Marketers in the healthcare industry have come a long way since their early days, and now employ a wide variety of strategies to reach patients at every point along the care continuum.
People are more eager to take charge of their health and learn more about your practice.
That’s why your ophthalmology practice needs a solid healthcare marketing plan to attract new patients and inform your current patients.
What is Healthcare Marketing for Ophthalmology?
Establishing an open channel of communication between ophthalmologists and their patients is the cornerstone of successful healthcare marketing efforts. Using a wide variety of channels including websites, social media, paid advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and video), healthcare marketers aim to convey helpful information to patients at every stage of their care.
Why is Healthcare Marketing Important for Ophthalmology Practices?
Creating and implementing marketing strategies including search engine optimization, digital advertising, websites, content marketing, and other channels, that engage and educate patients at every stage of their healthcare journey is crucial.
The most successful ophthalmology marketing campaigns are patient-centric, meaning they center on the individual patient and their needs in terms of identity, knowledge, and trust.
Education and information for patients are rapidly becoming a priority in the ever-evolving healthcare sector.
It can be challenging to promote your eye care services in a crowded market, especially as local competition increases.
Marketing in the eye care industry helps you stand out from the crowd on local search engines and social media when done correctly.
A successful marketing strategy can help you connect with new patients and establish yourself as an industry expert, both of which are crucial to your practice’s success.
Benefits of Marketing Your Ophthalmology Practice
1. Expand Your Clientele
That’s the whole point, right? Improve patient engagement and increase patient loyalty. Services promoting eye care and vision should do just that.
2. Boost Referrals from Local Physicians
An increase in new patient referrals from general practitioners and specialists in the area is a direct effect of expanding your brand’s local visibility.
3. Become Thought Leaders in Ophthalmology
Getting your physicians to participate in marketing efforts through narrative and video marketing is an effective strategy to help them establish themselves as industry leaders
As a result, patients will view them as a reliable resource and be more likely to choose them over nearby rivals
4. Promote Important Medical Services
Physicians now have access to wonderful resources for showcasing and advertising their medical services and expertise thanks to healthcare marketing systems including social media marketing, websites, healthcare content marketing, and digital advertising.
5. Improve the Patient Experience at Your Practice
Patients can now have access to patient portals, reviews, and continuing education materials in addition to receiving first-rate medical care. In addition, patients can easily share and receive important health information with your practice.
Your marketing strategy should include analytics and tracking in addition to patient acquisition. You can get a complete picture of the ROI of your marketing efforts and the next steps you should take to scale your business with the help of tracking and analytics reports.
Creating a Healthcare Marketing Strategy for Your Ophthalmology Practice
Improve patient care and increase income by using a healthcare marketing plan that integrates digital and traditional marketing channels to reach new and existing ophthalmology patients.
The number of healthcare marketers and organizations that focus on promoting medical offices has increased dramatically over the past five years.
Patients’ knowledge and skill with internet use and integration have improved.
The marketing and advertising they do engage with must also be highly patient-centric.
Luckily, more people are using online resources like search engines and social media to become active participants in their own healthcare.
About 80% of prospective patients use the Internet to research their healthcare needs, including eye care and vision.
So, what are the most efficient healthcare marketing methods for ophthalmology practices?
It is crucial to prepare healthcare marketing strategies for 2023 since patients are more active and engaged than ever online.
When developing a strategy for medical advertising, where do you begin?
We won’t be covering some light-weight theory like “get a Facebook page,” but rather dissecting a full healthcare marketing plan, including:
- Strategies to employ
- Why they work so well
- Real case studies and examples
- Guidelines for getting started
After finishing this, you’ll be able to jump right in and start making significant progress in your practice.
Top Healthcare Marketing Strategies to Reach Ophthalmology Patients
Now that we have a better grasp of why healthcare marketing services are so crucial, we can examine the most useful strategies for expanding an ophthalmology practice’s patient base.
The healthcare marketing landscape can appear complex and daunting, which is why we gathered these healthcare marketing techniques and case studies.
Every day, we use these tried-and-true healthcare marketing strategies with our clients.
1. Create a Website for the Patient Experience
When it comes to online healthcare marketing, a medical office’s website is a crucial tool.
Consider this!
When compared to us, what other sales team can be available whenever a potential patient needs them to market and deliver content?
Your medical website is constantly working for you, showing pertinent content even when you’re asleep at midnight or in clinics at 3 p.m.
When designing a medical website, it’s important to prioritize the user’s needs and provide clear, immediate benefits.
Getting them to convert by responding to their inquiries and providing value.
2. Using Google My Business as a Foundation for Local SEO
In healthcare advertising, location plays a huge role.
Why? Because people will only go so far to get medical attention.
If you want to succeed in the local search for LASIK, cataracts, or other conditions you treat, this is a must.
Around 80% of patients conduct online research before scheduling a doctor’s visit.
Google My Business is the undisputed champion of search engine optimization (SEO) for the medical industry.
You may be wondering, “What exactly is a Google My Business listing?”
Google My Business is a free service that helps medical professionals and other companies manage their Google profiles.
It looks like the image below and pops up practically every time you do a search.
Few things are more important than boosting your Google My Business profile.
- Select the most appropriate heading, like Hand Surgeon
- If you’re a hand surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona, for example, you should state that you are in the first sentence of your business description
- And finally, don’t forget to provide all of your contact information
3. Patient Reviews Are Crucial to Your Online Reputation
One of the most essential aspects of healthcare advertising is now online reviews.
There are several causes behind this.
The primary cause is the arrival of consumerism in the medical field.
It means that, whether we like it or not, patients do research and read reviews when looking for a doctor or medical service, just as they would when looking for a product on Amazon.
Online reviews are read by 92.4% of consumers; that’s an incredible sum. And in healthcare decisions, like in every other industry, reputation is paramount.
We also mentioned above that reviews are a major local ranking element for your Google My Business.
Now that you know how essential Google My Business is to healthcare marketing, you already know the best strategy to rise to the top of rankings: continually generate favorable reviews.
Finding an efficient method of soliciting patient feedback is the top piece of advice for getting started.
With tools designed specifically for managing a doctor’s online reputation, you may streamline and automate as much of the procedure as feasible.
4. On-Page SEO Starts With Great Content
When it comes to on-page medical SEO, quality content is king. If you want to rank for it, you need a page for it, this is one of my favorite statements to share with our clients.
That means, in a nutshell, that you need outstanding, well-structured material on your website for your main specialty and processes if you want to rank highly in local search results.
Imagine you run an ophthalmology clinic and your goal is to be the best in your area when it comes to LASIK surgery.
We propose that you include a comprehensive page on LASIK surgery on your website, covering topics such as who needs it, when, why, and how.
If you want your website to be effective as part of your healthcare marketing strategy, remember this basic rule: content is king.
See the video below for more detailed advice on how to organize your website’s content pages for optimal search engine rankings.
On-Page SEO Advice for Healthcare Marketing
- Make sure your title tags prominently feature your target term
- You should use short URLs that contain your keyword
- On average, a treatment page should have at least 500 words
5. Digital Advertising is Highly Specific
Paid digital advertising is a strong tool to interact with and drive new patient leads in any practice, regardless of the type of patients sought.
Google Ads, Display Advertising, YouTube Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Programmatic Ads, and Native Ads are just some of the alternatives you have for advertising to your target audience online.
The first step in creating an effective digital advertising strategy for healthcare marketing is thorough preparation.
Respond to queries like:
- Who would qualify as the perfect patient for me? Make a record of each of these patients’ medical history
- Where exactly do they like to hang out online?
- How many people are visiting my site regularly enough to be retargeted?
- What promotional tools do I already possess? Videos? Graphics?
These are crucial inquiries to answer before deciding where to launch your advertising campaign.
6. A Patient’s Email Address Remains Incredibly Useful
Email marketing is not only effective but remains widely used in the healthcare industry.
Email is an important channel for communicating with patients, whether for new-patient acquisition, retention, or delivery of urgent information.
Putting effort into building an effective email marketing strategy will bring in new and repeat customers consistently.
Some excellent suggestions for expanding your mailing list are:
- Webinar host
- Promotional tests and quizzes that charge a fee
- Digital books and music
- Member-only access to special materials
7. Telemedicine and Online Appointment Bookings are a Must
Before the introduction of COVID, telemedicine and online appointment scheduling were welcome additions to healthcare marketing.
It’s become crucial to running a business today.
The issue is that there is still much uncertainty regarding how to initiate telemedicine and how to convince people to use it.
Before anything else, you should send out emails to your current patient base explaining your telemedicine procedure (this goes back to why email is so important).
The next step is to publicize your telehealth solution by creating landing pages on your website and making posts on social media.
You must provide a way for customers to make reservations online on your website. Patients must now do this as a standard.
Furthermore, it is critical to monitor your sponsored advertising efforts accurately in order to book new appointments.
8. Physician’s Listings are Crucial for Local Search Engine Optimization
There are several avenues open to patients in their search for nearby clinics, doctors, and procedures.
People often look for “ophthalmology practice near me” online or in their local phone book.
Perhaps they can do a web search for “LASIK surgery near me”.
They might also key in something like “ophthalmologist near me” or “john smith md” to find a specific specialist.
For healthcare marketers, the final search at the provider level is mission crucial.
SEO for doctors begins with ensuring that all of a provider’s listings, including those on Google My Business, are complete, consistent, and up to date.
Healthgrades, Vitals, CareDash, and a host of others are also available.
Google uses these additional third-party services to check and validate your information against their search algorithm, allowing them to return your doctor at the top of search results.
What’s wrong here??? Doctors have the potential to be wandering minds.
Recall your journey through medical school, fellowship, your first practice job, and beyond.
As a physician, it’s possible that your focus is all over the place, giving your patients and Google bad information. A double hit.
To get started, make sure that all of your doctor’s top listings are claimed and verified, and that their contact information is consistent across all of them.
9. Analytics and Tracking are Key
Now that we’ve covered some of the most effective methods for promoting healthcare, it all comes down to one thing…
How can you tell what is succeeding and where enhancements might need to be made?
By making sure that you are accurately tracking your efforts and monitoring your marketing data.
Data is the backbone of effective healthcare marketing for ophthalmology practices.
If you want to get better, you need to be able to track your progress and identify the factors that contributed to your successes and setbacks.
The first step is to put money into analytics.
The fundamentals, such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, are a good place to start.
Marketing analytics dashboards are ideal for when you want to view everything at once.
Data visualization is a top priority at Intrepy, which is why we provide our customers with analytics dashboards at all times.
Best Healthcare Marketing Strategies for Ophthalmology Practices – Wrapping Up
Because healthcare marketing is always evolving, it offers limitless potential for reaching target audiences, expanding practices, educating patients, showcasing doctors, and attracting new patients.
It’s important to start your healthcare marketing plan with a partner who has the experience and who specializes in healthcare marketing. An experienced healthcare marketing firm can employ tried-and-true strategies because of its familiarity with the patient journey and the healthcare business.
