9 Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Telehealth Practice

Over the last two decades, telemedicine has become increasingly more popular in the healthcare market. Specifically, in the last month, the adoption of telemedicine has shifted into hyper-drive, primarily due to COVID-19 and the importance of providing healthcare while limiting exposure to the virus. As telemedicine continues to rise, with no signs of slowing down, the need to inform people of your virtual services while competing against other telehealth companies is crucial. 

Whether you’re looking to develop a new telemedicine brand or want to increase adoption and awareness of your current telemedicine practice, having a strong digital presence is necessary to retain current patients and obtain new patients. 

Here are 9 marketing techniques to help grow your telemedicine practice:

1. Website: Create a great user experience

Design:
When it comes to your website, first impressions are everything. Your website should showcase your services and give your current and future patients a quick idea of who you are as a healthcare practice. Patients can tell a lot about your business by the imagery, tone, and colors used in your website design.

Messaging:
Improve your messaging by letting people know you’re adapting to the new normal and providing virtual doctor visits. Make it easy for people to know about the telehealth services you offer and how they can access this service. Provide a button that says “Offering Telemedicine Now” that links to a page with more information or “Schedule a Virtual Appointment” that links directly to scheduling software.

Mobile-responsive:
People are spending more of their time online, with a 70% increase in mobile usage world-wide since the coronavirus outbreak. Be sure to provide a good experience by making sure your website is mobile-responsive.

Fast load time:
The ideal website load time is under 3 seconds. Slow websites frustrate users and lead to abandonment. This means if your website takes too long to load then your viewers will leave your website before they even see how great your medical practice is.

2. SEO: Increase your reach

Your business should strive to rank as high as possible in Google, as search results listed on page 1 get 95% of all digital traffic. If you’re not utilizing Google’s SEO tactics to improve your online presence then you could be missing out on a huge portion of potential patients.

SEO includes, but does not limit:
1. Mobile-responsive website
2. High-speed load time
3. Secure, HTTPS website
4. Using more precise keywords
5. Creating quality content

3. Social media, blogs, and emails: Stay connected and build telemedicine credibility

Because of COVID-19, telemedicine is on the rise, and so is internet usage. This means more people are searching for information about the kind of telehealth services you offer. Give them what they want by becoming “thought leaders” in the industry.

Use social media, blogs and emails to 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.

4. Advertising: Target the right demographic

Businesses need to deliver their message where the consumer is, and today that’s online. The cost of Pay Per Clicks has dropped over 50% since the onset of COVID-19. Take advantage of lower costs and start using paid advertising to target the right audience and get the word out about your telemedicine options.

5. Google My Business: Update your local listing

Local search allows someone to look for a service or good within a contained geographical area. Think of the number of healthcare practices offering telemedicine in your community. It’s imperative that when someone searches for “Telemedicine in Nashville,” for example, your local health practice shows up first on Google’s search result page. 

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 to add a call to action button directly on your Google listing so people can click to book a virtual appointment without even having to leave the search results page.

6. Reviews: Ask patients to write a positive review

Customer reviews, especially in the healthcare industry, are very important when making a decision. Sixty-percent of consumers says that negative reviews make them not want to use a business and 84% of people say they trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Positive or negative, the majority of consumers use online reviews to form an opinion about a business. When choosing between two providers, 91% of patients are likely to select the one with better reviews.

Here’s more information on how online reviews can boost your reputation and how to ask your patients to write you a review.

7. Patient satisfaction surveys: Gain insight into how you’re doing

Get valuable feedback by sending patient satisfaction surveys. People like to know their opinions are being taken into consideration, and you’ll receive insight into how you can improve your telemedicine services. It’s a win-win!

Here are a few tools to help craft your patient surveys:
1. Getfeedback
2. SurveyMonkey
3. Google Forms

8. Automated appointment alerts: Improve communication with your patients

Automated confirmations:
It’s important to keep your patients up to date at all times. Sending an automated confirmation text or email provides peace of mind to your patients knowing their appointment request wasn’t missed.

Automated Reminders:
Automated appointment reminders are likely to reduce late cancellations or no-shows. In fact, 60% of patients said they are less likely to miss an appointment if they received an appointment reminder via text message.

Automated alerts provide a good user experience for your users and free up more time for your staff to focus on other important tasks.

9. Digitize interactions: Offer 24/7 support

Online Scheduling:
With around 58% of healthcare providers relying on online scheduling, patients get frustrated with inconvenient office hours and waiting on hold to book an appointment. Get more clients and provide a better user experience by offering 24/7 online scheduling.

Chatbots:
COVID changed the way we use the internet; we expect everything to be handled online. Chatbots allow you to answer questions and schedule virtual appointments when the user is active on your site, not just during business hours.

Enhance Your Digital Marketing Experiences

Needless to say, Telemedicine is paving the way for a new world of healthcare, and marketing your services can only enhance how you interact with current patients and acquire new ones. If you feel your telehealth marketing isn’t reaching its full potential or need help creating a marketing strategy for your new telemedicine business, we can help. At Pyxl, we create engaging digital experiences for companies across the healthcare industry. Let us help you capture your audience while maintaining compliance with a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

Updated: Jul 18, 2024