6 Top Strategies to Improve Patient Acquisition

For most healthcare providers, generating leads and getting patients is a costly affair. In fact, it takes six or seven times more money to get a new patient than to retain an existing one. Healthcare providers can choose various marketing services to promote themselves. However, the sheer volume of these channels makes it impossible for them to choose the right one. Smart modern-day patients do thorough research on their healthcare options before picking their provider. So, organizations need to reach out to them in a way that suits them and serves them well. In this post, we discuss effective strategies to improve patient acquisition.

6 Critical Patient Acquisition Strategies to Help Healthcare Providers

Use Social Media to Humanize your Medical Staff

Over 70 percent of patients review your social media before they actually buy your products or services.  If you’ve already have social media credentials, here’s how you engage with your potential leads:

1. Interview your medical staff like doctors, nurses, and ancillary staff in a way that humanizes them.
2. Make your doctors and surgeons talk about their hobbies, their families, and what motivates them to serve their patients.
3. You could also ask your medical practitioners to talk about their favorite TV shows and movies or share personal homemade recipes.

Through these actions, you make your viewers relate with your staff and build a personal connection. You’ll automatically notice that patients will come to you because they want a warm and cozy experience. You could also use a psychographic segmentation model to ensure patients meet the physicians according to their personality type and interests. In this way, you show your patients that you see them as more than just revenue sources.

Collect Online Reviews

Did you know that 72 percent of customers use reviews to pick their new doctors? Evidence also suggests that reviews, ratings, and patient feedback matters a lot to online leads while picking a healthcare provider. In fact, 54.6 percent of customers use these reviews to form an opinion of the medical professional. You’ll find these reviews easily through apps like Yelp, Google, Vitals, Rate MDs, and others. A whopping 60.8 percent of customers avoided doctors with too much negative feedback.

Build a Library of Educational Videos

To establish yourself as a credible authority in the healthcare space, consider posting short and informative videos on the subject. You could drop knowledge on preventive care topics, after-care tips, or handling chronic illnesses to strengthen your presence. Through YouTube, you can reach out to 18 to 49-year-old patients better than cable TV ads. If you do it well, just like Mayo Clinic, you too can reach roughly 300k subscribers and 94 million views! So, venture out in the world of social media and use attractive ways to connect with your potential leads.

Engage Influencers and Advocates

As we’ve discussed earlier, most consumers research online about their service providers before they pick them. In fact, 37 percent of people relied on online reviews as their first avenue to find a new doctor. Consumers heavily emphasize on the need for better quality services and positive outcomes from their experience to choose a provider. Your existing patients can act as positive forces for your organization’s growth. You can simply leverage this force by asking them to provide testimonials for your services if they feel positive about them. By simply sharing this experience online, you can build a good reputation that draws more patients to you.

Check your Search Engine Optimization

Using good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques help you appear earlier in the Google search results. If you’re aiming to grow organic traffic to your sites, knowing and applying these techniques are a must! To optimize your online presence, try analyzing how you rank on popular search engines at the moment. Use important keywords your potential clients may search for and see whether you land in their immediate recommendations or not. If not, understand why your competitor shows up above you in the search results and try to improve your sites. A Pew Research Center study states that 97 percent of online viewers search for healthcare information online. Furthermore, 30 million people search for physicians every month. Out of that number, 80 percent of people click on the first three listings to find what they need. Imagine if you’re able to drive that traffic to your site! Optimize for search engines today!

Use Data and Analytics in Healthcare

While analytics in healthcare is not new, you cannot get away with using only customer relationship management software. Today’s healthcare customer received 100s of marketing messages from all types of service providers. So, you need to be smart about your messaging and run targeted campaigns that address specific issues. Through customer analytics, you can create customer profiles and separate them meaningfully. This segmentation helps you use the right type of messaging to connect with them on a personal level. When your leads see that they receive meaningful newsletters from you, they’ll prefer you over your competitors. You could also track response history to make your targeting even more specific and effective to your customers.

‍

Conclusion

To acquire patients over a long time, you need to build strategies to improve patient acquisition that connect with them on a personal level. Try to establish yourself as an expert and a friend that wants to help your customers get the most value from you. Always give the impression that you’ll provide quality services and understand their issues. We’re sure you’ll acquire customers soon and keep them a long time with that attitude. Remove the Burden of Your Healthcare Back Office Processes through Invensis Healthcare Business Process Outsourcing