How Digital marketing can boost your practice revenue and increase patient inflow?

What is Digital Healthcare Marketing?

Healthcare Digital Marketing involves the use of the internet as a marketing tool. It is combined with print media, as well as electronic media to create optimum results. When the internet became mainstream in the mid-1990s, the world as we knew it changed, as did digital healthcare. Hospitals ventured into the world of websites which were created to share knowledge and information about various elements of the healthcare system with the public.

The websites, through a combination of original content, graphic design and photography convey information about healthcare services offered by doctors and physicians. As technology has evolved, so has digital healthcare and marketing. The two have been synthesized into a single cohesive unit.

Role of Digital Marketing in the Healthcare Industry

Digital marketing is the optimal way to reach a large audience. The grasp of the internet is far bigger than traditional forms of media in the technology-oriented world of today. It allows you to engage better with prospects and turn them into leads. For example, you can increase patient inflow with the help of the internet. Leads become long-time customers.

How is digital marketing used in healthcare?

There are several roles that digital marketing plays in the healthcare industry. These are as follows:

• Digital marketing creates a sustainable and replicable process of revenue generation, allowing you to add value to your company and grow fiscally.
• Digital marketing is a measurable tool. You can analyze data, see what works and what does not, examine what people respond to and what they do not pay heed to. You can thereby make data-driven marketing decisions that can be beneficial for you in terms of growth.
• Digital marketing allows you to build a direct relationship with your customers and potential customers. It can create a sense of a brand through online presence and curate brand loyalty which also creates revenue.
• Email and SMS marketing allows you to reach out to a large chunk of the population. You can share special offers which lure in customers as well as prompt reminders for visitations and follow-ups which are beneficial not only for you but also for your patient’s health.
• Digital marketing allows you to reach out and segment campaigns. You can target certain local areas and suburban territories which consist of your target audience.
• Investing in an efficient website that is easy to navigate and including features for feedback goes a long way. If you provide spaces for feedback online for customers, you can attract new customers. This is because prospective patients value reputation and are likely to look up reviews before deciding to pay a visit. You can use various digital tools to tell your story and indicate your professionalism, reputation and reliability – these are incredibly important in a competitive environment.

In addition, it creates plenty of opportunities for individual stakeholders. Medical marketing for doctors competes with digital marketing for hospitals. Digital marketing puts local and private physicians on the map. Their websites and social media presence is a hub for advertising strategies.

How to Boost Practice Revenue

By engaging with digital health marketing, hospitals and independent entities alike can boost their practice revenues. You can use several ways to compile a patient’s information on a website such as:

• Contact forms: as a way to compile the basics, such as the name, email address and phone numbers. The shorter they are, the higher the response rate. People do not like filling out lengthy fields, especially when they are just browsing.

• Mobile-friendly designs: More than 90% of the US population uses a smartphone. The average person uses their cell phone for a quick search as opposed to using their laptop. All websites should thus have mobile-friendly versions, which allow potential patients to explore the website with ease and interact with it efficiently.

• Clear calls to action: In the world of digital marketing and healthcare, you must feature elements that prompt people to take the plunge. This includes elements such as phone numbers which are clear and easy to find on the websites, as well as a readable and easy-to-find address on the homepage as well as a “contact us” page. You must also ensure that information entered on Google is up to date so that potential clients are not given the wrong leads and lost out on.

• HIPAA compliant websites: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requires that the website protects all health information and is transport encrypted. The data should also be backed up, accessible only by authorized personnel and can be permanently disposed of when not needed. It must also be located on secure web servers.