Don't Make These Medical Marketing Mistakes in 2020

In the medical field, you'd think business would come directly to you. After all, people get sick or hurt all the time and seek your services. But the rise in private practices and clinics makes it tougher to compete in certain areas.

This is where medical marketing comes into play. You can use all sorts of tactics to drive more business to your medical office.

But if you're making these following mistakes, then it may be all for nothing.

Let's check them out!

Medical Marketing Mistake #1: Focusing Too Much on Lead Gen

There are two factors that determine the success of any business (including medical practices):

Conversions and patient retention.

However, if your medical marketing only focuses on attracting new patients, then you're completely ignoring your customer base.

If your patients don't feel valued, then they'll go someplace else where they will be (aka your competitors).

Now, this isn't to say you shouldn't use lead gen medical marketing tactics. It just means you should also find ways to improve your patient experience to boost retention rates.

Medical Marketing Mistake #2: Not Making Meaningful Interactions with Patients

Again, your patients and their satisfaction with your medical practice should be at the forefront of your medical marketing strategy. A part of making your patients happy is by making meaningful interactions with them.

Rather than sending out promotions to get them to come in to spend more money on your services, you can send out holiday and birthday cards. This makes the gesture more personable and warm.

In the medical industry, it's easy for patients to feel like just another name on a clipboard. So by going the extra mile to show you care will help build patient loyalty.

And you may even find that your patients are more willing to refer others to your office. Here are some other ideas for making meaningful interactions with patients:

• Allowing patients to view their medical records online
• Offering tools and resources to help them better understand their health
• Enabling patients to select their own insurance and provider

Patients like transparent doctor offices that offer self-help solutions to help them improve their health

Medical Marketing Mistake #3: Having a Website That's Not Mobile-Friendly

Mobile definitely has to be a part of your medical marketing strategy. Folks who are searching for medical services are likely using a smartphone to do so.

If they're clicking on your website link and find it's designed for desktops, then the layout will be unattractive and complicated. In turn, you'll suffer a higher bounce rate.

Needless to say, this will also hurt your ranking in search engines. You can counter this by opting for a responsive website design, so your website adapts to the screen size of the user's device.

Medical Marketing Mistake #4: Ignoring Local SEO

Not having local SEO a part of your medical marketing plan is a sure way to kill your office's success. Just about everyone is using search engines to look for services near them.

In fact, a whopping 82% of smartphone shoppers are conducting "near me" searches.

This proves that having a local SEO strategy is vital to driving more traffic to your website and through your doors. By ignoring this, you're ignoring your prospective patients!

Medical Marketing Mistake #5: Avoiding Online Reputation Management

As a local business, you're going to have an online presence, whether you like it or not. Because even if you don't create a listing in business directories -- someone will.

And hopefully, when they do, it's not to leave you a bad review. Allowing your listings to go unclaimed (and unmanaged) is a recipe for disaster. You need to own these listings so you can do damage control when necessary.

Let's say, for example, you claim your Google My Business listing. You can now keep track of everyone who leaves a review so you can reply to them in a timely manner. It's ideal to respond to both raving and raging reviews.

This will show your medical office cares about its patients, making it more appealing to prospects.

You can use tools like GoSite to help claim and create your business listings, as well as get reviews all in one platform.

Medical Marketing Mistake #6: Not Monitoring and Tracking Results

How well is your medical marketing strategy working? You won't really know unless you're actively monitoring and tracking the results. But before you can do that, you first have to have goals set.

This way, you know what to track. For instance, if you're looking to get more calls through your website, then you should see if you're getting enough traffic and conversions.

You can also look at the stats from your business listings to see how many "click to calls" you're getting. The idea is to look at the source of your business so you can recognize what's working and what's not.

Start Improving Your Medical Marketing

How many of the mistakes on this list are you making with your medical marketing? Don't be afraid to admit it -- just get on the ball about improving your marketing campaign.

With the right tools, you'll find it's simple to achieve.

To start, you can use our free resource guide on how to get started with local search!