a large task, creating stronger channels of communication takes time and should remain a long-term goal. Begin slowly and implement engagement techniques bit by bit. As staff become more comfortable and your online community grows, patient engagement will become an impactful and rewarding part of your overall digital strategy.
Consistent Branding
Keep your branding consistent across all aspects of online presence. Branding shows that you are professional and makes it easy for your audience to identify your content. This creates fans out of patients. Make consistent branding a team effort! Every employee in your practice needs to be on board with your mission and working to uphold your core values. Consider creating an employee handbook that provides guidelines including what you expect in terms of patient interaction and engagement and how the brand is portrayed on social media. Staying true to the message you put out solidifies your credibility and builds trusts with your patients.
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