Should Doctors and Healthcare Providers Use Social Media Advertising?

In an age in which 79 percent of Americans have a social media profile, businesses can’t afford to ignore the power of platforms like Facebook and Instagram. That includes medical practices and healthcare providers as well. But how does a doctor utilize social networks? Maybe you’ve cautiously explored the possibility of social media ads before, or you’ve run a campaign yourself that didn’t yield the expected results. Are social media ads really the way to go?

As a digital marketing agency specializing in website conversion, we’re perfectly positioned to tell you that yes, you should be advertising your services on these valuable platforms. We’ve created a guide to social media advertising for doctors so that you can be better informed when building your social media marketing strategy. Here’s what you need to know.

Benefits of Social Media Advertising

Attract New Patients

Referrals are a crucial method of gaining new patients, but word of mouth isn’t enough to keep up in this digital age. In addition to referrals and traditional advertising methods, social media offers another source of leads and, ideally, new patients. Advertising on certain social platforms is particularly useful to specialized healthcare professionals seeking patients on a national level because you can cast a wide net on these social networks. With the right campaign strategy and carefully crafted ads, you may just find yourself with more leads and calls than ever before!

Target Specific Audiences

One of our medical clients planned to open a brand new facility that offered little-known services and techniques. Our challenge here was to drive traffic and potential conversions around a subject that people just weren’t searching. So how did we generate ROI around a specialty clinic when potential patients weren’t at all aware of this medical technique? By cutting straight to the actual medical condition! We chose to run an advertising campaign over Facebook that focused on a relevant type of injury that could be treated by the clinic and its new techniques—and it worked! Our overall marketing strategy brought the surgery center a high volume of quality leads and was an integral part of the successful clinic launch.

Your advertising options aren’t limited to injury type, though. The key to success here is knowing your audience—a pediatric specialist, for example, could target mothers likely to have young children. You can launch a social ad campaign built to target potential patients based on age group, symptoms, and even people who are following specific pages for foundations or organizations, making this form of advertising ideal for a variety of medical professionals seeking certain demographics.   

See Tangible Returns

When you put your valuable funds towards something—be it marketing or other business expenses—you obviously want to see a return on your investment. Social media advertising will give you exactly that, in the form of numerical results and tons of potential patient data. You can measure campaign success by looking at click-through rate, number of impressions, reach, or overall conversions, and you can also use these numbers to tweak your ads and make them perform even better moving in the future.

And on top of those numbers, you’re getting a huge amount of valuable data about the people who are clicking on your ads. With that demographic information, you can tailor your advertising campaigns even more closely to get your ads in front of the right people which will increase your ROI from social media marketing.

Increase Brand Recognition

As a doctor, you may not want to think of yourself or your practice as a “brand,” but the reality is that you do things a certain way, offering your patients your expertise and time in return for their money. They likely chose you for your unique value proposition (UVP), or the thing that sets you apart from your competitors. That’s essentially a brand! And one of the keys to creating loyal return customers is to increase your brand recognition wherever possible.

In addition to those tangible returns we discussed, social media advertising can benefit your practice even when viewers don’t click on an ad. Each time a person scrolls past your business, he or she becomes a little more familiar with your brand. Maybe the social media user doesn’t need a healthcare provider at this point in time, but that top-of-mind awareness can lead to a conversion and a new patient down the road!

How Much Does Social Media Marketing Cost?

Given the variety of social platforms and pricing options out there, it’s impossible to put a single number on social media advertising. Each social platform charges differently and offers a variety of pricing options, so you’ll need to determine which platform will work best for your target audience and for your budget. A number of social media networks use cost-per-click to bill for ads, which means that you will pay for your ad any time a viewer actually clicks on it. Others charge based on how many people see it (CPM). Ultimately, a digital marketing agency can work with you to create a social media marketing campaign that will make the most of that coveted social media audience and of your marketing budget.

Tap into Your Target Audience with Ten Golden Rules

If you’re having a hard time navigating the world of social media for doctors, you’re not alone. The advertising world is constantly changing, and that change is only speeding up as technology advances and new social platforms emerge. At Ten Golden Rules, it’s our job to know what’s going on and figure out how to get your ads seen. Reach out today to learn more about how we can get your social media marketing strategy up to speed.