Knowing what not to do in marketing can be just as valuable as knowing what to do when creating strategies. 

This blog explores two mistakes that are commonly made when marketing in the healthcare industry and what you can do to avoid making those mistakes in the future. 

Quick breakdown…

• Incorrect keyword targeting 
• Ignoring seasonality  

1. Incorrect keyword targeting

Targeting keywords is a foundational and integral part of digital marketing. Keyword marketing is simple, but it’s important to think like a consumer or else you may end up targeting words with low search volume.

Here’s a quick review on what keyword marketing is and how it works.

Keyword marketing means that your content, website and other marketing assets are set up to respond to certain queries in search engines. For example, if you type “how to bake banana bread” into a search bar, the search engine will quickly crawl relevant content to find those keywords within the website, blog, recipe instructions or other content. 

The search engine will then serve whatever content is most optimized and suited to the query.

Keywords aren’t the only factor in getting your business to show up in search results, but they are an important one! 

For medical practices, and the healthcare industry in general, it’s common to want to target keywords for the most profitable services. However, consumers aren’t always searching for specific procedures. Most often, consumers have some kind of pain and contact their main physician or search their general symptoms to learn more.

For these reasons, it’s most strategic to focus your keywords on higher level queries like “primary care doctor near me” or “affordable dentist” or “local chiropractor.” This way, you’re filling the top of your sales funnel, creating potential to establish a long-term relationship with a new patient and, if they need a higher-cost procedure that you offer, your practice will become their number one choice. 

Thinking like a consumer as you target keywords for your practice can help you choose keywords with a high search volume and avoid putting money behind ineffective keywords.  

2. Ignoring seasonality 

Seasonality affects every industry and healthcare is no different. As you plan out your practice’s digital marketing strategies, it’s important to keep seasonal changes in mind and prepare accordingly. 

Again, thinking like a consumer when creating your marketing plans can give your practice a competitive advantage amidst competitive searches. As the seasons change and people engage in different activities, their medical needs change. Positioning your content and ads to meet those spikes in different needs is an excellent strategy for generating new business. 

Here are a few established seasonal trends for different medical practices: 

• The end of the year can be busier for well-checks due to patients taking advantage of any end-of-year benefits through their insurance 
• The beginning of the year has potential to be a busy time due to New Year’s resolutions and individuals striving to start the year off right with their health 
• Summer tends to be slower for primaries because of vacations 
• Fall and the start of school can bring in flu and stomach bug patients because of the change in season and more exposure to germs through school and extracurriculars 
• Spring and fall are typically busier for allergists as allergy symptoms begin to act up

Evergreen campaigns are always a good idea; but if you never change up your strategies to accommodate for the changing seasons, you’ll be missing out on showing up for relevant high-volume searches. 

Thinking like a consumer, and observing your own healthcare patterns, can help you effectively pivot marketing strategies to meet the changing demands brought on by the changing seasons.

Final thoughts…

Understanding what to avoid in your digital marketing strategies is just as important as knowing which strategies to invest in for your medical practice. 

Thinking like a consumer will save your practice time and budget and is an important mindset to take especially when considering which keywords will perform and the seasonality of your individual practice.  

For most medical practices, RevLocal recommends local search, review marketing and targeted ads. To learn more about our digital marketing packages, contact one of our experts today!