Another feather on its cap as Med Rank Interactive gets published in the Medical Professionals Charlotte Magazine’s May 2020 issue. MRI’s Founder and healthcare marketing expert, Lamar Hull was invited as a guest columnist where he talked about the power of the internet in marketing medical practices.
Titled, “Today’s Marketing Strategies for Medical Practices”, Hull discussed the major shift from traditional to digital marketing. The purpose is to let medical practices realize the potential they have with digital marketing in reaching their targeted market and potential patients.
The Highlights
Digital vs. Traditional Marketing
Hull started by providing important numbers on why the online medium is taking over the traditional route of marketing. Online surveys show that 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine. This means that most people use a search engine as their starting point when looking for answers to their queries.
He further noted the advantage of search engines over conventional marketing in closing leads where the former posted a 14.6 percent close rate and the latter with only a 1.7 percent close rate. In addition, 72 percent of searches online converts to an actual customer visiting a business in just one day after the search. Location-based mobile searches, on the other hand, resulted in 78 percent of offline purchases.
Why are Search Engines Powerful for Medical Practices?
The internet has paved the way for digital marketing to disrupt the business ecosystem. For medical practices, marketing online has broadened and sped up their reach which has resulted in a greater market share.
Search engines have made marketing more efficient. As to the question of why search engines are powerful, here’s why:
Low Cost, High ROI
Google receives 40,000 search queries every second, that’s 3.5 billion queries in a single day. This speaks to the stronghold Google has (and search engines for that matter) on the internet sphere.
With this demand from users and search engines, it’s no wonder why healthcare providers are now banking on the potential of the internet to market their practice and services. Marketing through search engines involves little to no cost, especially when you maximize organic search. But the exposure it can provide is tremendous. Ultimately, it’s a high ROI for your medical practice.
The key with search engines is that you have to be at the top of their results page for greater visibility. This is what we’ll discuss next.
The Importance of SEO
Because most people are using search engines, it is important to understand how to get there. For your medical practice to get to the top of Google’s search results page, you need to hire a medical digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO.
SEO is about optimizing your practice’s website for the search engines. You have to make search engines notice your website. You do it with a set of rules and best practices in SEO.
With the right SEO, you’ll climb up the search engine ladder and when you do it consistently, your website will move to the top of the results page. When that happens, expect an increase in the number of your website’s visitors who are potentially looking for what you offer.
SEO is about keywords. You should know what term your target market is looking for and cater to that. For instance, if patients are searching for the “best medical practice” in your locality. You should explore using that search term on your website, for example, “best medical practice in Charlotte”.
We use tools such as; SEMRush and Ahrefs to analyze what our clients’ patients are searching online to create content on their website that relates to those search queries.
That’s just a glimpse of SEO. It’s more complex when you dive deeper. If you need help with your medical practices SEO strategies, book a free consultation with us.
Digital Marketing Solutions
Do you want to maximize the power of search engines for your medical practice?
You’re on the right track and you should explore the most viable digital marketing solutions for your specific goals.
SEO is just one effective tool for your medical practice. Other digital marketing strategies include online branding, reputation management, online ads, social media, website development and more.
Working with a Healthcare Digital Marketing Agency
A digital marketing agency that focuses on the healthcare industry will understand your needs better. They themselves are deeply rooted in that field of expertise with a special focus on the marketing side of it.
They are up-to-date on healthcare and marketing trends and use that to your advantage. They are your strategist in planning and implementing your digital marketing solutions such as: SEO, SEM, web development, reputation management, social media marketing, email marketing among others.
Their goal is to increase your online visibility and enhance the awareness of your brand to generate a consistent flow of new and qualified patients. With a healthcare digital marketing agency, you can obtain the highest level of performance, improved lead conversion, measurable KPIs and a brand that excels over the competition.
The Medical Professionals Charlotte Magazine
This highly respected publication is a local, monthly, peer-to-peer magazine that caters to Charlotte’s medical workers and staff, hospital executives and healthcare industry leaders. The content ranges from medical hot topics and trends, physician’s practice and personal lives and healthcare in general. Writers are also medical professionals themselves.
Medical Professionals Charlotte Magazine hopes to connect physicians with their peers and to provide a venue to interact and learn from each other across the many disciplines. It also serves as a platform for local businesses to gain exposure and introduce their brand to the medical community.
Denise Hurley is the founder and publisher of the Medical Professionals Charlotte Magazine. To learn more about the publication, email Hurley at denise@n2pub.com.
Thank you Medical Professionals Charlotte Magazine for the feature in your May 2020 issue. Med Rank Interactive is truly thankful for this opportunity!