Over the last two decades, telemedicine has become increasingly popular in the healthcare market.

Specifically, since COVID-19 hit, the importance of providing healthcare with minimum contact with the patient has risen.

Telemedicine is growing and is not showing any sign of slowing down as it has become a convenient practice for doctors as well as patients. Hence, as a healthcare provider, it’s important that you market your telehealth practice effectively.

Whether you are planning to launch a new telemedicine brand, or want to increase the reach and engagement of your current telemedicine practice, having a strong digital presence is necessary, to retain old patients & attract new ones.

Here are 10 telemedicine marketing hacks that will help you grow your telemedicine practice!

1. Your website should speak about your worth

Your telemedicine website is the face of your practice when it comes to virtual services. Your website should showcase your services in such a way that, when a user lands on it, he immediately knows how good you are as a telemedicine healthcare practitioner. Patients can tell a lot about your business by the imagery, tone, and colors used in your website design.

Nowadays, people are spending more of their time online, with a 70% increase in mobile usage worldwide since the coronavirus outbreak. Be sure to provide a good experience by making sure your telemedicine website is mobile-responsive.

The ideal load time for any website should be under 3 seconds. Slow-loading websites are the primary reason for bounce rates. This means if your telemedicine website is loading slowly, the users will leave even before they get to know how good of a medical practitioner you are.

2. Rank higher among other telemedicine practitioners on Google with quality content

Some businesses still think SEO is a myth, it is not!

Your telemedicine website should have search engine-optimized content that will help your website rank on the 1st page of Google search. According to statistics, 95% of the digital traffic is received by the websites that are listed on the first page.

6 things that you must optimize while working on SEO:

• Mobile responsiveness
• Quick load time
• Secure HTTPS website
• Using long tail keywords
• Enough calls to action on the website
• Matching the content & context

3. Use Social Media to showcase your telemedicine achievements, awards & client feedback

Being a healthcare brand, it is essential that you convey your proof of previous work and your credibility.

On your social media platforms, you can post your patients’ testimonials or feedback about how your telemedicine treatment helped them recover, your results, etc. You can also post your certifications, pictures of the latest equipment, or what process you follow while examining the patient virtually.

Being a virtual brand, it is essential that you portray a lot of human faces on your social profiles, this will help in building trust.

4. Posting blogs about the latest telemedicine trends, news, & healthcare tips

To improve the ranking of your website, you can also post blogs related to your niche.

Blogs can provide educational content and information about your special telehealth services. It’s a great way to reach new people in your community, build brand awareness, and gain credibility–all while building relationships and staying connected with your audience.

To rank your blog higher, try creating quality blog posts addressing current trends, the latest news, or any new advancement in your telemedicine practice.

5. Strategically designing ads to get maximum conversions

Patients should be aware that you provide telemedicine services, and running ads on social media platforms is a great idea to achieve this.

The ads can be specifically designed to target a niche audience based on geographic, demographic, and behavioral interests.

Carefully designed ads, with well-researched keywords, and exact targeting can provide good quality leads, & increase conversion rates.

You can see how other telemedicine practitioners are designing their ads.
Just visit FB Ad Library, set up the filter for your country/region & in the keyword section, type “Telemedicine” & click enter. Now you have access to all the running ads similar to your practice.

6. Keeping your Google My Business profile updated

Always keep your local listing updated!

Local search will allow patients to find your telemedicine service when they are searching for telemedicine options available in the area.

If you haven’t already, claim your listing using Google My Business. Be sure to update your Google listing with as much information as possible, including the services you offer, your business address, phone number, website, hours of operation, etc.

There’s also an option available to add a call to action button directly on your Google listing that people can click to book a virtual appointment without even having to leave the search results page.

7. Always ask for reviews from your patients

Always ask your patients to post positive reviews!

Customer reviews are very important to prospects while making decisions. And yours being a healthcare brand, reviews have a deep impact on building trust.

According to a survey, 84% of people say that they treat reviews as personal recommendations & 74% of people say that reviews make them trust a local brand more.

It is clear that most people choose reviews to form their opinion about any business, and 91% of patients tend to choose a healthcare service that has more positive reviews.

8. Taking feedback & treating them seriously

Always take feedback from your patients & treat them seriously.

Your patients will like to know that you consider their opinions & their feedback will give you valuable insight to improve your telemedicine service.

You can create a free Google Form for receiving feedback, and attach the link on your telemedicine website.

9. Add a chatbot on the website, to engage users better

You can add a chatbot on the telemedicine website to address patients’ frequently asked questions quickly. These chats can also lead to gaining the patient’s contact information, so you’ll generate more leads too!

Websites like Collect Chat can help you create a chatbot easily which you can then embed on your website.

10. Set up a system for automated responses

It is critical to keep your patients informed at all times. Sending an automatic confirmation text or email gives your patients peace of mind that their appointment request was not overlooked.

Automated appointment reminders are expected to reduce no-shows and late cancellations. In fact, 60% of patients claimed they are less likely to skip an appointment if they receive a text message reminder.

Automated notifications improve user experience while freeing up time for your employees to focus on other vital activities. Feel free to use schedulers like Calendly to make this easier for you.

 

It is clear that telemedicine’s influence is going to increase in 2023 and beyond. And good marketing will decide how well you will retain your old patients & attract new ones!

Please let me know about your thoughts, comments, and suggestions in the comments section below!

This blog is written by Pranit Kamble from the Socinova Team. Images have copyrights of the respective owners.