When you work with a great team of medical providers in a competitive marketplace, you want to make sure that those providers get to care for as many patients as possible. Getting members of your community to book appointments is one of the most important parts of any healthcare marketing strategy.
After all, if people aren’t making appointments, your team can’t do its work to help them get better, recover, and become healthier.
Here’s a common problem: many clinics are responsible for their own marketing, and they end up using a strategy that just doesn’t work. Essentially, they use their contacts list and send out emails that encourage people to make an appointment today.
You have probably seen these emails yourself, or perhaps you have even sent some of them. They have subject lines like this:
- Book your first appointment today!
- Call us now for your lipo consultation!
- Don’t wait; contact us today to learn how you can live life pain-free!
These aren’t bad emails to send, but they also aren’t the most effective way to market your services. Few medical procedures are “impulse buys,” and if you only market to people who are ready to make an appointment, you’re missing out on all of the potential patients who are early in the process of considering what you offer.
Plus, with HubSpot’s recent HIPAA compliance and new sensitive data tools, managing patient data responsibly while enhancing your marketing efforts has never been easier.
Table of Contents
- Sales funnels matter in healthcare marketing
- HubSpot can help you nurture and convert leads
- How HubSpot's HIPAA Compliance Enhances Your Marketing Strategy
- Are you ready to come up with great ideas for your inbound marketing campaign?
Sales funnels matter in healthcare marketing
Healthcare companies should not ignore the sales funnel.
The sales funnel — sometimes called the purchase funnel or conversion funnel — is all about nurturing leads from beginning to end. Who are your potential customers? How can you make them aware of your brand? How can you develop trust between yourself and your potential patients? What do they need to take that final step of booking an appointment and becoming a customer?
These are the questions that the sales funnel addresses! At the top of the funnel, you have every single person who might be interested in your product.
That group gets smaller with each successive step in the marketing and sales process. Some people won’t be interested in your service, so you don’t need to try to convert them. Some will never hear about your medical practice. But the ones who do hear about your practice and are interested in your services move down the funnel toward becoming customers.
This is your target audience!
Finally, at the bottom of the funnel are those who are ready to take the leap and schedule their appointment.
If you focus only on the people at the bottom of the funnel and never work to ensure that you nurture people from top to bottom, your digital marketing will have less overall success and a lower ROI.
HubSpot can help you nurture and convert leads
HubSpot is an incredibly useful tool for the healthcare industry. HubSpot is all about building relationships between customers and providers. In today’s market, a digital marketing campaign will include relationship building, lead nurturing, and excellent customer service.
HubSpot allows you to manage all the essential pieces of your healthcare marketing plan. Plus, it’s now HIPAA-compliant. HubSpot’s new HIPAA-compliant features ensure your patient data is managed securely and legally, providing peace of mind as you build relationships and nurture leads.
Plan a great content marketing strategy.
Content marketing means you don’t just promote your company; you also provide an important free service to your community. What is that service? Information.
You establish yourself as an expert in your field through blog posts, special content offers, free information, and a great healthcare website. As potential patients come to trust you as an expert on their medical conditions, they also start seeing you as the best place to go to get help for those conditions.
HubSpot is an all-in-one platform that helps you find and acquire new patients through its unique marketing tools. These tools help people find you through search engines (Search Engine Optimization, also called SEO) rather than through paid advertisements. With HubSpot’s HIPAA compliance, you can confidently create and distribute content, knowing that sensitive patient information is protected and managed according to federal regulations.
You can’t just have a haphazard content strategy. You need to be intentional in your marketing tactics! HubSpot gives you the tools you need to make this happen.
Get the metrics you need.
Keeping track of your metrics helps you measure the ROI of your marketing efforts. HubSpot provides phenomenal tracking through its reporting tools. HubSpot’s advanced reporting tools now include comprehensive audit logging and data encryption, ensuring that all your metrics are tracked in a HIPAA-compliant manner.
Whether you want to look at how much new traffic you’re generating, how many visitors are returning to your website, what the characteristics of your converted leads are, or any number of metrics, HubSpot’s customizable dashboards will help you get all the reporting you need.
Automate the process where you can.
When done well, automation improves marketing processes, saves time, and reduces the labor costs associated with running a comprehensive marketing campaign. When done poorly, automation can be confusing and take up a lot of time.
Great news: HubSpot makes automation easy and attainable. HubSpot’s automation features now come with enhanced security protocols, including field-level permissions and partitioning, making sure your automated processes are HIPAA-compliant.
HubSpot combines all of the information in your sales funnel into a complex automated system to nurture leads and drive sales.
The Workflow app helps you develop personalized emails triggered by visitor actions or characteristics.
Here’s an example! Let’s say you run a chiropractic office. You know that there are people who are going to visit your website depending on their unique needs. Maybe they have lower back pain, maybe they are pregnant or nursing, or maybe they are plagued by migraines. You don’t want to send an email to the migraine sufferer about your unique services for expectant mothers, right?
HubSpot allows you to reach out to users who have visited unique pages on your site to offer them the services they’re looking for. Following up on their website visit by sending them an email targeting their specific concerns will be far more effective than sending every visitor the same message.
How HubSpot's HIPAA Compliance Enhances Your Marketing Strategy
HubSpot’s new HIPAA-compliant features are a game-changer for healthcare marketing. With these tools, you can confidently manage patient data, ensuring it is handled securely and in compliance with federal regulations. This not only protects your practice from potential legal issues but also builds trust with your patients, knowing their sensitive information is safeguarded.
- Enhanced Data Security: HubSpot now includes field-level permissions and partitioning, which ensures that only authorized users have access to sensitive information. This minimizes the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access.
- Application Layer Encryption: Each customer has unique encryption keys, providing an additional layer of security for your data. This encryption protects patient information during storage and transfer, complying with HIPAA's stringent data protection requirements.
- Comprehensive Audit Logging: HubSpot’s audit logging features allow you to track access and modifications to sensitive data, providing a clear trail of who accessed what and when. This is crucial for maintaining compliance and quickly addressing any potential issues.
- Advanced Authentication Features: With multi-factor authentication and other advanced security measures, HubSpot ensures that only verified users can access your marketing tools and patient data.
- Proactive Security Recommendations: HubSpot provides proactive recommendations to help you maintain compliance and strengthen your data security practices. This guidance helps you stay ahead of potential security threats and continuously improve your data management processes.
By integrating these HIPAA-compliant features into your marketing strategy, HubSpot not only helps you stay compliant but also enhances your ability to nurture and convert leads effectively without compromising data security. This means you can focus on growing your practice and providing excellent care, knowing that your marketing efforts are backed by superior data protection measures.
Are you ready to come up with great ideas for your inbound marketing campaign?
We love working with medical professionals because we know that you do important work in your communities. The healthcare industry is constantly evolving, and staying ahead requires innovative marketing strategies. Whether you're looking to attract new patients, retain existing ones, or expand your services, a comprehensive and effective inbound marketing campaign is essential for continued growth.
If you've noticed a slowdown in patient visits or are facing new challenges, revitalizing your marketing efforts can help you reach and engage your target audience more effectively.
On the other hand, if you've been seeing consistent patient visits, a fresh marketing strategy can amplify your success and help you achieve the growth you've been aiming for.
Why do we recommend working with a professional marketing company?
Inbound marketing requires the effective application of complex tools, marketing theories, and strategies.
HubSpot provides you with the tools you need, so when you are ready to choose a marketing company, be sure to choose a preferred HubSpot partner. HubSpot Partners are companies with a proven track record of success and a complete array of marketing tools, apps, and programs.
When you’re ready to partner with one of Canada’s best inbound marketing agencies, get in touch with us here at ThinkFuel. We know HubSpot, and we know the industry of private medical providers.
We can’t wait to see what we can do for you.
Disclaimer: This is a friendly reminder that because we are not attorneys, we cannot offer legal advice. This information should not be interpreted as legal advice, and you should consult your own legal counsel for compliance issues related to your industry, state, and municipality. Regulations change regularly, and it is important that you maintain HIPAA compliance, as well as compliance with all relevant data privacy and data protection regulations.
