patient acquisition
Digital patient acquisition and the impact on your turnover
Digital patient acquisition and the impact on your turnover
Kris Borgraeve
July 12, 2021
What is digital patient acquisition?
digital patient acquisition
Digital patient acquisition has become more relevant in the last couple of years, and you may only just have started to explore it. The unprecedented opportunity is to understand digital marketing so you stay ahead of your competitors, who depend on word-of-mouth and GP referrals.
Digital acquisition of new patients is about creating an ongoing process that attracts and converts new patient leads for your private practice. Any treatment or procedure that is not administered in the Emergency Room is subject to a lead time: the time between the first suggestion that the patient needs to investigate a condition or a symptom, and the moment this same patient makes a booking and chooses a specialist.
Everything in between is influenced by ‘the digital space’ or in other words, the online behaviour of the patient matters, and so does the interaction with the content that doctors publish online.
Digital patient acquisition means that you start using your website, social media, and your online conversations in a strategic way. The end goal is to fill your funnel with new patient leads.
In this guide, we will unpack the proven tactics that leading Australian doctors use. You will spot the difference between scattered tactics and a coherent strategy.
How can digital marketing help you grow your private practice?
strategic patient acquisition
If you are reading this article, it means that you are not indifferent to the thought of growing your practice in the years to come. Either because you are starting out in private practice, or because you feel a specific market pressure for your niche in your area.
Digital is important because it disrupts the traditional model, when patients see their GP about a health concern, are then referred to a specialist and obediently follow the pathway that was presented to them. The disruptor in this day and age is the technology in your patients’ pockets. We can no longer claim that online and digital are only buzzwords for younger generations. The pandemic has seen grandparents embrace and use Zoom, Skype, Facetime, and Viber like no generation of grandparents before ever did. After that digital shockwave that came with Covid-19, we can safely assume that many under-80s are now able to use Google and click on a link, wouldn’t you agree?
Digital is important because it is not just about the new technology. It is about real conversations. It is about patients asking questions (or doing a Google search) and specialists providing answers (or having excellent FAQ pages about endometriosis, ACL-reconstruction, benign prostate enlargement, or sciatica. At its core, the conversation is emotive: when I am unwell, I feel insecure and doctors are there to inform, reassure, support or act.
Over the last 5 years I have seen private practices doubling their turnover and patient numbers just because they started using digital patient acquisition on top of the existing strategies: still building solid word-of-mouth referral pathways and making sure local GPs send patients their way. The difference, the growth, came from becoming a digital leader for specific conditions or treatment pathways.
And let’s face it: if you can keep your overhead costs at the same level and create a growth model for your private practice, wouldn’t that give you peace of mind and perspective for the future of your business?
How to create a patient lead generation strategy?
funnel patient acquisition
Many doctors keep shopping around and purchase services that focus on tactics: From engaging with the latest Instagram guru in town to purchasing backlinks from dodgy overseas SEO companies, all the way through to engaging a friendly cousin to build a cheap new Wix website or asking the receptionist to quickly set up a Facebook Page… If you have been down this path and you have not doubled your patient numbers, stay with me and let’s take a look at the steps we use to help customers achieve unprecedented, future-proof, and ongoing growth. The secret is to have the tactics work together, in a structured way.
Step 1: Identify your goals: target patients, core services
Step 2: Map the information needs
The next step is to tap into local market research. What we do for our customers is access live Australian data to understand the patient’s Google behaviour. We assess the most common Google searches for the procedures or conditions that are relevant to your practice. Then we amalgamate this data with your business goals. As a result, we have a roadmap to produce content that is a good fit with the demand: we know what you need to publish to attract patients and what will make your website more visible in your local catchment area. Many surgeons and specialists experience a lightbulb moment when they are offered an insight into what can actually make them more visible and help them grow. It takes away the guesswork and the unnecessary focus on paid advertising to grow a successful practice.
Step 3: Build the content to attract and convert
With the data that we have now acquired, we can build the foundation of a content marketing strategy. It boils down to treating every paragraph on your website in an almost scientific way: adding the right information, using a palatable tone-of-voice that hooks the patient, weaving in the exact keywords that we know the patient has been Googling for. It’s a craft. It’s a combination of skillsets. It’s a technique. It’s an art. It’s all of that and it creates stunning results for the leading surgeons and specialists that we work with.
Step 4: Nurture a digital funnel to convert traffic into new patients
An optional step is to take it all to the next level. You have now been attracting 5x or even 8x the traffic you used to attract with a typical web design that did not have a content strategy behind it (the one done by the web developer around the corner or your much-beloved cousin). So what do we do with all this traffic? Do we get more bums on seats? Our top customers add a funnel to their strategy. It means that we invite the visitor (remember, this is a potential new patient who then refers to 5 other people who become patients who refer to 5 other people…) to take action!
The action we want is not to click and buy an ACL reconstruction, have IVF or replace a hip. It’s simply to fill out a form. To enter a conversation and to explore if the treatment offered is suitable. You get an email or a phone number. You are now talking to this patient and they are one step closer to choosing you.
These are only four steps of a typical strategy but the truth is that there are about 6 to 10 more steps. In our unrivalled and highly successful strategies for leading Australian specialist doctors, we carefully select the most suitable steps and tactics for your practice, because just like the treatments you offer, marketing is not a one-size-fits-all activity.
How to choose tactics and platforms to grow your practice?
tools for patient acquisition
Content marketing:
Social media:
The next step is to tap into local market research. What we do for our customers is access live Australian data to understand the patient’s Google behaviour. We assess the most common Google searches for the procedures or conditions that are relevant to your practice. Then we amalgamate this data with your business goals. As a result, we have a roadmap to produce content that is a good fit with the demand: we know what you need to publish to attract patients and what will make your website more visible in your local catchment area. Many surgeons and specialists experience a lightbulb moment when they are offered an insight into what can actually make them more visible and help them grow. It takes away the guesswork and the unnecessary focus on paid advertising to grow a successful practice.
Paid advertising:
Video:
Email:
LinkedIn:
But as said, all these tactics need to be contained in a coherent integrated strategy. Working together like clockwork, the tools, content, and elements help you scale your practice or build a stronger reputation, whether it’s in a one-man-band practice or in the group that you are part of.
Examples of great practice growth strategies
the ultimate guide to practice growth
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