Best Practices for Marketing New Physicians

Use digital marketing properly to increase the number of potential patients who find your new doctor or specialist, using these 7 best practices:

Share a vision about the new doctor’s target marketing area, target demographic, and the message for targeting the community. This sets your campaign up for success and simultaneously drives transparency for both the doctor and advertising practice.

Demonstrated ability to sustain client business, measured by the percentage of clients retained year-over-year

A lot of behind-the-scenes information is needed before turning on a new doctor or specialist’s digital marketing campaign. An important first step is to get an updated headshot for all marketing materials, the website, and to be included in the practice’s group shot.

Ensure there is an ample amount of content on the doctor’s provider page within the practice website. Share background information, areas of specialty, and practice locations/contact information. This is especially important if this is a new practice but is true for all providers.

When a new doctor joins a practice, update their Google My Business Listing with their updated information and practice location.  Because 93% of all online experiences begin with search engines and 90% of all searches occur on Google, it’s important doctors & specialists have a Google My Business listing independent to their practice. Simply put, Google My Business makes the provider discoverable online so more patients can find him or her.

Google’s Search and Maps tools can now show more information in healthcare provider’s business profiles. If a user searches “Doctor near me” in the U.S., provider profiles can display types of insurance accepted and language assistance offered in their office. In addition to Google’s organic search tool, it is important to appear as people are searching more specifically. When onboarding a new doctor to the marketing efforts, building a paid keyword list of specialties, diagnosis, and symptoms is invaluable. If the physician came from a well-known practice, it may be worthwhile to include the doctors name as a keyword as well.

Social media is an emotional platform where marketers go to connect with their audience. It also provides Healthcare workers tools to share information, promote health behaviors, engage with the public, and to educate and interact with patients.  Sharing the news of your new doctor on social media is a great way to connect with your community. Include paid social ads to educate your audience on their specialty, offering a call-to-action to make an appointment.

Sponsored content can be a great tool to educate your market on health-related information. If a practice is onboarding a hand surgeon, it might be a good idea to create a piece of educational content surrounding wrist pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, restoring hand movement and/or function. Within that piece of content, the advertiser can welcome their new specialist and give that content a call-to-action for prospective patients to learn more or make an appointment.

Healthcare advertising is more competitive than ever before, and traditional television advertising doesn’t see the ROI or insight most would expect. It pays to get in front of your prospective patients where they are as more and more prospective patients are streaming internet-based TV daily. With Over-the-top video, you can pinpoint your current, real-time online patients with every impression speaking to your core audience, putting your message in front of the right person at the right time.