Acquire More Patients With These Digital Marketing Strategies for Local Healthcare Providers

Want to decrease your cost per patient acquisition and grow your local business? Strategic digital marketing is the way to go.

But shuffling these tasks onto an admin or a newly graduated college intern won’t generate the results you’re looking for — and certainly not at the level of returns demanded by your tight budget.

Here at Inflow, we see too many community healthcare service providers waste thousands of dollars on ineffective digital marketing. It’s painful to watch, because we know just how transformative these channels can be with the right strategy (and under the care of expert hands).

So, in this guide, we’re sharing some recommendations to help reverse that trend and turn your campaigns into money-makers for your business.

Keep reading to learn:

• Why most local healthcare marketing strategies fail
• Which channels are the best fit for your marketing goals
• What kind of results you can expect
• And much more

We offer full-service local digital marketing to healthcare-related and other small businesses in the United States. Learn more about our offerings and chat with our strategists by requesting a free proposal today.

The #1 Factor for Success: A Full-Funnel Strategy

Before we get into the finer details of the digital marketing campaigns available to you, we need to mention the No. 1 reason why so many businesses’ marketing initiatives fail.

Understandably, those who are new to digital marketing are focused on one KPI: return on ad spend. From the start, they’re only concerned with capturing and converting new patients, delivering a positive ROI.

However, when you focus only on the bottom of the sales funnel, you neglect to build a pipeline of potential patients at every other stage, which is crucial for long-term, sustainable growth.

Eventually, those campaigns with a bottom-funnel focus run out of audiences to mine from. Businesses are back at square one with their marketing efforts, creating a feast-or-famine situation.

That’s why, regardless of which channels you choose, you must invest in campaigns for every stage of the buying cycle: awareness, interest, consideration, and purchase. Yes, it often requires a higher investment at the start, but it’s the only way to ensure ongoing success with your digital marketing efforts in today’s competitive healthcare industry.

Below, we’ll explain more of what this strategy looks like in action.

The Best Channels for Your Local Digital Marketing Strategy

The number of advertising options out there can be overwhelming, especially for those with no background in this field. 

But, if you want to get your business noticed by local audiences, we recommend focusing on a few marketing channels in particular:

• Pay-per-click search engine ads
• YouTube ads
• Social media ads
• Local SEO

Bing & Google Ads

The first — and perhaps most important — channel for every local business is PPC advertising. Typically, this means Google and Microsoft (Bing) Ads.

In a nutshell, these types of ads allow you to be seen in the search engine results for valuable search queries, such as “(business type) near me.” Used in conjunction with strategic local SEO (more on that later), you ensure that your business appears where highly interested audiences are searching for your services and/or products.

As mentioned above, however, you can’t just focus on those bottom-funnel, high-interest queries. You should also advertise for broader searches, especially those that are made earlier in the research process — i.e. “best place to get Botox.”

That said, advertising on those keyword phrases can be difficult. While you can bid on these particular searches, Google typically prohibits the use of certain branded phrases (including pharmaceutical drug names) in ad copy. Google also restricts targeting healthcare consumers based on certain symptoms and conditions, and running afoul of these exhaustive restrictions can lead to your ads being disapproved or eventually banned.

The video below is hosted on YouTube. If you need assistance with viewing the video, please contact info@goinflow.com.

For this reason, we highly recommend that all local businesses team up with experienced PPC advertisers to launch their ads. Not only will this reduce the likelihood of your ads being disapproved, but, when you choose the right agency, you’ll also be much more likely to deliver faster, sustainable results than if you had gone it alone.

YouTube Ads

If you’re looking for a low-cost option to increase your brand awareness and online presence, YouTube advertising will fit the bill.

Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t need a huge budget and high-production-value video to run campaigns on YouTube. You can easily create a low-production-value video that highlights your business, your services, and your patient testimonials for a few hundred dollars; it will often be as effective (if not more so) than a more professional-looking ad.

YouTube allows you to easily target a wide spread of audiences located in your community. You can target demographics — such as parents if you’re a pediatrician, or high-income earners if you run a medical spa — as well as valuable search terms related to your industry and/or services.

Note: Proving ROI on YouTube campaigns can be tricky. Because the main goal here is brand awareness, you’ll rarely be able to attribute new leads or direct revenue to these campaigns. However, the local reach generated by this channel is incredibly cost-effective, not to mention crucial for top-of-funnel awareness advertising.

Social Media Ads

While social media marketing is a more expensive option for local marketing, it is incredibly effective for targeting and retargeting audiences in your community and with your particular industry/services in mind.

Like PPC advertising, targeting audiences on these channels does come with certain restrictions. You cannot target potential customers based on specific health information (such as symptoms or conditions), and certain healthcare products (including supplements) are highly regulated by social media platforms such as Meta and LinkedIn.

However, you can target audiences based on location, interests, and other demographics, including age, gender, etc.

Due to the competitive nature of advertising within the healthcare industry, your medical practice should be prepared to invest at least $3,000 a month (not including agency fees) on each platform to deliver significant results. 

You can reduce that investment by using social as a retargeting channel; however, that will prevent your business from gathering the top-of-funnel and middle-of-funnel audiences necessary for consistent conversions and long-term growth.

You can read more about successfully advertising your healthcare business on social media here — or, if you’d like to chat with our team about what options are available for your budget, request a free consultation today.

Search Engine Optimization

The final channel every community business should invest in is local search engine optimization (SEO).

Depending on your budget and goals, your local SEO strategy could be expansive and include aspects like content marketing, technical optimization, and more. But, at a bare minimum, your local strategy should always include Google Business Profile and local directory listings management.

Your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) controls how your business shows up in local organic rankings when people search for services “near me.” It goes without saying that you need to maintain this listing with accurate information, but you can also enhance your visibility by making your profile as detailed as possible, with frequent updates to indicate it is actively being managed.

You can also improve your digital presence with strategic listings in relevant directories, both local and national. Some of these listings will require a subscription fee, so we recommend working with an SEO expert who can identify the best listings for your goals, rather than list your business across as many directories as possible.

Inflow offers these services as part of our local SEO packages. Please contact our team today to learn more about our local search and online reputation management services.

Frequently Asked Questions

Local digital marketing is essential for local businesses — and it’s also often the first foray into marketing for local healthcare professionals.

Below, we’ve answered a few of the commonly asked questions from local businesses considering this investment. 

However, remember that every local marketing strategy is different. What yours will look like depends on your budget, needs, and goals, which is why we recommend connecting with our experts for a free consultation to get a better sense of what to expect when stepping into this world.

How much will it cost to advertise locally for my healthcare business?

Like with most digital marketing services, the answer to this question is that it depends. 

Many agencies will provide local service “packages,” with an expected number of deliverables per month for the chosen channels. These are often presented in tiers, which are determined by how quickly you want to see results, what kind of budget your business is working with, where you want to be seen, etc.

At Inflow, we do things a little differently. Rather than present set packages for your choosing, we build custom local marketing strategies based on your goals and needs — which, in our experience, deliver far more significant results for your healthcare practice.

To learn more about our pricing or to start building a personalized package for your health/wellness business, contact our team today.

How long will it take to see results? What kind of return can I expect?

Not to overuse a phrase, but the timeline for your advertising returns will depend on several factors — your budget, the extent of your advertising campaigns, your ad creative and copy, and more.

In addition, determining ROI for lead-gen campaigns can be difficult, especially if your business’s analytics tracking isn’t up to par. Successfully tying your marketing activities to new customer acquisition requires detailed tracking of referral website traffic, phone calls, and form submissions, all of which our experts can make happen for your brand as part of our comprehensive analytics and reporting services.

Without knowing the state of your current online marketing activities and analytics tracking, it becomes impossible to predict an expected timeline or benchmark ROI. That’s why it’s so important you speak with a digital marketing agency before getting started, so they can give you an accurate understanding of what to expect based on your planned marketing investment.

See What Local Digital Marketing Can Do For Your Healthcare Business

Local digital marketing is a non-negotiable factor when it comes to sustainably growing your business over time. Unfortunately, for many small-staffed healthcare organizations, it’s also well outside of their in-house capacity.

That’s where digital marketing agencies like Inflow come in. Our experts can build a custom local marketing plan for your business to meet your brand awareness and growth goals, setting the foundation for long-term growth and consistent patient acquisition.

Learn more about our local healthcare digital marketing services by requesting a free consultation with our team today: