8 Key Healthcare Marketing Strategies for Sustainable Growth

Healthcare providers will always be preoccupied, first and foremost, with patient care. However, in an ever-more-competitive market for health-related services, providers must also prioritize attracting patients. These days, that means mastering online marketing strategies designed to expand a practice’s presence and engage potential patients.

Today’s blog covers essential strategies for effective healthcare marketing in Los Angeles. We’ll also discuss general approaches, specific methods, and technical strategies that can all work together to make your practice appealing to patients. 

Strategy 1: Patient-Centric Approach

The first step for healthcare marketing in Los Angeles is to embrace a patient-centric approach. This means gaining a solid understanding of what your ideal patients need. The following are some useful tips for how to accomplish this and adopt a patient-centric marketing strategy:

• Invite Testimonials: Set up your practice’s website to invite reviews and testimonials. This will help you gain insight into patient preferences.
• Engage on Social Media: Interact with past and prospective patients on social media. Ask directly what a patient might need or what they might have preferred to see from your practice.
• Use a Patient Portal: Invite patients to communicate with you and your team of healthcare professionals in a private space.

Through these strategies and efforts, you can ensure that patient needs and preferences are at the center of the healthcare marketing approach you develop.

Strategy 2: Utilizing Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is a strategy by which you can use a website, social media, and search engines to expand your reach to potential patients. When exploring healthcare marketing in Los Angeles, you may be looking to engage an audience that is primarily local. The best way to do so, however, will still be through digital means.

To properly utilize digital marketing for healthcare in Los Angeles, you will need to conduct best practices in the following categories:

• SEO: This is the practice of ensuring that your healthcare content is relevant to prospective patients using search engines. The more relevant and authoritative your platform, the higher it will place in search engine results.
• Email Marketing: This is the practice of using email to engage with an existing digital audience. It can be used to retain patients, uphold your practice’s reputation, and ensure that you are continuing to prioritize patient needs.
• Social Media Marketing: This is the practice of using social media platforms to expand the reach of your healthcare practice as well as engage with new prospective patients.

Together, these efforts comprise a thoughtful and effective digital marketing approach. 

Strategy 3: Content Marketing

Alongside your specific digital marketing efforts, it’s also important to understand the significance of content marketing strategies. Creating informative and engaging content accomplishes three main goals. First, it serves web visitors (and potential patients) with pertinent and useful information. Second, it establishes your practice as an authoritative voice that can be trusted and shared. Third, it appeals to search engines that prioritize relevance and authority.

The following are some tips for creating relevant healthcare content:

• Remember to consider patient needs.
• Employ research-based keywords relating to common patient searches and ensure they are tied to your own practice.
• Answer common questions.
• Explain key details about your practice and services.

Also, bear in mind that your goal is to create content for a local audience as well. If you are conducting healthcare marketing in Los Angeles, your keywords and outreach can and should be tailored to your patient pool in the LA area.

Strategy 4: Online Reputation Management

There is no doubt that healthcare marketing in Los Angeles is competitive. There are a lot of providers vying for attention from the same general pool of patients.

For this reason, online reputation management is also a crucial strategy to consider. When you are competing against other providers offering similar services, it’s important that you maintain a positive and welcoming presence for your practice. A patient choosing between two practices offering similar practices is likely to go with the one that has the better reputation.

The first strategy you should use to generate a positive online reputation is to invite reviews and testimonials from satisfied patients. This demonstrates transparency and is particularly powerful when receiving positive comments. You can also incentivize patients to leave reviews by offering small perks or future discounts.

The second strategy should prioritize handling negative reviews. The best approach is to directly respond to them. Be understanding, express concern, and make it clear that poor service will not be tolerated or repeated.

Strategy 5: Data-Driven Decision Making

Another crucial strategy for healthcare marketing in Los Angeles is to employ data. Broadly speaking, data related to digital marketing efforts provides a window into what is working and what isn’t. It can, in turn, inform strategic adjustments to optimize your marketing strategies.

The approach to data-driven decision-making will vary depending on the marketing effort at hand and the platform in use. There are data analytics tools available, however, that will help you gain insights into factors such as the following:

• Keyword effectiveness
• Content effectiveness
• Sources of traffic and engagement
• Conversion rates via specific approaches

With these insights, you can optimize your digital healthcare marketing in Los Angeles to attract local patients based on proven methods.

Strategy 6: Community Outreach Programs

Healthcare marketing in Los Angeles should also involve more direct engagement with the local community. While digital marketing can help you target prospective patients in the local area, it is not as personal or interactive as tangible, on-the-ground efforts. Engaging in a direct, interactive manner through community outreach will also help to improve the overall reach, presence, and reputation of your practice.

The following are some examples of successful community outreach initiatives:

• Local Events: Even if most of your Los Angeles healthcare marketing efforts take place in the digital realm, holding a local event can be beneficial. It allows for you to develop relationships one-on-one with the local community and usually results in rapport-building and trust. This leads to word-of-mouth and directly grows your practice.
• Online Webinars: Online webinars can invite the local community to learn more about your practice or matters of healthcare in general.
• Influencer Engagement: Partnering with local influencers is a great way to improve engagement. Communities view local influencers as trusted authorities, which in turn can make those influencers valuable ambassadors for your practice.

Strategy 7: Telemedicine and Digital Health Services

Depending on your practice, you may also want to consider telemedicine for healthcare marketing in Los Angeles. Though data varies across different medical specialties, it’s generally true that telemedicine has grown tremendously over the course of the last decade. It provides patients with a convenient way to access healthcare providers from home when they are unable or unwilling to meet in person.

Making sure that your practice includes telemedicine appointments can thus expose you to entirely new audiences of prospective patients. Your practice will benefit if your digital marketing strategies can be inclusive of those patients who may be seeking this form of care.

The following strategies will help you reach potential remote patients for telehealth services:

• Update content to include telehealth discussions.
• Adjust keywords to attract telemedicine-related searches.
• Discuss telemedicine in email marketing content.
• Discuss telemedicine on your social channels. 

Strategy 8: Strategic Partnerships and Collaborations

Another helpful strategy is to establish partnerships and collaborations relevant to your healthcare practice. When conducting healthcare marketing in Los Angeles, you can seek out other practices, businesses, or even individuals in the area who may be engaging with similar patient pools.

To identify potential collaborations, consider the following:

• Patient Needs: You may be able to establish collaborations based on other services or products your patients need.
• Natural Crossover: There may be other healthcare providers offering services you do not but who are servicing the same patients. In this case, collaboration can be mutually beneficial, helping patients find and utilize both practices to address various needs.
• Patient-Related Entities: If a portion of your patients come from a particular profession, background, or demographic, you can look for a related business to partner with. For example, if your practice commonly addresses plastic surgery, collaborating with a local dermatology office may be an option.

Specifics vary tremendously where these collaborations are concerned. Nevertheless, a thorough approach to healthcare marketing in Los Angeles will involve consideration of where local partnerships might be established.

Conclusion

Through the eight key strategies discussed above, you can leverage Los Angeles healthcare marketing efforts to bring about patient acquisition, more control over your reputation, and sustainable growth. These strategies require time and effort, but they are effective when approached correctly. 

If you represent a practice interested in launching a Los Angeles healthcare marketing campaign, contact Digital Standout today to learn how we can help you leverage these strategies effectively for reliable and consistent growth.