marketing basics for practice managers

Should practice managers know digital marketing?

Are you managing a medical practice? Chances are you often come across marketing-related challenges, conversations or tasks. This marketing 101 summary will be a game-changer.

marketing basics for practice managers

Should practice managers know digital marketing?

First of all: I want you to tell me what matters

practice manager training

As a practice manager, do you sometimes feel a little lost when it’s about digital and online tools? New online media can be a bit daunting, so let’s create clarity. I thought I would ask you to tell me what the grey areas are, so we can serve you even better with webinars, ebooks and 1:1 strategy sessions via Zoom.

When digital changes the practice bottom line

digital 101

The one thing to be aware of, as a practice manager in healthcare, is the importance of your online presence as a business asset.

Many practices keep operating under the assumption that GP referrals will always be the main driver of new patient leads.

There is a direct connection between your long-term potential to keep attracting referrals and new patient leads, and your visibility in Google Search. There is a big misunderstanding about that, which we will clear up in a moment.

Understanding that your low-hanging fruit consists of patients who are currently googling for symptoms, conditions, treatments, surgery types, faqs and general information about your medical specialty. These thousands of local leads can either enter your funnel or become patients at your competitor’s clinic. That is why the first parameter to look at if you want to safeguard your turnover for the years to come, is your online visibility in organic Google search.

The big misunderstanding about doctors and Google

practice manager tips

I have witnessed the most spectacular lightbulb moments with practice managers and owners when we unpack the foundations of an effective visibility strategy.

Are you ready? It’s simple, yet one of the best kept secrets in medical marketing.

Doctors will often judge the quality of their digital strategy, their brand new website and their entire online presence, by googling either their own name, or the commodity of the service they offer. For example, ‘orthopaedic surgeon brisbane’.

We need a strategy that survives a more in-depth assessment of your visibility.

First of all, every doctor should get access to the exact patient search behaviour data that apply to their specialty. What are patients actually googling for? In each stage of their patient journey, what are the exact questions they have and the terms they use?

Then, once you have built your entire website content around this data-driven set of keywords, you put in place ongoing measuring for each of those mini-funnels.

Each keyword could lead to clicks, patients spending time on those pages, and patients changing their referral or making a booking with you directly.

If you want to understand the impact of content marketing strategies, book a free 1:1 session so we can look at the specific data for your practice.

Who owns your digital assets?

digital assets for doctors

We all know that we better take care of our keys and credit cards.

Yet, when I ask a leading surgeon who owns their domain, there is often an awkward silence.

When we look at who manages the Google Business profile, is an admin of the social media pages, controls the Google Analytics account or checks the status of their website software… there is often more silence.

Your digital assets, as a medical practice, are the equivalent of the keys and credit card.

I vividly recommend doing an inventory and assessing if everything is in good working order. Your online presence generates new leads or validates leads that happen through word-of-mouth. If something is off, your website is no longer secure or some of your online assets display outdated information, your reputation is at risk.

We can help you with the inventory and when you come on board as a Digital Practice customer, cleaning up your digital assets is a standard procedure we include in our packages.

The practice manager’s biggest ‘digital void’

google business

We get it. These things change all the time and haven’t been around for that long.

The most significant grey area we see with practice managers is the management of the Google Business account.

Let’s recap some of the basic learnings we include in our training programs. Things every practice manager should know.

Google Business is an important account, containing your information that is displayed on the right in Google Search, and on Google Maps.
Google Business is where your Google Reviews live. They are contained in this account and if you ever need to remove a negative review, you want to be able to log in.
Google Business needs to be updated when your opening hours are modified during a holiday season.
At all times, you should be able to log on to your Google Business account using the same Gmail account that also gives you access to your Google Analytics and your YouTube channel.
If you do not have access details, chances are that you need to claim your profile. This involves receiving an automated phone call with a code from Google, or receiving the code in the mail.

If you have acute issues with your Google Business account, contact our team who will be able to assist you and make sure one of your most critical digital assets is in good working order.

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marketing questions

We are preparing new webinars, workshops and mini-courses for private practice owners and managers. As a practice manager, we value your input and look forward to receiving your questions about all things digital. Get in touch here and we will get back to you asap.