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Press releases were traditionally used in the medical field to alert the media to the launch of a research report or a newsworthy event such as a breakthrough in medical technology. The idea was to get the attention of journalists and provide some basic information about the issue, in the hopes that it would prompt them to write an article about it. While these reasons still apply, it’s now possible to use press releases as a useful part of your medical marketing strategy. This is because often the people you target for patient acquisition will see your press release before they read the content on your website.

We’ve posted at length about the importance - and the value – of content on your medical marketing website, and how key it is to publish fresh content frequently to ensure your position in search engine results.

Physicians aren’t marketers. Neither are practice managers, usually. Yet somehow, this becomes your responsibility when you take up a position with a small to mid-sized practice, simply because patient acquisition and retention goes hand-in-hand with profitability. And while the physician can consult with the patients, but there must be patients to consult with. So who gets the task of finding and keeping them? The practice manager, or whatever your position is called in your particular environment, that's who. Don’t despair, though – here are some key medical marketing suggestions for you to implement easily and without extensive marketing knowledge, which will return results you can be proud of.

There’s lots of hype about the coming era of “on-demand” marketing and the way technology is making it possible for users to search anywhere, anyhow for what they want. Gone are the days when mobile was a separate platform; now practically everything is mobile and if you aren’t then you’re left behind. The next big thing in patient acquisition is going to be how you apply new ways of connecting online with your current and prospective patients. McKinsey Quarterly identifies four specific areas that are likely to affect your medical marketing strategies in the next 2 to 3 years:

You’ve heard of marketing disasters backfiring, and there are so many funny stories out there, it’s difficult to tell one can claim to be the worst. When the Caromont Regional Medical Center in Gastonia, North Carolina launched its new “Cheat Death” campaign recently, however, it had to be in the running. The campaign was aimed at finding a fun, edgy way to promote a healthy lifestyle through better dietary choices and more exercise, but the responses from staff and the public ranged from embarrassment to outrage. Eventually, local authorities asked the hospital to reconsider its new slogan. There’s no way to know what prompted the fiasco, but there are a number of ways they could have avoided it happening.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a fundraising dinner for Family Health Ministries, which supports communities in Haiti to build and sustain healthy families. Founded by Dr. David Walmer of Atlantic Reproductive Medicine Specialists in 2000, the organization does this through a variety of healthcare programs such as Safe Motherhood and Cervical Cancer Prevention.

Marketing your healthcare services is not something you intended to be doing when you started your practice. In fact, it’s been the last thing on your mind until now and you simply don’t have the time to devote to learning a new discipline. Time Magazine says cloning isn't far off, so you’d rather find a way to clone yourself and send your double out to do the medical marketing work for you, right? 

Concierge medicine is on the rise in all specialties with just shy of 10% of practice owners planning to convert to the model in the next couple years. This is according to a Forbes study quoted by the medical technology reviewer, Software Advice, in a blog post on The Profitable Practice website. 

Adding video marketing clips to your practice website enables you to use the medium to its fullest potential in your medical marketing strategy. Video is the fastest-growing segment of the Internet, and currently comprises more than half of all web traffic activities – a number that is expected to reach 90% by the end of 2013, according to a report by Cisco. That makes it imperative to include it in your marketing plans, and you can do this in the form of a video blog on your website or by creating video clips, uploading them to YouTube and disseminating them via social media. Here’s what it can do for your practice:

In spite of the fact that so much of our lives is now spent online, medical practices are still amazingly hesitant about creating patient portals and putting healthcare information online as part of a comprehensive healthcare marketing strategy. The general perception appears to be concern over security, but this doesn’t need to be the case. Patient portal applications are secure and comply with HIPAA requirements, and there are tremendous benefits to putting much of your patient interaction online.  In addition, a federal incentive to drive the implementation of patient portals is expected to cause this to spike in 2013. Here are the main benefits you can expect to gain from such an initiative: