The Most Effective Marketing Ideas for Your Orthopedic Practice
This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Jane Haynie
The Most Effective Marketing Ideas for Your Orthopedic Practice
Orthopedic procedures are intricate and complex. When a potential patient begins searching for a provider like you to solve issues with pain or mobility, they can easily get lost in a sea of diagnoses, treatments, and medical jargon.
This is why it is so important for you to invest in your online presence. A well-structured, informative website bolstered with targeted orthopedic digital marketing ideas will bring patients directly to you.
But most practice managers are doctors or surgeons — not marketers. That’s where we can help. Keep reading for 5 orthopedic marketing ideas that will help you build a marketing machine that increases your patient flow.
Top 5 Orthopedic Marketing Ideas
Orthopedic Marketing Idea #1: Build a Custom Website
Three out of five people choose a provider based on the strength of their online presence. The reality of today’s world is that if you don’t have a website, you don’t exist.
A custom website with professional, patient-focused copy will ensure that potential patients find you and gain confidence in your expertise.
Here are five important topics your website needs to communicate:
-
Your education, licenses, skills, experience, and philosophy as a provider
-
Your unique selling proposition (what makes you the right choice over other providers?)
-
The operations, procedures, and consultations you offer
-
The goals you achieve for your patients (how do your skills make their life easier/better/happier?)
-
Your location and how and when they can contact you or book a consultation (43% of patients prefer to book online)
While it’s possible to piece together a website on your own using drag-and-drop tools, this opens you up to potential missed opportunities. Do you know how to configure your website so it loads quickly, prioritizes the most relevant information, and attracts search engines?
Using a custom website provider with back- and front-end design, professional copywriting, and SEO skills ensures that your website accomplishes all of these goals so you can find new patients.
Orthopedic Marketing Idea #2: Web Content and SEO
An SEO-optimized website is the first step to getting the attention of search engines. But on its own, it’s not enough. Do you know what search engines love? Fresh, relevant, up-to-date content.
Because orthopedics is a dynamic field of change and innovation, a blog is an ideal way to accomplish several objectives:
-
Share important information that patients should know before and after a procedure
-
Demonstrate your knowledge and experience as a provider
-
Give potential patients more opportunities to find you online
-
Improve your website’s ranking in organic search results
Many great online resources will teach you the basics of blog writing and SEO to get you started. However, most orthopedic providers struggle to find time to complete SEO training, write and proofread articles, and publish them on a regular cadence.
Consider enlisting the help of a marketing agency like Socius instead. With a staff of writers and SEO specialists who understand how to write compelling, targeted, optimized content, your blog can essentially become a content machine that runs in the background while you do the important work of treating patients.
Orthopedic Marketing Idea #3: Use Paid Media
Organic search is only one piece of a digital marketing strategy. To make sure your orthopedic practice is on the radar of the local population, you need to invest in paid media.
Paid media is a marketing tactic where you purchase keywords and ad space that put you at the top of the first page of search results.
Here are the tactics marketing professionals use to maximize the results of paid campaigns:
-
Research: Identify the keywords the target audience uses most frequently
-
Validation: Determine the keywords that have optimal volume, competitiveness, and cost.
-
Experimentation: Run ads at volumes that are statistically significant, but a reasonable investment.
-
Launch: Use the research and experimentation data to use the paid media budget for maximum results.
Paid ads have a ton of potential to generate new patients…if they are executed strategically. Without a plan in place, they can easily become a financial black hole so be sure to use marketing agencies and consultants to get the most bang for your buck.
Orthopedic Marketing Idea #4: Leverage Social Media
Most of us have a love-hate relationship with social media. It contains a whirlwind of misinformation and drama. But it is also one of the most common places people seek out a medical provider.
Most orthopedic providers know how to create a social media account and post updates; many do not have the time to optimize their use of social media to generate more patients.
Using a marketing agency gives you a consistent social media presence by:
-
Setting up your online profiles so they are informative and attractive
-
Building your base of followers so the right people see your posts
-
Creating engaging posts that patients with orthopedic issues want to read
-
Posting on a regular cadence — 3-5 times a week — so your practice is top-of-mind
-
Responding to direct messages quickly and accurately, encouraging potential patients to schedule a consultation
With an agency to execute these orthopedic social media marketing ideas, your marketing will go from pain to gain – and you never even have to log in.
Orthopedic Marketing Idea #5: Curate Online Reviews
Anyone who owns a business recognizes that online reviews don’t always paint an accurate picture of a business. Despite this reality, 86% of future patients read online reviews while considering a new doctor.
Many orthopedic practice leaders assume that reviews can’t be controlled — they are public, after all.
This is not true. Our Socius marketing team sets up an automated system for each of our clients to curate, respond to, and post online reviews. Here’s how it works:
-
Integrate our system with your CRM
-
Send automated review requests to your customers
-
Respond to negative reviews and attempt to resolve them before the patient posts them online
-
Publish positive reviews to your website and Google search results
-
Attract more of the right patients
Successful Orthopedic Marketing Ideas Take Commitment
The time to start implementing these orthopedic marketing ideas is today. With a little bit of work, commitment, and help from an agency like Socius, your orthopedic practice will have a thriving digital presence and a steady flow of new patients.
Schedule a consultation, and we’ll talk about how to maximize your existing online marketing strategies — and create some new marketing streams.
Written by:
