Are you doing any of these to leverage your clinic’s unique position in your community to drive growth through strategic collaborations, targeted campaigns and expanded services?
Our clinic is located next door to a rheumatology practice and a men’s health practice. I’ve partnered with these for our 360-degree MSK Institute without spending a ton of advertising dollars.
The other constraint is that while lawnmower and auto repair shops can retarget, I can't. Google's restrictions on retargeting ads related to sensitive health topics, including joint pain, knee replacement, and orthopedic care, stem from its advertising policies aimed at protecting user privacy and ensuring a positive user experience. Here's why:
- Google Ads restricts the use of personalized advertising for sensitive categories such as health conditions, medical procedures, and treatments.
- These restrictions prevent advertisers from creating ads that target users based on specific searches related to medical or health concerns because such targeting could reveal sensitive information about users.
When hiring a marketing consultant, if they so much as mention retargeting in their pitch to me, it's game over! I don't need to hear more.
- Google prioritizes user privacy and aims to avoid situations where individuals feel their personal health searches are being exploited.
- Retargeting ads based on searches for medical procedures could lead users to feel their online activities are being monitored, which could result in discomfort or distrust.
Here's what I have been able to do without a lot of advertising spend, but it may be because I know how to grow a brand personality, and I know my way around Adobe Publishing Tools such as InDesign and Illustrator and other applications in their creative cloud.
1. Strategic Partnerships and Referrals
- Collaborate with Neighboring Clinics: Build referral pathways with neighboring clinics. Target shared patient demographics with co-branded promotions like "Joint Health & Wellness" packages, offering complementary consultations or discounted massage therapy for their patients.
- Partner with Local Gyms and Sports Facilities: Engage golf clubs, pickleball courts, and cycling clubs to offer workshops or injury prevention clinics.? The one gotcha: a venue that works.
- Partner with Local Assisted Living and Senior Communities: Our surgeon, PT, and administrator offer a wide array of topics that are appropriate for this audience and usually the community has a meeting space where we supply the snacks and beverages and the speaker and they get the word out and provide the hosting venue free of charge.
We are located in a snowbird and college community. I run seasonal campaigns targeting snowbirds and students. We offer “Pre-Winter Wellness” packages, emphasizing joint health for the active lifestyle they seek upon returning.?
2. Seasonal Marketing Campaigns
- Snowbird Return Campaign: Within an hour’s drive there are popular ski resorts, and in town, we have year-round mountain biking, golf, pickleball, hiking the ancient First Nation petroglyphs and red rocks, and so much more.
- College Athlete Rehab Programs: Our nearby schools and college have contracted with the hospital employed physicians through the AAU. But I’ve learned that not all sports and dance programs are bound by that contract. I’m happy to go after the remaining sports that are not AAU-obligated. Most students under age 26 are covered under their parents’ insurance policy, in addition to their school insurance. I’ve developed sports injury rehab programs during the school year, marketed to college students and their families, even if they can't be treated surgically.? We also offer sports physicals, a service provided by our PA.
I’ve created lots of proprietary content that can be repurposed several ways: video, podcast, social media posts and more to accommodate how my targeted “customer” consumes content.
3. Content Marketing with a Local Focus
- Highlight Active Lifestyles in the Community: I create blog posts, video testimonials, and social media content around local activities (hiking, golf, pickleball) that showcases our expertise in helping patients get back to those activities.? In a market where the other guys don’t market or advertise, resting on their laurels from a decade ago, I have 100% share of voice.
- Rheumatology and Ortho Collaboration Blog Series: I am hoping to jointly produce content with the rheumatology clinic on managing arthritis or autoimmune-related joint conditions and with the hyperbaric clinic downstairs for wound care, circulatory problems, and more.
I’ve taken an interest in geofencing, but in our small town of 180,000, there isn’t much in the way of assistance from local media partners to do what I want. This will be back burner until I can find the help and talent I need.
4. Targeted Digital Advertising
Using Meta (Facebook), Instagram, and other social media platforms is not high on my list of tools because that's not how my current patient personas consume content. I use a little, but it is not my main advertising strategy. I use a more omnichannel approach.
- Geo-Target Snowbirds and Active Retirees: Use geofencing to target ads at airports, golf courses, and retirement communities and other strategically-targeted locations where people with osteoarthritis are likely to be.
- Behavior-Based Retargeting: Retarget ads to people searching for joint pain, knee replacement, or orthopedic care in your area.? This is tricky. Google doesn’t allow retargeting in the traditional way because to do so may violate HIPAA. So the workaround is to use contextual targeting, where ads can be shown on websites or platforms that discuss topics like joint health or orthopedic care.
One of the most successful growth hacks has been “Dinner with the Doc” lecture series that has been comarketed with the surgery center where we do the most of our cases and with some funding from Smith & Nephew. While S+N cannot “host” or pay for food events, they can cover a portion of the marketing costs. We use a postcard from ValPak that rides outside the blue envelopes, and target 20,000 homes in 2 of their “zones”. We feature one topic with up to 4 dates covering 4 months, and an RSVP system of registration to be able to predict confirmed head counts and attrition the week prior to the event to guarantee a head count to the caterer.? Lately, we’ve also offered the option to our home health partner agencies and others to have a table and materials at the event
5. Leverage Events and Workshops
- Host Workshops: Offer no cost workshops on injury prevention, joint health, and the understanding and benefits of robotic assisted arthroplasty.
- Men’s Health, PT, Massage Integration: We will be co-hosting events with the men’s health clinic next door, targeting joint and musculoskeletal health for men undergoing testosterone therapy.? I will also bring our pull-up banners (72” x 30”) advertising our medical massage therapy and PT services onsite.
Our community is made up of many “joiners” who belong to groups. This persona reacts well to membership package offers if you can design the “right” package.
6. Create Membership Packages
- Physical Therapy and Wellness Memberships: We offer memberships that combine physical therapy and medical massage therapy. The membership includes a session with the PT to set up a home program. The point of the program is to increase awareness of the PT services located within the Institute.
- Corporate Wellness Plans: Pitch to local businesses, especially those catering to seasonal or temporary workforces.?
- Workers’ Compensation Campaigns – in Spanish: We are experiencing tremendous housing construction here and as such, we see not only trade crafts who speak Spanish and are injured on the job. We also see many CDL drivers in the area and we have a chiropractor who can perform the CDL license exams in 20 minutes. They become injured by the vibration that they experience on long haul routes and by climbing into rigs and loading and unloading payloads. Our cash pay program is popular as independent truckers often have no health insurance prior to Medicare. The awareness of the other services we provide at the Institute happens when they come for the CDL exams. We make it easy for them to establish with us for orthopaedic care.
I market to Canadian snowbirds who face 48-60 month waits for elective orthopaedic surgery. When the pain gets unbearable, they travel to us for in-person consults, surgery, and can coordinate with their primary care for pre-op testing on the Canadian health system at no cost. We can also coordinate follow up with physical therapy, suture removal, and other follow up services by telehealth and through their local healthcare system.
7. Exclusive Surgery and Recovery Bundles
- Snowbird Surgery Packages: Offer bundled packages that include robotic surgery, rehab, and discounted nearby accommodations.
- Active Lifestyle Recovery Package: Include surgery, rehab, massage therapy, and follow-up care, marketed to return to full activity quickly.? Once people understand how the out of pocket healthcare services are treated by IRS rules and can be paid for by HSA, HRA and other funding, they are more likely to avail of those services.
8. Local SEO and Google My Business Optimization
- Focus on Local Search Terms: Optimize for "knee replacement [City Name]" and "best orthopedic surgeon near me." We emphasize robotic surgery and long-lasting implants in your descriptions. My surgeon is also published on other aspects of orthopaedic surgery, and we’ve noticed that many patients think he only does knee and hip replacements and have been seeking other orthopaedic care at other practices. So I now know what to focus on for my next campaigns.
- Patient Reviews and Testimonials: Actively solicit and showcase reviews from happy patients, particularly those who’ve returned to active sports.? This is permitted with Google My Business and not with Yelp. Learn the rules!
9. Expand Referral Networks
- Community Physicians and Urgent Cares: We’ve partnered with local physicians and urgent care centers to refer orthopedic cases that require surgery or advanced care.? In turn, we direct patients to them after hours to avoid expensive emergency room visits that are medically unnecessary.? This is especially helpful because they have x-ray and lab services in case we need a CRP and ESR done on a weekend or evening.
10. Telehealth for Rural and Snowbird Communities
- Virtual Consultations for Snowbirds: We offer telehealth for consultations and follow-up appointments to maintain continuity of care, even when patients leave for the summer. We also offer no cost flights from a 900 nautical mile radius around St George to fly patients into St George and fly them home.
- Telehealth Outreach to Surrounding Rural Areas: Expand your reach to surrounding rural communities lacking specialized orthopedic care by offering virtual consultations.? We let the VA know this and it has been a welcome option for them when seeking care for Veterans.
Do you have questions about how to market your practice and grow your patient base? Maybe you just want someone to do it for you? In either case, call me. 800-727-4160.
