Preparing for the Next Normal: Marketing Your Practice in the Post-COVID Era.
By Michael Slusarz
You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. If there is one main takeaway from 2020 for marketers – it’s that.
The pandemic has upended our lives and dramatically altered how patients access medical care. As a result, marketers of large or small medical practices must rethink their business strategies, messaging, and targeting tactics when trying to reach patients in need of immediate or preventive care in 2021.
Patients have become more digital savvy in the medical space this year and it is apparent that they expect practices to continue to deliver virtual options for certain services they once only would have sought in person. Also, the pandemic has changed how patients feel about maintaining their usual preventive care routines and practices. Even with the vaccine practices will still be faced with the challenge of marketing to those patients so that they feel it is safe to re-establish those clinical visits.
So, now is the time for medical practices to radically rethink their marketing strategies for 2021.
Here are four ideas that medical practices need to consider as they navigate the next new normal and prepare for the economy to re-open in 2021.
Define your primary objectives
This may seem obvious; however, it is necessary to look at the current state of your practice and define your goals for 2021 to either maintain or (more likely) reestablish your brand position. The world around us has changed, and your brand will need to change with it.
Think about what you need to do to best position your practice for success. Do you need to recapture lost patients, expand demand, enhance your brand image, improve your digital search position, or measure the patient experience? More than ever, your goals will serve as the foundation for your marketing plan in this upcoming year – make sure they truly reflect your business needs and the realities of a post-COVID world.
Create a Digital Welcome Mat
A well-structured digital marketing and virtual patient experience platform will serve as one of the main keys to success in 2021. Think of it as the virtual front door to your practice—so welcome your patients in with the solutions they want and need with a patient-centric, digitally enabled and fully integrated virtual healthcare ecosystem. While digital advertising will play a role in targeting patients, medical practices need to leverage their legacy software and electronic health record solutions to expand the virtual patient care experience including:
Telemedicine care
Remote online appointment scheduling, check-in process and pre-appointment form submissions
Robust patient portals
Targeted organic digital communications to encourage current patients to schedule their necessary appointments and return to your practice
Paid search and display digital advertising for new patients is a necessary tactic as well to capture new patients in order to offset the business you may have lost and to stay ahead of your less savvy competitors
Enhance Brand Activation and Effective Messaging
Delivering the right message to your patients through the right channels remains best practice to build brand equity and grow revenue. Focus your messaging on what your patients need to hear in the here and now to give them the confidence they need to take charge of their health and feel safe coming back into the office. Highlight safety protocols, including social distancing, PPE usage and online engagement solutions to deliver the highest level of patient care. Your messaging platform needs to:
Reassuring your patients that it’s safe to come back
Reminding them how important preventive care is in this next normal
Include a digital ecosystem to use all channels of communication and be ready to pivot your strategies accordingly
Focus on the patient experience
Word-of-mouth recommendations remain the best way to capture new patients. Our digital ecosystem has provided current, as well as prospective patients with the ability to see how your practice is rated and what people are saying.
If you don’t have a formal reputation management program in place, now is the time to implement one. Reputation management programs provide real-time feedback, service recovery options and enhance SEO strategies. The return on investment in a reputation management is immediate and strong.
As we head into the new year and the next new normal, keep in mind that while patient expectations may have changed, your connection to them and to your share of the market has not. Through goal setting, expanding your digital footprint, enhancing brand activation and messaging while focusing on the patient experience, you can rethink your marketing strategy to set your practice up for great success.