We know every single one of us who is reading this blog, at some point in life is a consumer of healthcare services. That is the reason why healthcare institutions, health systems, hospitals are important to us. They want to send us any messages and to use their products and services. But in real life, we only pay attention to their messages only when it is about to affect us. That’s why Online marketing really helps them. Online marketing helps to reach the right customers at the right time when people are looking for services.
At Digital Buddha we promise a great deal of success working with healthcare companies and Hospitals to take the digital approach to help them meet their goals and objectives. We can help them by updating the landing page, including many features to attract new customers, and optimizing for better search engine visibility. At each and every stage we measure the performance of our digital campaigns in generating actual appointments. Effective advertisement campaigns can be created on the search engine and social media by Geographic targeting. Our search ads are exclusively shown to the target audiences when and where they are looking for a healthcare provider.
During the last few decades, we have seen healthcare marketing in various forms like Health camps, Television and Radio ads, Banners on Public transport, etc. Now it’s time to switch to digital marketing campaigns instead of traditional marketing.
In developed countries, they have already started using digital marketing to drive patients to health care institutions and hospitals. In India, due to the current growth of digital culture and increased internet usage, it’s time to take the right turn towards internet marketing technologies.
According to the research done by Google in collaboration with compete Inc, the following observations are found out.
- Around 84 % of the patients use both online and offline methods for hospital research.
- Organic searches drive nearly 3 times as many visitors to hospital websites compared to non-search visitors.
- Digital content has a great role in scheduling an appointment.
- Most of the patients search for the symptoms and conditions on the internet before going for treatments.
- 44 percent of the patients who research hospital sites on mobile phones, book appointments online.
Another survey result indicates that 12 percent post their review on social media and 5 percent post on the website. These percentages will increase during the upcoming years. That is why the importance of digital marketing in the healthcare industry is a topic of interest.
Now let us look at the most important digital marketing techniques which help your Hospital to stay ahead.
SEO is most useful to drive the customers to the hospitals. Most people surf on the internet for minor health issues to get an instant diagnosis of their problem. SEO helps to target those customers.
Search volumes are doubled for many of the hospital-related keywords during the last few years. The google search result for “Best Gynecology hospital in Kerala” is shown below. By implementing proper Search engine optimization techniques, you can bring your Hospital website on the first page of the search engine result page.
Most of us are very familiar and active on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Therefore there is more chance of spreading the news and contents to your potential customers through these channels. Facebook is the most popular social media channel among Indians. So it is necessary to manage your Facebook page and engage the audience by providing health and wellness-related content.
- PPC Ad campaigns by using Google Adwords
During the last decade, it was not necessary to think about internet advertisements for Hospitals in India. Only newspaper, banners, and pamphlets were sufficient. Now start thinking about digital advertisements including Google ad words. With Google advertisements, you can manage Budget, Location, and target audience with the right strategies at any time. You can show your hospital advertisement for customers searching for hospitals at a particular location and also for a specialized doctor in any department.
It is definitely the right time to integrate internet marketing strategies to the healthcare industry in India, with the current growth in Digital India campaigns. There are a lot of opportunities ahead of individuals and industries in healthcare to implement these strategies for better business.