How to Market Your Telemedicine Practice

Telemedicine is on the rise, with more and more patients seeking alternative means of healthcare and visiting a doctor. With modern internet and technology situated in most homes, virtual care is a viable means of healthcare. This allows any practice to offer care to patients who can’t leave their homes, help free up congested schedules, and expand their audience.

But like any new service or product, it is necessary that you market and promote your telemedicine practice. In this article, we explain what it takes to properly and successfully create a telemedicine marketing campaign.

Why Proper Marketing is Crucial for Telemedicine

For many health practices and clinics, there are little to no marketing choices to be made. Word-of-mouth is often sufficient to ensure a steady stream of local patients. But when marketing a service like telemedicine, relying on simple word-of-mouth isn’t enough

True marketing tactics must be employed to help a clinic launch and maintain their telemedicine medical practice. This is because of the following:

New service: Everyone knows what a doctor’s appointment is like, but much fewer are familiar with a virtual doctor’s appointment. Although an increasingly popular method of healthcare, telemedicine has yet to enter the spotlight, and many patients are simply unaware of how it works.
Online competition: Health clinics and practices often thrive in their local community, but in the online world, your competition is more than just the other practices in your town. Patients can select from regional or even national choices, making competition much higher than before.
Patient education: As with any new service or product, customers seek education and understanding. Producing your own branded educational content is crucial towards securing your foothold in your local telemedicine market.

With telemedicine, online marketing is the name of the game. You want patients who are familiar with and comfortable with the online world, which is why all marketing efforts have to be centered on your online presence.

Below we’ve prepared five steps you should take to market your telemedicine service:

Define Your Target Market: Questions to Ask

The first step of any marketing plan is asking yourself and your team all the important market questions. There needs to be a shared understanding across the board of your direction, your goals, your end game, and your tactics. Without this shared understanding, your marketing decisions will be inconsistent, confusing, and overall ineffective.

Consider the following questions with your practice staff and team:

Is your goal simply to transition your current patients to a telemedicine service model, or do you want to broaden the reach of your patient services?
If so, how far are you willing to reach around your local area? Do you want to be a city, state, region, or one of the biggest national telemedicine service providers?
Would your team be able to handle a 10%, 20%, and 30% increase in patients with telemedicine services in place? How would this affect your doctors and staff?
Is your goal to increase your overall number of patients or to improve convenience for your doctors and current patients?
Will your telemedicine services be offered to all patients as a general practice or to specific patients with certain issues?

Maximize Your Online Presence

In the digital world, look and functionality are just as important as credentials and training. When a potential patient opens your website, they need to get the same feeling of trust and comfort that they would when walking into a clean and well-kept clinic lobby or waiting room. If your website looks outdated or is difficult to navigate, potential patients can be turned off, and they would instead seek out another option.

Your online marketing efforts branch out from your online presence, and your online presence starts with your website. Does your website convert visitors? Does it clearly explain your credentials and service details, and offer your visitors the educational service line resources they seek? Do your patients ever have difficulty making bookings, appointments, or finding crucial information?

With our health care marketing team at PracticeBloom, we have created, designed, and launched countless beautiful and functional websites for all types of clinics and practices, including telemedicine. We understand the landing page aesthetic and content marketing materials that the general public expect when searching for a health care provider, and we specialize in infusing your brand with the design elements that are data-tested to work.

Meet Them Where They Are: Targeted Online Ads

Paid online advertising is more nuanced and complex than ever before. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer the tools and data for marketers to truly tailor a program fitting for any specific audience.

With a team of healthcare marketing experts like PracticeBloom, your telemedicine services and practice can be marketed and pinpointed to the exact audience you need. We will work with your team to understand the key demographics that would best respond to your video visit ads, and facilitate an online ad campaign that maximizes this information. Our campaigns are designed to convert with the lowest cost-per-click and cost-per-conversion rates you can find to get the most out of your bottom line.

Promote Your Telemedicine Credentials and Training

When people search for telemedicine services, they want more than just an established doctor and practice. They want to know that they are in good hands specific to telemedicine and video visit virtual care. It’s another way to stand out from the intense online competition: specialize your credentials and training in the telemedicine service line space.

With accreditation with the ATA, your doctors can have official qualification for online patient consultation. This streamlines patient trust and acceptance in your telemedicine services, and is the first step to helping your doctors transition to the world of virtual care.

The ATA also has a number of partnered training programs which your doctors can complete for further qualifications. Not only does this build greater trust with your patients, but it also ensures that your healthcare providers perform consistently and professionally across all patients. Become one of the most trusted providers out there.

Promos, Online Reputation, and Social Media Management

Last but not least: your day-to-day online presence. When everything else is set up and established, from your website to your credentials to your knowledge hub, it’s crucial to maintain day-to-day activity in your online space as one of the top providers in your market.

This includes:

Promos: No one can resist a good promo. With PracticeBloom, we can help you discuss and promote your latest practice promotions: from “Your First Virtual Appointment Is Free!” to “Recommend a Friend For A Special Prize”, and create the marketing materials you need. No telemedicine launch is complete without a good promotion
Online Reputation: Reviews are crucial for your potential patients in this market: they use it to judge you, whether the reviews are fair or not. Respond to your negative reviews, promote your great reviews, and help convince all your patients to review top feedback
Social Media Management: Daily activity shows patients that your virtual practice is alive and running. Respond to chat requests, answer questions, and help your patients navigate their way into their next appointment

PracticeBloom: Promote Your Telemedicine Practice with the Pros Today

PracticeBloom is the home of the best medical websites on the internet. We’ve designed and launched countless healthcare websites, helping healthcare providers all across the country connect with their ideal patients.

If you are looking for a telemedicine marketing campaign that is guaranteed to bring in the numbers, PracticeBloom is the team for you. Contact us today to find out more about our services and how our patient-first campaigns have helped thousands of people nationwide.