If you are trying to advertise your healthcare services online, this guide can help you succeed. Avoid these mistakes with digital healthcare advertising.

About 80% of new leads never translate into sales. If you’re struggling to acquire new patients, it helps to strategize. With a plan in place, you can spark interest in your different healthcare services and attract new patients.

Unfortunately, many first-time advertisers make costly, time-consuming mistakes.

Here are 10 common digital healthcare advertising you should learn to avoid. By dodging these mistakes, you can make the most of your advertising budget. As you attract more patients, you can improve your ROI and expand your practice.

Learn how by avoiding these 10 simple mistakes!

Neglecting Audience Research

One of the most important steps to developing an effective digital marketing strategy is to complete thorough research. Without research, you’ll fail to make informed decisions about your campaigns.

Many healthcare advertisers jump into digital marketing without researching beforehand. Taking a broad approach to your marketing can waste valuable time and money. Instead, it helps to focus on your ideal patient.

Who are your patients? What problems are they experiencing? What healthcare solutions and services can you offer them?

Start by learning everything you can about your ideal patient. For example, you can research demographics such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Marital status
• Household income
• Health condition
• Interests
• Behaviors

Are you offering a top-of-the-line healthcare service? Are the services and treatments you offer expensive? In that case, you’ll likely want to focus on an audience with a higher household income.

Are you focusing on locals or attracting patients from around the world? If you’re encouraging patients to travel to your practice from foreign countries, you’ll need campaigns in different languages.

Do you offer telehealth services that allow you to reach people in distant locations?

These factors can all impact your targeting. Understanding who your patients are and what they care about will help you develop more effective campaigns. Otherwise, a broad campaign might make it difficult for you to connect with your audience.

Keyword Research

Once you know who your patients are, it helps to research the keywords they search for online. Keyword research will help you create content that appeals to your audience’s interests and concerns.

You can use these tools to develop a list of potential target keywords:

• Ahrefs
• Google Keyword Planner
• Google Trends
• SEMRush
• SpyFu

As you research keywords, keep your patients’ search intent in mind. You can separate search intent into two categories: questions/answers and services.

Are your patients looking for a medical specialist? Are they looking for answers to their medical questions? Their search intent will determine how you should form your content.

For example, someone might search for “child’s dentist near me.” Someone else might search “when to take a child for their first dentist’s appointment.” These two search terms will encourage different types of content.

As you develop a list of target keywords, look at the search volume and competitiveness. You’ll want to choose keywords in that sweet spot in-between. Make sure these keywords match the services you offer, too.

Once you’ve completed this research, you can develop a digital marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals.

Forgetting Mobile Marketing

About 95% of Americans have a cellphone. Of those, 81% use text messaging. Despite our growing dependence on cell phones, many businesses neglect mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing allows you to reach customers from their cell phones.

First, make sure your website is mobile-optimized. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to confirm you’re optimized for smaller screens. If you’re not, you’re likely missing customers.

Google started using mobile-first indexing a few years ago. Google’s search algorithm looks at the mobile version of your site to determine your search ranking. If you’re not optimized, you won’t rank ahead of your competitors.

Make sure you’re mobile-optimized before you start using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns, too. If your site doesn’t feel easy to use on smaller screens, you won’t generate those leads.

A mobile-friendly website will help you reach customers on any device.

Ignoring Blogging

Blogging allows you to communicate with patients online.

Use your audience and keyword research to determine what topics your patients are reading about. What questions are they asking? What solutions can you provide?

By blogging on a schedule, you can cover a range of different keywords and appear for different searches. Blogging is also a chance to show off your experience and expertise.

Try different forms of content, including blog articles, infographics, polls, quizzes, and videos.

Use blogging to provide helpful guides or keep your patients up-to-date with news about your practice. For example, chiropractors can let patients know about more back support methods. If a new doctor is working at your practice, use an interview to let patients know!

Don’t forget to end your content with a strong call-to-action (CTA). A compelling CTA can help you boost conversions and attract new patients!

Dodging Social Media

Once you start creating content, don’t forget to share it online!

Sharing your content on social media will help you reach a larger audience of potential patients. However, many digital healthcare advertising campaigns fail to focus on social media. You might fail to appear relevant and timely in front of your audience as a result.

As you use social media, don’t forget to communicate with patients. Respond to comments and answer their questions to show them you’re listening.

To develop an effective digital marketing strategy, make sure to approach each social media platform differently.

For example, LinkedIn is ideal if you’re focusing on other healthcare professionals or B2B marketing. Post-professionally-written blog posts and accomplishments on LinkedIn.

Twitter is ideal for quick news updates.

Instagram and Facebook, on the other hand, are great if you want to communicate with patients. Help them learn more about your practice with images and video content.

Never Using Videos

An estimated 50% of internet users will look for a video related to a product or service. By 2020, videos will account for over 80% of all web traffic. If you’re not creating video content, you’re missing out on a chance to reach prospective patience.

You can reformat a long blog post into a series of quick vlogs. You can also use videos to show off your services.

Make sure to upload these videos to your YouTube channel as part of your overall digital marketing strategy.

Neglecting User Experience

It’s not enough to create a mobile-friendly website. You also need to make sure your website prioritizes the user experience (UX). A complicated, outdated website, on the other hand, might scare off potential clients.

First, make sure your pages load quickly. Slow pages will frustrate visitors into leaving.

Make sure your pages are organized in the navigation.

You can also improve the UX by adjusting your content for readability. Use shorter paragraphs and sentences. Give your content room to breathe with white space, too.

Avoiding SEO

About 66% of marketers claim improving their organic presence with search engine optimization (SEO) is a top inbound marketing priority. Search engine optimization allows you to rank higher on search engines like Google.

A higher ranking can help you reach more patients and generate more web traffic. Ranking ahead of the competition will boost brand awareness and credibility, too. Appearing like a credible resource will help you generate more trust in your practice.

In fact, the search is the number one driver of traffic to content websites. Conversion rates are as much as 10 times higher through search than social media.

Optimize your content for search engines by using your keyword research.

You’ll want your keyword to appear in the URL, opening and closing paragraphs, alt text, and headers. Avoid overstuffing your content, though. Black hat SEO tactics can get your site blacklisted on Google (another costly mistake).

Inconsistent Branding

Consistent brand presentation across all platforms can increase your practice’s revenue by 23%. With digital healthcare advertising, many professionals neglect their brand.

An inconsistent brand can confuse patients. They might not associate your ads or marketing content with your practice.

Make sure to keep your brand consistent across all channels.

That includes your content marketing, digital advertising, social media marketing, and website design. Use a distinct color palette, your logo, and other branding elements to stand out from your competitors.

Poor Budgeting

Digital ad spending increased from $108 billion to $129 billion in the US between 2018 to 2019. Meanwhile, about 95% of chief marketing officers (CMOs) plan to increase more of their budget to digital marketing methods.

One of the most dangerous digital healthcare advertising mistakes you can make is neglecting to set a budget.

Make sure to cover different bases within your digital marketing strategy. If you’re prioritizing SEO, you might neglect customer retention. Allocate your budget to different channels before throwing your money away.

Rarely Reviewing Data

As you develop new marketing campaigns, make sure to review the data regularly.

Which strategies are generating results? Which is costing you money without generating a high return?

Reviewing your data on a regular basis will help you make improvements. As you optimize your campaigns, you can boost your ROI.

Avoid These Digital Healthcare Advertising Mistakes

Eager to start strategizing? Make an effort to dodge these digital healthcare advertising mistakes, first. By making an effort to avoid these mistakes, you can utilize your advertising budget to maximize results!

Looking for more helpful guides for improving your digital marketing strategy? Explore the Marketing section for more tips today!