Direct mail is not dead. At a time when email inboxes are overflowing, how else can you reach prospective patients in your area without overwhelming them? In fact, a piece of healthcare-related mail can be a nice break from the screen, a physical reminder that a local specialist, practice, or hospital is here to offer […]
Doctor websites can often be insightful and educational. But is that really all you need for your hospital or practice website to be complete? 6 things all doctor websites need Of course, all doctor websites are going to be different. Some are suited for before-and-after photos, while some are primarily focused on showing their compassionate […]
Mobile is taking over the world. There’s no way around it. When you have a personal assistant in your pocket every day, why would you perform searches primarily on a desktop computer? As user behavior changes, the future of mobile advertising is changing as well. Hospitals and practices must keep up if they want to […]
Your name, or the name of your practice, can be an important asset or an unfortunate liability for providers in doctor or healthcare marketing and advertising. Consider the legendary saga of Edgar “Painless” Parker, a turn of the century street dentist. It seems the ethical standards for dentistry were sometimes cringe-worthy at the time. “After […]
Not long ago I was speaking with a respected surgeon and thought leader about competition in healthcare. He brought home the idea that competition is indeed nerve-racking. In the practice of medicine and in business, you don’t have real competition unless there is an element of fear. Two notions come to mind. The first is […]
In my advertising industry career, I’ve tended to resonate to the strength of direct response advertising. It’s not appropriate for every situation, of course. But where and when there’s a good fit, it’s one of the most powerful and effective tools. The reason: Direct response is advertising that gets results. And when it’s done properly […]
Fear. Risk. Rationalization. It’s likely that we have not heard all the reasons that doctors DO NOT advertise. Perhaps only a million or so. For one thing, the list of "not doing marketing" is nearly endless. Secondly, the doctors and healthcare professionals who we talk to most often have left that old-school thinking behind and have squared-off […]
As I was reviewing some advertising tracking data with a client recently, our client (a physician in a large medical group) observed how the “Internet shopper” category accounted for a high percentage of no-shows and cancellations. His first impression was that Internet shoppers are more fickle or impatient by nature. Could it be that the […]
[Continuing series installment.] A unproductive (or outright lazy) employee wouldn’t last long in a well-managed medical practice. And, considering the investment that most doctors have sunk in their website, it’s frustrating to discover a doctor’s website that is “present,” but clearly “under-performing.” Some weak sites are outdated or seriously ill, and those guys are prime […]
Most healthcare advertising agencies will not admit it, but some clients are simply better than other clients. The people and personalities are part of the chemistry, but more than a retail transaction, two business entities share mutual success goals. It’s similar to a doctor-patient relationship. Privately, many doctors have patients who they favor over others. […]
[Series Installment: How to Avoid the 7 Deadly Sins of Healthcare Marketing -- Deadly Sins #5: Inadequate Training, from the Healthcare Success Educational library.] Everyone in the office needs to understand how and why new patient inquiry calls are significantly different from the routine. Without preparation and training, seven out of 10 prospective new patient […]
Five quick search engine optimization techniques to recognize if your healthcare website needs help with search ranking—to attract more visitors and win new patients. Here's a quick assessment tool for your healthcare website. Internet Search Engines, like Google, decide how high your site will be listed on a mountain of search results. Sophisticated computer programs-spiders, […]
