Tips to Create a Local SEO Marketing Plan for Medical Practices

Recognition is what every medical practitioner seeks for his practice. These days, competition is so stiff that you have to go all-out to make a name for yourself. The only way you can make your practice visible to patients is by thoroughly publicizing your medical expertise. No matter what your specialty is, you must spread positive word about your practice. Marketing is the perfect option, but it can prove to be an uphill task.

Practice success starts with designing a marketing plan for your practice. Your success will depend on how well you plan your marketing strategies and execute them. If you are like most healthcare professionals, you probably are looking for techniques that will bring in more patients, maximize revenue, and gain continuous professional referrals.

When starting a marketing campaign, the first thing to consider is the target audience. Identify the age, sex, and income of patients whom you want to target. Then begin finding ways to spread the word about your practice. Following are some of the ideas you can implement to make your practice presence known:

1. Building a strong online presence is a necessity today. Patients have started to recognize practices over the Internet. Physicians need to understand the advantages of a website. Gone are the days when patients would visit a nearby doctor. Now they search and keep on searching until they find the best one. A website is the medium where you can thoroughly explain your practice, services, facilities and much more. Physicians often make the mistake of providing over-the-top and irrelevant content on their website. This will have a negative effect on a prospective patient. Content plays an essential part in attracting more online visitors. Along with the information discussed earlier, mention your address, working hours, special offers, etc. on the website. Make it as simple as you can. Alternatively, if this is not your forte, hire industry specialists.

2. Back up your website with good SEO. A blend of a custom website with SEO will bring long-term success. SEO techniques like link building, content writing for blogs and articles, web analysis and keyword research are necessary to achieve practice success. As a healthcare practitioner, you want your website to be visible on top pages of leading search engines. Search engine optimization does that.

3. Personally, you probably already have a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profile. So, why not for your practice? Informing people about your medical specialty through social media platforms enables patients to trust you. It is regarded as the perfect intermediary to communicate with patients and resolve their queries without incurring extra costs. Social media's cost effectiveness has made it a huge success. Such is the aura created that medical professionals globally are investing big-time in this results-oriented marketing strategy.

4. There is uniqueness to the methods through which medical practices are marketed these days. The benefits one gets while promoting a medical practice through videos are endless. People, especially the youth generation, watch a number of videos on YouTube on a daily basis. When such a wide range of individuals watch online videos, your practice stands a very good chance of being effectively advertised. An e-video is a short commercial of 60 to 90 seconds that you can place on your website or share on social networking websites. E-video is unmatchable when it comes to online marketing, as it affects the viewer's mind directly and stays longer than a text or static image.

5. Keep in touch with your existing patients via emails. Send patients weekly newsletters updating them about recent happenings at your practice. Include newsletters informing patients what you have been doing differently than other practices. Send regular gifts and offer special discounts.

6. Believe it or not, your support team plays as much of an important role in retaining patients as you do. Your staff's skills, abilities and performance in handling patients can make or break your practice. Patients interact with your staff before they ever visit your practice. Greeting with a smile and providing information in a friendly manner can convert a potential patient into a regular one. You must always assess your staff's skills and abilities. If they are not up to the mark, then you should consider various staff training programs.

7. A compelling medical marketing campaign is worthless without including a referral system. You have to make your practice a reputable one if you want patients to refer to you over others. Patients, once satisfied, are the perfect source for attracting more. All you need to do is provide them state-of-the-art facilities, a clean environment and make use of leading-edge tools. This will impress patients to the point that they will give positive word-of-mouth to their family and friends.

8. Advertisements in local newspapers and magazines might be traditional ways, but they are still considered fruitful by some healthcare professionals. This is based on the fact that some people, largely elderly, use these media to stay informed. If your target audience is elderly people, placing ads in the newspaper might not be a bad idea.