Back Pain Centers of America, the nation’s largest provider of qualified patient candidates to reputable, board-certified healthcare organizations, presented a webinar for clinicians, physicians and administrators on the "5 Areas of Focus to Improve Your Patient Acquisition Through Online Marketing." The online webinar featured Brent Wheeler and Amanda Sparks, who lead the strategy and business operations at BPCA.
The digital landscape is exploding and we are in a paradigm shift of digital healthcare. If your practice is not online, or does not have a defined online marketing strategy, you may be missing out on acquiring new patients.
"Your patients are online," said Ms. Sparks. "Consumers are using the Internet to make purchases and are very comfortable with using the Internet as a resource."
Of the 90 percent of American adults who use the Internet, 80 percent of those have used it to research a health topic. The doctor has now become the second opinion — the internet is the first. Facilities acknowledge that relying on referrals alone is a second-tier strategy, and attempt to put online marketing plans together, but have a difficult time attributing patient acquisition to their efforts.
The patient's online journey
In order to know how to market to your potential patients, it’s important to understand the typical patient online journey. Brent Wheeler of BPCA explained how almost half of the time, the first step for a patient online is searching a condition or disease. With only 10 percent search of patient searches being for the practice name, it’s imperative that practices adjust their marketing to be more visible during the initial search.
"When patients begin online journeys, make sure you have the other 90 percent of the market covered that do not know about you and have not been referred by somebody else," said Mr. Wheeler.
Although the patient does not usually begin by searching for a practice name, 48 percent of the time the patient’s online journey ends with it.
"We look at over 900 combinations that affect the patient's journey online and the recruitment process," said Mr. Wheeler. With the 900 different combinations to acquire a patient online, Mr. Wheeler suggests five ways physicians and administrators can increase patient acquisition through online marketing:
1. Pay Per Clicks (PPC)
Paid search is crucial because it is something that a practice has complete control of and it can be immediately implemented. It gives practices the ability to show up at the top of a search page, and allows a practice to test their messages to see what their patient candidates respond to.
2. Website/Landing Page
Once your media campaign is successful, it’s time to drive patient candidates to your website or landing page. Your website should pass the "blink test" so anyone can tell who you are and what you do in the blink of an eye. It is also important to include a call to action, imagery focused on your target market and a phone number in multiple places on the website so interested patients can contact you easily. The key is to make your website easy enough for an eighth grader to understand.
3. Desktop and Mobile
Once you have your website up and running, it is important to consider testing different elements to see which lead to more conversions. Little changes make a big difference. For example, there was one case where BPCA changed only a few words on their homepage from "submit" to "see if I qualify" and they doubled their patient leads.
Your website is the first impression you get with a patient candidate, so it's important not to forget about the mobile experience as well. Your patients are mobile, so it's important to make your website mobile-friendly too.
4. Call Handling
Fifty-six percent of new patients will book appointments over the phone, so it's important to make sure you are handling those calls well. These individuals coming through the website are not referrals, so their phone conversations need to be treated differently. Your practice can accommodate the new patients while staying consistent with your unique marketing message. Just like the small changes to your website can have huge impacts on your conversion, the way you handle calls can have the same effect.
5. Reporting and Analytics
Physicians know a lot about metrics but typically only a little when it comes to marketing metrics. Collect marketing metrics and report them to physician owners and other stakeholders to show how effective your marketing strategy is. All of your efforts are useless if you can’t pinpoint what worked and what did not.
"The reason you have identified these and know they are important is because we continually spend time reporting, analyzing and experimenting with these marketing factors," said Mr. Wheeler.
Acquiring more patients through online marketing does not end with these five steps, but they are a great place to start. Savvy medical practices are already performing these digital marketing initiatives, so what's holding you back?
Click here to view the presentation.