A Free Marketing Strategy You Can Use For Your Healthcare Business Today!

Sales and marketing are foreign concepts to many of us working in healthcare. We enter the industry with a naive view that we will begin working, and patients will come from far and wide for our fantastic service, allowing us to help anyone and everyone.

Sadly, many of us quickly learn that this is simply not the case. As it turns out, sales and marketing play a pivotal role in how many people we can help. If people aren’t coming through the door, our books remain empty and our clinical skills go unused.

As a healthcare business owner, sales and marketing become even more important. Unless you have the funds available to employ a full-service marketing agency (which are NOT cheap), chances are you need to curate and implement your marketing strategy.

Well, I have fantastic news! There is a simple solution that you can implement today that is absolutely free.

Regular Social Media Posts

Now, I know most of you would already do the obligatory Facebook or Instagram post once… perhaps twice per week. However, in a time where a great majority of the western world is using social media for 145-minutes per day, this lacklustre strategy simply will not do.

We need to be posting on 2–3 social media platforms every day. Yes, that’s right.

Every. Single. Day.

I know what you may be thinking… this seems “excessive”. But, I can assure you it is far from it. Some brands even post multiple times per day on social media. Yes, you read correctly. Multiple!

There is so much content being posted on social media, that your followers are extremely unlikely to see everything that you post. And if you’re only posting once or twice per week, some of your followers will be lucky to see anything that you post, ever.

Daily posts will ensure that you are appearing in the feeds of most of your followers at least 3–4 times per week. Allowing you to stay fresh in their minds.

Sure, there may be some that see your posts every day. However, these people are most likely to be your most engaged users who actually want to see your content and are probably thrilled that you are posting content so often!

Regular posting has two major benefits.

The first is that it allows you to stay fresh in the minds of your past, present and prospective patients. If you aren’t, I assure you, somebody else will be.

I’m sure you follow a cafe, clothing brand or any other business on social media that appears in your feed every other day. I suspect that you feel drawn to these businesses due to the regular engagement you have with them. Should you ever be in the market for their product or service, I would bet my bottom dollar that you would think of them first and they would be the brand you would end up doing business with.

The second benefit of regularly posting on social media is that it allows you to create stronger connections with your followers.

With so many healthcare providers out there, patients need to be shown why they should choose you over Fred’s Physiotherapy down the road. What makes you different?

Well, it’s you. Your patients want to know the person (or people) behind the business.

You don’t need to post every minor detail about yourself or your team. You just need to show your patients and prospects that you are human, and make them feel as though they know, like and trust you and can trust the service you provide.

Connecting with customers is extremely important to all businesses, especially healthcare. Our patients are entrusting us with one of their most sacred possessions, their health. If your patients feel as though they know, like and trust you before ever even setting foot in your door, it makes your job of retaining them within your care a whole lot easier.

There is a common objection I have heard many times before:

“I can’t make that many pieces of social media content…I don’t even know how to use photoshop”

Here’s the inside tip… It doesn’t matter! Social media content can be any number of things.

It could be a short Instagram video of you discussing a common condition you see in your clinic and some strategies patients can implement to help them prevent it.

Perhaps you’re camera shy? Well, you could always write a blog-style post and upload it to Facebook with a graphic you made on Canva.

Something is better than nothing, but a mix is always best.

If you’re camera-shy, you do not have to post photos and videos of yourself. But, it may be helpful to know that most people don’t actually care about how you look or sound, especially when you’re posting content that helps them overcome an injury or illness.

So, take a deep breath, whip out your phone and get posting!

As for which platforms, I recommend starting with the ones you use most often. That way you can be sure what you post is native to the platform. This will ensure users are more likely to engage with it.

In the coming weeks, I will discuss which social media platforms I believe to be most useful to healthcare businesses. So, be sure to follow me on LinkedIn to stay up to date!