As we roll into 2014, with its unknown healthcare climate and its emphasis on selection, one thing is for certain: now is the time to ramp up your practice marketing efforts, online and off, and course correct.
EMarketer.com shows consistent growth in marketing spending, but traditional marketing (television, print, billboards) growth is flat, while digital marketing has increased "in the double digits." If you aren't investing in your online presence, you are pouring money into your least effective, sustainable marketing channels.
But don't run out and build a new website or buy Google Ads just yet. Things have changed over the past few years in the online marketing world, and if you aren't changing as well, you might find yourself dropping lower and lower in the marketing results. Let's look at some new tactics for online strategies:
Kill your website. Building a website is so last year. These days, you have to put together an online strategy. While a strategy does involve a central web presence, a good strategy positions your website as part of a network of patient touch points, not just the end destination.
You need to have multiple channels in all the areas your patients frequent. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and subject-specific websites. If you are a member of a large practice and you don't have your own personal website, there's step one. Create multiple points and push content to each of them, and cross link to each other. And publish a lot! Static sites that are never updated and have no social "signals" are sure death in Google's new approach to judging the value of websites.
Google's new approach involves content, and lots of it. Plas T. James, MD, (http://atlantaspineinstitute.com) relaunched his site with expanded patient education content and posts on new social channels. "Patients are looking for information online in increasing numbers, so I felt that I needed to get the right information in their hands," said Dr. James. "I make sure to make it available wherever they might look." Content marketing is the best thing you can do for your online presence, and whether you do it yourself or hire a medical marketing expert, you have to start producing.
Grab the long tail. When we think of how potential patients find your content, our assumption is they search for keywords such as "orthopedic surgeon," "spine surgeon" and other similar terms. These are called "head" terms, because they're at the top of the list. And while they're popular, you also want to use "long tail" terms, which are more verbose searches, such as "spine doctor in denver" or "back doctor in jefferson city."
Far fewer people search for these terms, but they're recognized as much higher converting terms. In other words, a person searching for a "back doctor in south nashville" is looking for a doctor near them, where a head term such as "orthopedic surgeon" could have many different meanings. Using long tail terms in your content and titles helps cover all your bases. And if you've noticed I haven't used the words "spine surgeon" as much, it's because it has dropped in popularity: Back Doctor is number one, followed by Spine Doctor, Spine Surgeon and Back Surgeon in last place.
Video SEO. You've probably failed to produce and post a video online this year. And if you did, it's unlikely you optimized it for search engines. Google, who owns YouTube if you were unaware, has been featuring video in search results for a while, but has been turning up the heat. By combining video, long tail terms, and proper video search engine optimization, you have a winning combination for dominating search results.
If you Google the term "sciatica nashville" you've created a localized search for the top ranking term in spine. You'll see several practices at the top, but keep scrolling and you'll see there are six videos in this result! This is very compelling to a user. Search results are great, but a video is like a piece of candy and no reading is required. You'll notice this doctor's videos use compelling titles with key words (that's the long tail) and features his website link and his name in every description. Creating videos these days are simple. If you have a smartphone, you have your video camera. Or better yet, divert some dollars to creating videos that have better longevity than a TV spot.
Social marketing. If you've been avoiding Facebook and Twitter, you need to stop. Participation in social networks and sharing that long tail content is how you send the social "signals" to search engines about your web strategy. This gives you more credibility as a source of information. Plus, social marketing is a great way to introduce yourself to the community at a very affordable rate. Facebook Ads can be highly targeted and are one of the best online values.
Use tools such as Hootsuite to create a post once, and have it appear on all your social channels. And don't forget your Google+ page! Claim it, and post to it. Google will appreciate your support of their products and you'll see your links rise in the search engines. Look at other social participation sites for doctors such as HealthTap. These sites can help promote you to care seekers in your area, and can also link back to your web strategy.
Leverage device companies. Many doctors, practices and hospitals have policies that prohibit relationships with device companies. And device companies have been very hands-off in anything that could be conceived as tainting the relationship. Fortunately, some of these device companies have recognized the collateral damage to patient education, and many of them are bringing back programs to help you with patient education content in an ethical, AdvaMed-compliant fashion.
Condition and treatment focused content that plugs in to your content management system helps you rapidly build a content library, and personalize it as you see fit, and the patient benefits. Other offerings by device companies are co-op advertising for surgeon customers that help offset the costs of an Adwords campaign.
And some device companies help offset the costs of animations. These co-op programs focus on patient education, not products. It's time to reconsider your device company relationship and policies and see how they can help you jumpstart your content needs. Talk to your device company reps about what their company can do to help you deliver the content your patients need.
Be selfish. I recently spoke with a doctor's rep who brought up the idea of online marketing. This doctor maintained he had no need for such and wasn't interested in building a website. We then pointed out he already had hundreds of them, built without his permission, and his reputation online wasn't so great.
These days, your reputation is online whether you like it or not. It's up to you to take the steps to own your reputation! Update all of the directories with your current practice address and be sure to link to your website. And solicit patient testimonials using tablets, links on your website, or even something as low tech as a paper handout with rating site addresses. All of these selfish tactics help your online presence by sending signals to Google and other search engines that you care about your online appearance. Sign up for LinkedIn and update your Google+ profile as well, and ensure you post that content to these sites, too.
This coming year will be a shakeup of healthcare as we know it. And those doctors who get in front of the marketing and reputation curve will benefit. Contact your medical marketing expert, or contact us at info@voxmd.com to do a complimentary assessment of your practice and find out what tactics will help you succeed in 2014.
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