Similar, But Different
The big difference between a traditional advertisement for, say, a small business or department store, and marketing for a medical institution, is the position of the medical institution in society.
Even smaller healthcare clinics can make notable breakthroughs that ultimately end up getting national attention. This is rare, but it’s more likely than something similar happening at a shoe store.
So when it comes to marketing for such institutions, it becomes important to utilize the best practices known in other businesses; but it’s equally considerable that you have a news cycle angle to lean into as well. On the one hand, you want to use techniques like SEO, and on the other, you want to court PR opportunities as they develop.
Especially if your field of medicine concerns something where breakthroughs are waiting, there’s a lot of opportunities here. With that in mind, we’re going to briefly go over tactics in SEO and PR outreach which serve to increase the visibility of your healthcare facility in the community it serves.
The SEO Angle
When you’re running a healthcare clinic, even a larger hospital, that doesn’t mean you’re operating without any competitors. There could well be other options locally, and if you don’t market at least a little bit, they’re going to steal your market share.
Today, with things like lockdowns and new safety guidelines, people are on mobile internet devices more than ever. For one thing, marketing outreach needs to be calibrated such that mobile devices can interact with the materials you produce. For another, you’ve got to use things like keywords in proper proportion for the sake of visibility.
A great idea might be to consult these medical SEO experts. Something else you might want to consider as regards SEO is specifying the sort of outreach you pursue such that it matches your specific medical niche in the local community. For example, there’s nothing wrong with specifically seeking plastic surgeon SEO marketing.
What works in this regard will be different than what you’d do for, say, a dental clinic. If you don’t have the resources to outsource, or this is something you can’t do for other reasons, you’ll want to adopt best practices in SEO. These include the aforementioned keywords, paragraph size, sentence length, imagery, videos, HTML tags, meta-tags, back-linking, and other key aspects of the trade. Consultation helps you find your best options.
The PR Angle
When it comes to Public Relations, there’s a lot of opportunity for free publicity among medical businesses. For example, you could conduct a health fair. You could provide free medical solutions for underprivileged children in regions of town where good medical options aren’t routinely available. Similar things could be done for prisons.
The key is, whatever you do that is of a charitable nature, you need to have the media there to cover you. You need to issue press releases, and it’s good if you can get a local reporter out to your clinic. Sometimes you’ll be dealing with non-local reporters as well, owing to the internet age we’re in now.
So what you want to do is determine where there are legitimate opportunities to court solid PR, and then make investments either directly or indirectly in that direction. Be sure you name such events in ways that include keywords conducive to SEO visibility.
Designing Effective SEO For Your Medical Institution
When you court PR with local media institutions through medical provisions that incorporate SEO, you’re going to get free publicity that positions you at the top of results in varying search engines. When you properly structure content, incorporating links, imagery, and other SEO best practices, this additionally facilitates visibility. Consultation for balance here is wise.
