Q&A: Approaches to Practice Marketing with CareCloud Content Marketing Expert, Shawn McKee

Medical practices aren’t always looked to as beacons of marketing innovation – there’s often no time for promo because patients must always come first.

Furthermore, the stigma around marketing suggests it’s too time-consuming and costly. But that’s not always true, however.

As part of its Patient Engagement webinar series, CareCloud is offering doctors and office managers a webinar on the subject of web-based practice marketing, featuring tips and tricks to creating a cost-effective strategy.

The live webinar will take place on Thursday, August 8th at 1:00 PM ET, and will feature the CareCloud duo of Shawn McKee, Senior Manager of Content Marketing, and John-Michael Del Valle, Search Marketing Specialist.

In anticipation of the event, we speak with McKee about marketing techniques for bootstrapped practices, content marketing tips and email newsletter pros and cons.

How can strapped-for-cash practices employ a bit of marketing savvy to compete against more profitable offices with advertising budgets?

There are several low-cost, relatively easy things you can do to raise awareness for your practice and get more patients in the door. The first place I would start is with your current patients. Hopefully, you are collecting and compiling the email addresses of your current patients.

Sending updates on practice happenings, reactions to news headlines and timely reminders for things like flu shots can be a great way to get patients more engaged and serve as the reminder they need to schedule that appointment. You can use a low-cost (or even free) email service provider like Mailchimp for delivery.

As for new patients, I recommend signing up for all the free listing sites offered online, like Healthgrades. These types of sites will help future patients find you in local searches for doctors, and they boost your overall search ranking. Getting found on the Internet is becoming increasingly competitive, but you can learn more tactics on how to do it during our Practice Marketing Webinar.

Content marketing is often time-consuming, but there’s a ton of value in it. How can physicians use content to attract new patients and perhaps leverage old patients as practice ambassadors?

Content marketing is really about building relationships. The goal is to become a trusted resource to your audience so they think of you when they need your product or service.

Some of the best ways physicians can do this is through sharing expert content. Guest blogging on other sites, starting your own blog or serving as an expert source in someone else’s article are all great examples. You can find any number of health or industry-related sites (like Power Your Practice!) and it’s easy to pitch an idea for a story — content people love contributor content.

This will also help you get links back to your site to drive traffic and boost rankings. Starting your own blog may sound like a massive project, but open-source platforms like WordPress make it easy for anyone to start a blog, and you don’t have to have long, elaborate posts.

Just do it consistently. You can make yourself a resource for reporters and get the free publicity — and links in some cases — that come with it by signing up for services like Help a Reporter Out (HARO).

Email newsletter for practices – yay or nay?

Staying in touch with your patients through reminders, new services and practice happenings is a great way to keep them engaged. That’s why I can’t stress enough the importance of collecting and compiling patient emails. When the next food-borne illness causes panic in the media, you can share the truth on risk factors and symptoms in your newsletter to manage the hysteria.

In a world where anyone can post anything they want on the web, email is a great way to help ensure your patients are getting the best possible information available. You can also allow potential patients to sign up for your newsletter and build a two-way relationship, so when they need a specialist or switch insurance plans and need a new primary care physician, they feel like they already know you.

Keeping your patients engaged and informed, as well as positioning yourself as a resource for potential patients, is an easy way to keep patients flowing through your front door.

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