Geo-Targeting Your Future Patients

The healthcare business is increasingly competitive. Patients do not want to spend hours waiting to be served or travel for miles to access a care facility. If they can drive for less than 30 minutes and get excellent service within an hour, most patients will be happy to visit you again.

How do you get them to visit your clinic instead of other clinics in the area? The answer is geo-targeting.

What is geo-targeting?

Geo-targeting is an online healthcare marketing technique that involves the delivery of informational content and advertisements to your target market based on their geographic location. It is especially important if you want to target patients near your clinic, and let them know what services you offer.

How it works

Computers and smartphones have IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses that indicate the location of the device. When the location tracking settings are on, a marketer can use the location data to access patients who are near your facility. The beauty of geo-targeting is that you can even customize your advertisements to patients waiting at a nearby clinic.

Geo-targeting is a paid search campaign that allows you to use your marketing budget effectively. While setting up the campaign, you have the option to refine your target market by including only specific locations near your clinic.

Remember that this is a pay-per-click campaign and can get expensive if you set it up incorrectly. By refining the target locations, the ads will only show up for potential clients within your target location, and this increases the probability of converting them into your patients and growing your returns.

Paid social advertising in healthcare marketing

Running a successful clinic goes beyond offering pristine services with minimal waiting times. You need to have a continuous stream of patients, and this is where advertising can help you. The catch is that advertising can be quite expensive, and you need to do it right to get reasonable returns on investment. You need to put information out there, and you need to get potential clients to see it. In digital marketing, this is called lead generation.

Leads are potential clients, and for a healthcare provider, they are your future patients. Lead generation is, therefore, the process of initiating contact with prospects and converting them into leads.

How to do it

Assuming you already have a Facebook page where you continually post informational content, you can go one step ahead and include Facebook ads. Organic posts are great, but they are only accessible to your followers, who are also probably employees and former patients.

If you want to optimize Facebook for generating leads, you need to invest in well-crafted Facebook ads, which can reach a broader target market instead of just your followers.

Facebook location targeting

Remember that you want to reach clients who are within a few miles radius from your clinic. Since this is a paid campaign, you want every dollar to count. You can blend Facebook ads with location targeting by using the location targeting option for your ad. Choose locations close to your clinic, and your ad will be restricted to people who are within that area.

If your followers and target clients are interested in something you have to offer, they can fill in their contact information on an instant form without leaving your Facebook page, and that is how you convert followers into leads. Of course, your ad should be appealing and not just generic content. It should also include a call to action, encouraging viewers to fill out the lead form. Your conversion efforts will then determine if you can convert these leads to future patients at your clinic.

You can also create a more customized campaign by taking advantage of geo-demographic data to learn more about your audience. There are companies that provide analyzed data based on culture, demographics, and lifestyle. This information helps you craft ads that resonate to specific locations, and your target audience is likely to relate to whatever content is included in the ad.

Creating an effective geo-targeting campaign

Consider this five-step process to help operate a successful campaign.

First, you break up your campaign by location to keep costs down and reach relevant clients. Second, use a one keyword approach to increase relevance and quality score. Third, remember that city-related keywords have higher conversion rates. Fourth, know that your ad should not only be driven by location, but it should also include offers, benefits, and a call to action. Lastly, always be ready to adjust if one strategy no longer works for you.

For more information

Digital marketing is changing the face of advertising, and Geo-targeting is one of the most successful healthcare marketing technologies. With the right approach, you can be on the path towards increasing your future patients and getting high returns on investment.

If you would like to leverage on geo-targeting for capturing future patients, talk to the digital marketing experts at iProv. We can help set up a successful campaign to help you grow your business. Give us a call at 501-235-8194 or contact us through this form.