With the ever-increasing competition in healthcare, patient acquisition strategies are critical to a profitable medical business.  According to recent research, healthcare providers spent more than $2.1 billion on digital advertising in 2017, and the number is expected to reach $2.9 billion by 2021.  These statistics highlight the dire need for attracting new patients. Indeed, a steady patient flow is lifeblood for your practice and a high priority to any medical professional. 

Today we’ll go through some of the proven marketing strategies that you can implement to start attracting new patients and increase your revenue stream.

Using Digital Advertising To Attract A Stream Of Patients

In an age where information is at your patient’s fingertips and considering that 83% of adult internet users search online for health advice, practitioners have a big chance of acquiring patients online with digital advertising platforms. 

Platforms like Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, and many others, allow doctors to quickly run their ad campaigns and start attracting new leads for their practice.  

Digital advertising is not only more effective than traditional advertising, but it’s ridiculously cheaper. This mix of effectiveness and affordability makes this strategy one of the best options when it comes to increasing patient volume. 

Build A Strong Brand For Your Medical Business 

With the rapid surge of “me too” care services, medical businesses must create a strong brand name for their business to cut through the clutter. Branding your practice provides you with a competitive edge and gives your potential patients a razor-sharp understanding of your core values.  

Healthcare branding is the art of crafting medical brands for which patients believe there’s no substitute. And building such a brand can lead to unmatched advantages such as: 

• A strong medical brand can attract loyal patients to your practice 
• Branding your practice skyrockets patient retention and increases their lifetime value, which in turn, increases your annual revenue. 
• Branding can reduce your marketing costs: since your practice brand is well-established, it will be less dependent on marketing and advertising efforts
• Healthcare branding creates an unbreachable wall against your competition
• Branding your medical business increases its perceived worth and will result in a high preference for your practice. 

Branding is a paramount component of the increased revenue stream and patient acquisition. If you’re looking for a predictable and steady source of revenue, start by building your brand. 

Create An Automated Sales Funnel

A Sale funnel is a potent strategy for passive patient acquisition. The strategy optimizes the journey potential patients go through on the way to purchase your care services.  

The journey this strategy tracks and optimizes for are:

• Awareness Stage

• • • This is the first time would-be patients are aware of your practice.

• Interest Stage

• • • The second stage is potential patients are engaged and interested in what you have to say.

• Evaluation Stage

• • • At this stage patients are evaluating their choices and here is where you need to send them messages that trigger their decision to book you. 

• Purchase

• • After potential patients book your care services, they become a patient and in this stage, you’ll focus more on nurturing and increasing patient retention. 

The best part of this strategy is its scalability. Once you establish your sales funnel, it will act as a flywheel that Attracts patients→ Engage with them→ nurture the relationship→  up until retaining. 

Here’s an example of a sales funnel: 

 

Leverage Inbound Digital Marketing Strategies 

Inbound marketing is a strategy for attracting patients to your care services using content marketing, social media, and search traffic.  

The goal of this strategy is to educate, entertain and build trust with your medical brand using a content-driven approach. 

Unlike digital advertising, inbound marketing takes a long-term path to build a consistent audience. This approach also strengthens your online presence and makes for a memorable patient experience. 

There are numerous inbound marketing strategies but the most effective ones are: 

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) 
• Social Media Marketing
• Blogging and publishing articles
• Video marketing Video Content
• Case Studies
• White Papers
• Webinars/online events
• E-books and online guides
• Email Newsletters

The great news is that you only pick one and be consistent about it. In the long run, inbound marketing will establish you as an authority in the healthcare industry, driving you consistent leads and patients towards your practice.

Attract More Patients by Hosting an Authoritative Podcast

With one out of every five adults in the United States listening to a podcast regularly, podcasting is booming right now. And compared to other marketing strategies, this one is the easiest one to implement. 

Recording a podcast episode takes 20-40 minutes from your day and then you’re done. You can outsource and publish your episode live for your target audience in no time. What’s even more, podcasting is easy to syndicate to other forms of media. Once you’ve recorded an episode, you can transcribe it and turn it into a blog post, youtube video, or a social media snippet. 

This flexibility offers you endless possibilities and increases your outreach to potential patients with little to no effort from your side. If you’re looking for a quick way to start expanding your sphere of influence, podcasting is the way to go.

Acquire High-Value Patients Using Email Course Sequence 

An email course is a 5-10 email sequence sent to your email subscribers daily. This strategy aims to provide your would-be patients with valuable medical advice via emails and building trust between you and potential patients. 

At the end of the email course, you will send an email pitch to subscribers who finished your starter course to upsell them on your higher offer (one-on-one appointment with you). 

This strategy works because it provides huge value to your patient from the get-go. That alone builds rapport and removes the friction between your leads and your high ticket offer. 

The Secret To Attracting Patients and Increased Revenue

There are countless ways to increase revenue for your medical practice. But what makes these strategies work is the branding that supports them. 

Your patient acquisition efforts are as good as the brand behind them. Marketing should build your brand while attracting patients. This brand building and marketing approach ensures that your practice won’t be dependent on high marketing expense to function but rather on a strong and loved brand by your patient. 

Building a brand is the backbone of a profitable medical practice. And should be your #1 priority when trying to acquire new patients.