Telemedicine is a quickly growing industry, with more and more patients having household access to the technology and internet service to properly receive virtual care from trusted healthcare professionals. Promoting your telemedicine program to an increasingly interested audience can be easy; that is, if you take some pointers from the most successful telemedicine businesses around.
Although the telehealth technology has only caught up in recent years, telemedicine businesses have been active with virtual care and video visits since the earliest years of the internet. To help understand the best ways to convert visitors into patients and get new virtual appointments rolling in, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most important lessons we can learn from top telemedicine businesses today, and how they market, design, and promote their health systems.
Clear and Concise Services
As increasingly popular as telemedicine services may be, there are still many people who don’t really get what it’s all about. The traditional doctor’s visit is embedded into many of our minds as a necessity. How can a doctor administer primary care and patient care properly through video visits? What does a virtual care appointment really entitle you to? What kind of telemedicine services can a doctor help with?
That’s why one of the most important things you need to do is explain your best practices and health services, clearly and concisely. Put it front and center on your website – the simple answers to the first questions any curious visitor might ask. They need to understand immediately what a virtual care services might look like, what you might be able to treat, and if this can really replace the traditional doctor’s appointment.
Check out this example from Doctor on Demand that explains the telemedicine benefit:
Right on the homepage, there is a clear picture of what a virtual care appointment looks like. They show the video call between a doctor and his patient, available on both a smart phone and a tablet. This comes with the header – “Rethinking the way you receive care”, showing patients that care can come in more ways than one.
On the next panel, we see an explanation on the types of care that patients can expect: urgent care, behavioral health, preventive health, and chronic care, with individual pages for each type of virtual care service with their unique telemedicine benefit.
To make it even simpler, Virtuwell shows their services in a “How We Can Help” section, with a list of common problems from coughs and allergies to skins and rashes to kid’s health and more. All of this is important to show patients that their general primary care need from a doctor can be satisfied by a virtual doctor’s telehealth services.
Trust-Building Assets
After making your visitors understand what virtual care is all about, it’s time to start building trust. Curious visitors have to trust that they can get the same quality of care from a virtual doctor through a video conference call as they would get in an in-person doctor’s visit.
Your website needs to preemptively understand their most general worries, and those worries need to be answered before they can ask the questions. When done successfully, there is no greater way to build trust.
Check out this example from Virtuwell, with a panel that reads: “Real people: Always a human connection.” They understand that some patients may be worrying that they won’t get true human, trusted advice or counsel during a virtual appointment, so they address that head-on. Every single treatment is custom-made by a real, human healthcare professional who has taken the time and energy to understand your specific case.
At CareClix, they also understand the importance of associating their brand with trusted household names that potential patients are already familiar with. By showcasing a section on their customers – including the likes of MetLife, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers Health, and more – they show patients that this is a place you can trust for high-quality, top-of-the-line healthcare, even if it’s “just” virtual.
Finally, Doctor on Demand leads their homepage with a header describing 24/7 care. Not only does this mean patients can have an experience on par with what they would expect from a local doctor, but it also means they can have an experience even greater than that, with 24/7 care that wouldn’t be possibly at any local clinic. This makes virtual care more than just a supplement to in-person care, but in some cases a way to surpass in-person care.
Patient Education
Patient education is an important part of any successful healthcare-related website, particularly when it comes to telemedicine. It is crucial that you have the knowledge base and patient resources available for access right away, allowing potential patients to read up and understand any lingering telemedicine program concerns they may have.
In these examples from iCliniq, we see a section devoted to questions and answers from curious patients and their partnered healthcare professionals. This is a great way to build trust by showing real questions asked by real people, and doctors on the team ready to answer them right away.
At CareClix, they have decided to take a proactive approach against the COVID-19 situation by developing an entire page and learning section to their crisis response. Their crisis response page is a thorough assessment of the COVID-19 situation with examples and strategies on what to do, and how the average person can best protect themselves from any dangers.
At MeMD, they also set up an information campaign around COVID-19, with extra trust-building by referencing the CDC and their recommendation of telehealth. With 24/7 service, they assure their patients that they can help identify and talk about COVID-19 at any time of the day.
You may ask, “Why should I write content that they can already find elsewhere?” While it may be true that most information has already been written, it’s important to remember that by simply having your own educational material, you increase the authority of your own website several times over. Showing existing and future patients that you have your own set of health system information materials puts your telehealth program in a much better light.
Review Highlight
Highlighting your top reviews is always a great way to sell your business to potential patients, and the top telehealth program providers know this well. Remember: many of your possible patients are still mostly unfamiliar with telemedicine health system and what this entails. Having an overwhelmingly positive review section highlighted on your website can do wonders for making your visitors trust you.
In this review page by Virtuwell, we see not only the high average rating of their telehealth services, but also the high number of reviews they’ve accumulated. Showcasing not only their average reviews but also the low number of overall negative reviews does wonders toward building trust.
Active and Informative Social Media
Finally, you can never go wrong with social media. Social media is the day-to-day of your telehealth program health system, showing curious visitors that your business is active and alive.
With MeMD, we see an active online presence where they share their latest activity. In this case, MeMD shares a video clip of their Chief Medical Officer appearing on the news, establishing their authority as a telemedicine expert.
https://web.facebook.com/MeMD/
CareClix also has a strong social media presence, with their team regularly sharing quick, easy, and helpful images that interested patients can like and share. It’s all about simplifying your message and distributing it in a way that will make people want to share it on their own platforms.
https://www.instagram.com/careclix/
And of course, YouTube. For telemedicine businesses that want to take that extra production step, utilizing YouTube and creating your own video content is a great way to become a lead authority in your industry. Doctor On Demand creates and publishes their own videos with titles that would resonate with their target audience like, “Can you take care of your kids if you have the flu?”
Sum It Up: Valuable Learning Points
Whether your practice is a full-on telemedicine service or simply a health clinic with telemedicine options, there are valuable learning points you can take away from these veterans in the telemedicine industry. Here’s what we can distill from them, and what your website and online presence needs to accomplish to succeed with your patients:
- Trust is Essential: Trust-building assets are the most important elements on your website, particularly when it comes to telemedicine. Telemedicine is a new experience and health system to most patients seeking it out, and your visitors need to know that yours is a clinic that they can trust to provide proper telemedicine care.
- Stay Active: Being active is what separates the big players in telemedicine from the smaller clinics that don’t get much attention. An active online presence resonates with visitors because it makes them feel that your clinic is responsive and cares about the messages and feedback they receive. With an active stream of posts and content, you stay relevant over time.
- Simple Education: Patients want to know more than ever before, and giving them the resources and information branded with your practice is essential towards making them feel that you are an authority in the telemedicine field that they can trust. Produce the content – from infographics to quick social media images to full brochures, articles, and information guides – and let your audience see that you don’t need to refer to other clinics’ materials to answer their questions.
Make Your Telemedicine Services a Success with PracticeBloom
If you’re looking for help managing, promoting, and expanding your telemedicine program and health systems, our health care marketing expert team at PracticeBloom is here to help. PracticeBloom has helped countless clinics across various health care specialties build, launch, and maintain a solid and successful online presence.
With our unique ProfitEngines and SEO programs, we understand the nuances involved in marketing a successful telemedicine program. Let our team take the reins from your hands and help expand your business in ways you never thought was possible. From content creation to functional and beautiful website building; from data-targeted online ads to social media and reputation management, we can maximize your telemedicine’s online reach.
Learn more: How Much Money Do Telemedicine Physicians Make?