How Can Digital Marketing Improve Patient Retention

Overview

Keeping patients in your system is never an easy task. Healthcare professionals say that their practice is losing more than 10% of revenue to patients going to another medical practice for care. The worse thing is, 20% of these physicians have stated that they have no idea which causes the big switch to other medical practices. This patient’s change in health care would translate to lost revenue and increased patient acquisition cost. So, how can you prevent this from happening? Two words: Digital Marketing.

Digital Marketing For Medical Practices

The digital era has made it easy for everyone to communicate. We can just call our friends if we want to spend time with them or order a pizza online if we’re craving for one. Pretty convenient, right? This is also true in the healthcare industry. Healthcare practitioners now can easily communicate and connect with their patients whenever and wherever they are. Employing different digital marketing strategies has gone a long way to help promote products and services of medical practices.

According to Hubspot, digital marketing is the use of numerous digital tactics and channels to connect with customers where they spend much of their time online. While traditional marketing still exists today in the forms of print ads or physical marketing, digital marketing is about communicating your products and services electronically and online. This means that you can reach your patients in a lot of ways which include emails, videos, social media, or website-based marketing opportunities.

In this time and age, it has become vital for medical practices and other healthcare organizations to use digital marketing. This is just not to raise awareness or increase revenue, but also to retain patients. Attracting new patients is beneficial, but keeping them keeps your practice up and running. No matter how many leads and patients you have, it would amount to nothing if you don’t have the ability to retain them.

As more people get health information on the Internet, the more you can leverage digital marketing. It is so common that patients now expect and rely on it as a way to learn about healthcare brands. In order to be competitive in this ever-changing healthcare landscape, you need to embrace some aspects of digital marketing. So, what are some of the digital marketing disciplines you can take advantage of to help you retain patients?

Digital Marketing Strategies

Nowadays, patients use the web to find answers to their health-related questions and inquiries. This is the reason why it is important for healthcare organizations to have an online presence that offers valuable sources and engagement opportunities. Some of the effective retention-focused digital marketing tactics:

• Social Media Marketing - We’ve already established the fact that your medical practice should have social media presence. Social media platforms help you connect with your patients, increase awareness, and boost your leads. This is especially important in patient retention. You can keep them informed about your products and services by posting updates on social media accounts. Some of the prominent social media sites include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
• Email Marketing - People would say that email marketing is dead. Is it, though? Definitely not. Most people have emails today. And because of the increasing number of people who are using email, which is predicted to grow to 4.1 billion by 2021 according to Statista, this suggests that it is not going away anytime soon. This is the reason why you should employ email marketing. It is a highly effective and inexpensive way for medical practices to reach potential patients and keep current ones. Furthermore, it helps strengthen the communication of the physician and the patient.
• Video Marketing - Social videos get a whopping 1,200% more shares than text and images. This is because video marketing conveys more emotions than plain words and images. By using videos, this can create a strong bridge between you and your current patients. Through video marketing, you can introduce your expertise, your bedside manner, and the values that you live by. This will help you establish your name in the healthcare industry. Because of this, your current patients will trust you more and will keep acquiring your services.
• Content Marketing - There are thousands of pieces of information published online everyday. If you want to be noticed by your target audience, then you need to pay attention to the content you publish. If you create content that is highly valuable and relevant to your patients, then they will likely continue to be their healthcare provider. The content you publish online will help position your organization as a reliable source for health information. In addition, it has been proven that focusing on your content will help your practice gain a competitive advantage over those who don’t .

Conclusion

At the end of the day, patient retention is all about providing excellent healthcare service to your patients. You need to think of ways to keep your patients engaged with your practice. It is important to ensure that your medical staff proactively involve your patients in promoting wellness.

Digital marketing is a highly effective and inexpensive way for medical practices to reach patients. In addition, it provides direct communication not just to existing patients, but also to potential ones. Furthermore, it improves patient communication and increases patient engagement. We know that you don’t have time to focus on digital marketing. That is why DrCatalyst would like to help you.

We are a leading, privately-held medical services company that helps hundreds of healthcare providers across the US when it comes to medical billing, clinical & administrative, medical transcription and medical marketing. We help streamline your practice and patient experience by developing websites for healthcare providers that integrate directly into your EHR to improve how you interact with your patients from a single source. Schedule a meeting with us so you can learn more.

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