To start, what exactly is a blog?
blog/blôg/
Noun: A web site on which an individual or group of users record opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis.
Verb: Add new material to or regularly update a blog.
Derivation: A blog (a blend of the term web log)
One of the most inexpensive, but effective, ways to promote and market your practice is blogging.
Now, I'll admit that "blogging", and the other types of online marketing, may be a bit confusing, but they are valuable, don't cost a great deal and with a little work, can be fairly easy to use.
With blogging specifically, this is a tool that can help direct interested, potential patients to your website where they can get answers on the services you can provide. Blogs create interest and word of mouth.
There are a few steps you should take to make blogging an actual valuable tool to your practice:
- Determine who in your practice is going to be the "Marketing Director." This can be the front desk person, an assistant that is marketing savvy, your Office Manager, you (if you have the time) or someone you hire (if you have the financial resource).
- Hire a local marketing company to teach you the basics of blogging. This won't cost you very much and is an investment that will have a very good return. There are also other online training resources such as www.inboungmarketinguniversity.com, lynda.com, www.recognizedexpert.com, and others.
- Set up a blog site for your practice. You can have this added to your existing website or you can set up a free standing blog. There are many resources you can use for this such as www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.com, www.myblogsite.com and many more.
- Write about things that are useful and helpful to your patients. A blog is not a place to "sell" your practice, but should be interesting and valuable information related to patient interest.
- If you have a free standing blog site, make sure it has a link to your website and vice versa.
- Add an option to your blog where interested and potential patients can make comments, ask questions, etc. This is a way to make your blog more interesting and useful to potential patients. A local marketing company can help you set this up and its something can that can be easily monitored by the "Marketing Director".
- Include a list of websites and blogs that you recommend to your patients. This is called a "blogroll" and will be useful to your readers, but also helps to increase the ranking of your blog and make it more findable.
- Publish blog posts as often as possible, at least once a week, but several times a week would be better.The more you post, the higher search engines will rank your site. Not to mention, that readers will log on to your site more frequently to read new posts, creating that interest you're looking for.
- Have other staff contribute to the blog and writing blog posts.
These are just some immediate actions you can take to increase your online presence, contact more potential patients and increase the number of new patients.
Blogging is actually quite simple and is a very inexpensive way to promote and market your practice. It does work and is a good tool to have for any medical practice.
I like want you've said here, Jono.
ReplyDeleteSince I blog myself, I understand it's value. How many doctors that you've worked with actually start a blog? How many of them use it successfully?
I have a handful of actual doctor's that blog themselves, but not enough, which is why I was addressing it here in my blog.
ReplyDeleteI've found that online marketing can be pretty intimidating to doctors, especially the older doctors that are as familiar with the values of the internet or that don't see how it relates to getting new patients. It has taken some work to get my clients to see the value, but it has started to pay off.
That's actually one of the reason's I direct all of my clients to assign someone in their office who is internet savvy the duties of "Marketing Director" and if the practice is large enough to hire someone for the job. This has started to make a difference.
When dealing with a doctor you really have to take the time to get them to see the value in blogging and creating a online community and that it does really take persistence and time to start seeing the value.