A large part of how we plan our marketing strategies involves taking into account predicted changes to come.

How well your practice capitalizes on marketing trends can make or break it, so keeping an eye on the upcoming changes is essential to get ahead of the competition.

Hi there, it’s Huyen Truong here and welcome to OMD TV and Podcast show – the place to be to grow and scale your practice. Today, I’m going to talk about “5 Medical Marketing Changes That You Can’t Ignore”.

As we look forward to a post Covid year in marketing, I know the competition will be fierce as there are many consumers’ behaviour changes over the last 2 years and also with the upcoming strong come back of medical tourism.

Whether you are looking for ways to refresh your existing strategy or on the hunt for entirely new ways to reach your audience, these following changes might impact your marketing return in a big way, so let’s get on to this ….

1. Privacy Rules Will Increase Advertising Costs by 30-80%

Privacy issues are killing your plans for attracting new patients to your practice.

So much is happening behind the scenes with Apple, Google and Facebook trying to dominate consumer data capture, so they are no longer sharing data with advertisers like before.

But to be fair, they have also been sued billions of dollars by the government for sharing data so the new game is who can collect and hide the most data from the others.

Actually, Apple is positioning themselves to get into advertising since they are putting a moat around their data by not letting their competitors collect data.

Regardless of their motives, these few Internet companies affect you big time if you are using paid advertising to attract new patients.

This is going to make it difficult for you to attract new PREFERRED patients when you can no longer target specifically to certain audiences.  And that means Ad results will become incomplete and inaccurate because you now have only 10% of the data that used to be 100% available.

So that will force you to increase your advertising budget substantially and HOPE the broader, less targeted audience is interested in one of your procedures.

It’s very similar to old-school mass advertising like TV. You spend a fortune to talk to everyone, rather than a targeted audience most likely to want your services.

So not only do your ad costs increase dramatically, so do poor quality leads and conversions. Since your ads are not as targeted to your preferred patients, you get a mixed bag of the public contacting you.

Now your staff wastes a lot of time triaging these leads to determine who is really serious and who is flaky.

So, I recommend you have trained staff and processes to qualify leads and, if you aren’t already, charge a consult fee so at least, your time is better protected from wasted consults who have no intention of moving forward.

If your practice hasn’t got a proven sales process in place, I recommend that you check out our Sales Guide called 7 Figure Samurai Sword Sales Guide For Medical Clinics. I leave the link in the show note so you can check it out.

2. Pay Per Click Advertising Will Get More Expensive For Lesser Results

As you can see the increased number of ads listing on page 1. And also, there is an increased number of advertisers who want to get more traffic from Google since they lose organic traffic from SEO.

This increases the search cost per click and growing competition will increase the costs even more.

That means your PPC manager will not waste hours tweaking bids since automation will do it for them but while Google continues to improve their artificial intelligence to take control away from advertisers in the name of ‘better targeting & intent’ or “smart bidding”, the downside is you will need to monitor what Google is doing.

TIP: Since your PPC person is now the gatekeeper on whether these automated options are best for you or for Google, have them report their findings to you regularly so you understand what’s working.

So in order to combat this issue, the role of relevant, highly specific landing pages are critical to target long tail specific keywords.

For example: derma fillers vs crow’s feet removal, lip fillers, nose fillers, jawline strimming…

3. SEO Will Constantly Change and Become Unpredictable 

Even though the algorithm might be changing more often, there are 2 things that local businesses can keep working on regardless of the changes….

Google is geared towards local search listings so be sure your Google My Business profile is complete and updated, and good consistent content still works.
Content marketing is one of medical marketing strategies that’s working now. You create and distribute valuable, relevant, and consistent content that attracts the right audience who is interested in certain procedures.

Because in a world of relentless information coming at the consumer, they can only hear what they are interested in at that moment. They seek out that information and come to you instead when you have the answers they need.

4. Social Media Platforms Are Strangling Your Audience

Social Media has become the most influential virtual space available today to help you grow your practice. It’s here to stay so you might as well embrace it.

However, please keep in mind, you are only renting those followers. Instagram and Facebook own your followers, so they are, in essence, your landlord.

That means they can raise the rent and/or kick you out so you lose your data you’ve spent years collecting.

I’m sure you’re aware that social media and medical marketing don’t get along. You are showing graphic material that can be offensive or hurt the self-esteem of the public so they can close down your account without notice.

They also decide who sees your organic content. FB & IG continually strangle your list to force you to “pay to play” by buying more advertising.

The latest stats show only 5.2% of your followers actually see your organic content so you have this false sense of security thinking you’re marketing your practice when, in fact, it’s drying up right before your eyes. (Source: Scalable.co)

5. Acquire Your Own Data!

Now you can take back your power by owning your audience data! You can no longer trust that audiences you have built on social media platforms will be or stay available to you.

You want to build up your own list of anyone who is or could be interested in your services.

While the challenges continue with privacy laws and google changing their rules regularly, email makes a comeback.

Nowhere else can you have the 1-on-1 attention of patients as you can with email.

Think of your email list as a practice money-making asset because it is.

This is the highest quality list of prospective patients you have because they already know, like and trust you and are more open to what you have to say.

Email gives you the time and space to get your messages across that you can’t in social media….it’s too fast-paced.

And email allows you to segment and personalize. That’s how you convert more of your audience to take action.

There are so many ways to “slice and dice” your message to your patient list who are most likely interested in what you have to say.

For example:

Introduce a new filler to your patients who have had filler before.
For your more mature patients, talk about your advances in aging face techniques.
For those in their 30’s and 40’s, show off non-surgical treatments that give them a lift.

Here is the TIP:  Use landing pages to capture your followers’ name, email, and phone number so you can stay in touch with these would-be patients no matter what happens with these huge internet platforms.

Plan an email calendar with monthly themes and smaller targeted mailings to keep in touch with your patients so you stay top of mind. Use killer subject lines to get your email opened and personalize with your patients’ names.

Okay. That wraps up this episode. So please do me a favour and subscribe to our channel, so you don’t miss new episodes coming up. And if you feel so inclined, please share this with your staff and colleagues, and then you can always follow us on social media.

If you want to talk more about how to sell your services or make changes for your marketing campaign based on the above changes, just book a FREE 15 min discovery call with me via our website at www.onlinemarketingfordoctors.com.

Thanks so much and hope to talk to you in our discovery call soon.

#46: 5 Medical Marketing Changes That You Can’t Ignore

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