marketing tips for orthopaedics

5 Essential marketing tips for orthopaedics

Let’s face it. Orthopaedic surgery is competitive. The number of orthopaedic surgeons per square kilometre being rather high in Australia, you want to make sure your practice stands out. Lets go over the essential marketing tips for orthopaedics in private practice.

marketing tips for orthopaedics

5 Essential marketing tips for orthopaedics

#1 Is your marketing designed for the patient?

patient research

Many surgeons think their marketing is patient-friendly. Until we take a closer look at it in our free Strategy Sessions, in a workshop or a webinar.

The patient looks at your profile with a different filter. For starters, they are not doctors.
Secondly, they are not necessarily trained to quickly assess your qualifications, your experience and your career. Their filter is often intuitive.

TIP 1: Be aware of patient research

In the video, you can look at what we could call a live demo of content that is designed to make a practice visible in patient research via Google. We will look at some orthopaedic surgery profiles and highlight the strengths of these strategies. Be ready to get inspired!

Let’s look at some more marketing tips for orthopaedics.

#2 Is your marketing addressing their concerns?

patient faqs

When we do a free website audit, we look at many things, including Google-optimisation and technical website health. The biggest mistake in medical marketing is doctor-centric content.

If you get carried away by making your content about you…then chances are the patient feels it is not about them.

As simple as this may sound, it’s a common mistake and it comes with the fact that doctors get used to building authority. Within the hospital system you are often in charge, both in the context of your private practice and in theatre. So it’s easy to get a little bit lost in the tone of voice that is needed to build rapport with patients.

The patient FAQs are one thing. The tone you use is another little-known secret to successful medical marketing content.

TIP 2: Use the magic words as often as you can

Let’s do a little test before you read any further. Is there a particular word you noticed I use a lot, since you started reading it from the top? Yes, words like marketing and content of course… But there is more.

The power words for patient-centric content are “you” and “yours”. On this page I use them 72 times, these power words.

If all your medical content is written in the third person and does not ever use these words, then it will not really talk to th the patient. It’s as simple as that.

If you do have to talk about yourself – and of course we would like to get to know you as a doctor when we check out your website – then do it wisely.

Use “I” instead of “Dr Johnson” / “He/She”. Make it personal. Using “I” and “you”, combined with content about the frequently asked questions your reception team jots down, will make your entire medical marketing campaign more authentic and personable.

If you want to take it further after these marketing tips for orthopaedics, check out our recent work and book a meeting if you want to apply this method to your online profile as an orthopaedic surgeon.

#3 Is your marketing based on actual data?

medical market studies

There are many medical market studies being performed but this is a little-known one. It has been running in Australia and The Netherlands since 2016 and covers a unique new area of Medicine: Patient Search Behaviour.

The impact of this approach is spectacular. Doubling the turnover of a private practice, filling up a surgeon’s clinics with quality leads, becomes far more predictable and sustainable once we publish the exact content that patients and referring GPs are googling for.

Medical market studies are now being implemented for almost any type of specialty and are always the foundation of your digital strategy when you work with us. To find out more, book a free 1:1 Strategy Session to explore how we can help you grow your patient numbers.

TIP 3: Whoever is doing your marketing, ask about the medical market studies they used to underpin every page on your website. Then, ask about the ongoing measurement they put in place to monitor your website’s competitive ranking for the essential patient searches via Google.

#4 Do you update your content regularly?

orthopaedic surgery blog

What’s the use of an orthopaedic surgery blog?

CON: Someone who needs orthopaedic surgery is not too obsessed by reading every blog a surgeon has ever written on the subject. The patient has an acute or chronic problem, gets a GP referral and the medical imaging that is prescribed, and signs up for a surgical procedure. At first sight, an orthopaedic surgery blog has no use whatsover.

PRO: What’s in a name. A blog is a type of content page. A content page is an item that Google can detect to define if your profile is worth displaying when patients in your local are doing a search. Google looks at relevance, technical website health, loading speed, responsiveness and… freshness.

So do you update your content on a regular basis? Or do you suffer from writer’s block?

We often see orthopaedic surgeons (and other surgeons for that matter) who have launched a blog or a news section at some stage. They would have abandoned the blog a few months later.

When asked why, they will tell us that the blog did not bring in new patients.

TIP 4: Make sure you are well-informed about what a blog can actually do and what best practices are needed to get the best ROI from your medical blog.

That’s because the strategy was missing a long-term vision for this type of campaign. This is where our marketing tips for orthopaedics come in handy and that is why we will now look at the smartest way to do this with a long-term perspective.

#5 Are you looking at the long-term picture?

orthopaedics marketing

Orthopaedics marketing is not the same as selling smartphones. The consumer needs are totally different, and so are the emotions involved in the decision making process.

Here’s an exercise to stretch your thinking from short-term orthopaedics marketing to a more sustainable long-term orthopaedics marketing strategy.

Short-term content: This is how hip replacement works. This is when you need hip replacement surgery. What is shoulder bursitis. When do I need an ACL reconstruction? These topics are important and great foundational content for your orthopaedics website. They are addressing the low-hanging fruit, which in medical lead generation refers to the patients who have an acute need for the service.

Long-term content: Think about what your patient really wants. Yes, sometimes it’s about ‘fixing’ things. The thought behind that is always quality of life, living live to the fullest, being able to work, enjoy, travel or play. If you can position yourself as a health expert who is here to share nuggets of wisdom that will enable your audience to achieve this as often as possible, then you will be investing in a whole different type of orthopaedics marketing.

TIP 5: Avoid short-term tactics and make sure your practice is using a sustainable long-term vision for your orthopaedics marketing campaign.

I have mentioned this particular strategy in the video earlier in this article, and I love referring to Dr Howard Luks in New York because he is looking at the long-term picture twice: for himself as a surgeon and an authority, and for his audience. “Longevity Simplified” is his popular book and it talks about much more than getting orthopaedic surgery.

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orthopaedics marketing advice

Looking for orthopaedics marketing advice? Why not start with a free 1:1 Strategy Session here at Digital Practice? We look at the setup and competitive situation of your private practice, your unique brand positioning and the growth opportunities with proven tactics for orthopaedic surgeons.