4 Tips to Increase Patient Acquisition and Hit Growth Goals

May 25, 2023 0 Comments

4 Tips to Increase Patient Acquisition and Hit Growth Goals 

Patient acquisition is vital to your organization’s growth. However, locating and attracting new customers within this competitive landscape can pose further challenges such as patient satisfaction rates and patient retention.  

To draw patients out of the market and establish enduring relationships with them, you’ll need a full-proof marketing strategy that sets your organization apart. In this article, we’ll explore key tips to increase your patient acquisition rate:

  • Use Patient Journey Mapping
  • Keep a Pulse on Reviews
  • Optimize for SEO 
  • Partner with a Digital Marketing 

Keep in mind that patient outreach is directly tied to patient outcomes. As you consider ways to improve your patient acquisition strategy, think about how these changes can also provide retention benefits. For example, you might improve your follow-up methods for both first-time and experienced patients. That said, let’s explore these tips in more detail. 

Use Patient Journey Mapping

Patient journey mapping exercise helps healthcare leaders understand how patients interact with their providers by outlining each communication touchpoint. It gives an inside look into your patient experience and can help your team identify potential areas to improve overall patient satisfaction rates. 

Analyze your patient’s journey by collecting data on the following interactions:

  1. Pre-visit awareness: Whether it’s through an online ad, third-party listing, or call center a patient determined that their symptoms merit treatment.
  2. Initial contact: A patient makes contact with your healthcare system online or in person.
  3. Care: The patient is assessed by the medical faculty.
  4. Treatment: The healthcare system prescribes treatment and follow-up instructions.
  5. Post-visit behavioral and lifestyle adjustment: The patient follows treatment instructions and makes lifestyle adjustments to facilitate healing and well-being.
  6. Ongoing care and proactive health: The patient continues to manage their care following the initial clinical visit while following the necessary steps to maintain good health. 

By mapping out your patient’s journey, your team can determine which interactions provide patient acquisition opportunities. Additionally, analytic reporting tools like Arcadia’s healthcare dashboards can help you visualize your organization’s quality performance and determine its efficiency per patient type. 

Make necessary changes based on your collected metrics and look for ways to improve your care quality. Doing so will garner more positive reviews and solidify your organization as a leader in value-based care. 

Keep a Pulse on Reviews

Reviews matter. In fact, 71% of respondents look to online reviews first before they select a doctor and 43% of respondents would choose an out-of-network provider if they had better reviews than an in-network provider. Therefore, maximizing your online review potential is an absolute must. 

Here’s how you can do it:

  • Solicit reviews. Most patients will not provide a review unless given a significant reason to do so, such as an exceptionally favorable or poor experience. To get more responses, proactively solicit reviews through a review or rating site that sends out follow-up emails, QR codes, and individual text messages. You can then use your platform to direct patients to first-party platforms like Google or Facebook. 
  • Monitor reviews. Dedicate time for review monitoring, especially if your reviews are for multi-location providers. Organize your reviews and take notes for similar reviews that identify problem areas for your team to address. Post positive reviews on your site to build authority. 
  • Respond to negative reviews. If a consumer posts negative feedback, respond with an apology, specific instructions for how you’re working to resolve the issue, and a request for a second chance. Responding to negative reviews is critical for reputation management and can provide a chance for patients to update their reviews due to your quick and thoughtful response. 

Make sure to solicit feedback through a scalable solution that incorporates automated, HIPAA-compliant reviews. Additionally, keep all communication HIPAA-compliant and avoid posting or buying inauthentic third-party reviews.

Optimize for SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tool that can increase your online visibility and help you rank at the top of search engine results pages for industry-specific queries like “top family doctors,”  “local general surgeons,” or “pediatric neurologists.” 

The goal of every SEO strategy is to generate more qualified leads for your website which translates to more patients, positive reputation building, and higher sales. Additionally, optimizing for SEO can give your healthcare system a competitive edge by staying top of mind within the medical industry and with patients. 

Depending on your distinct practice, you’ll need to create a holistic SEO strategy that involves:

  • An accessible website: NXunite’s guide to healthcare websites suggests choosing a healthcare-specific CMS (content management system) and incorporating your branding to add credibility to your site. Next, take a look at your site and optimize for aspects like navigation, page speed, and web design. Keeping your site architecture simple and straightforward will help both Google and your customers find your site more easily. 
  • Insightful, keyword-targeted content: Perform keyword research to get an idea of what your audience is searching for. From there, you can create content that aligns with your audience and provides helpful information. For example, you could create SEO-targeted website content answering questions related to a patient-specific illness with titles like Diabetes: 10 Ways to Manage Your Lifestyle or Determining Your Diabetic Type: 5 Distinguishing Symptoms
  • Tracked KPIs: Use KPIs like qualified leads, customer acquisition cost, conversion rate, bounce rate, organic traffic, and dwell time to monitor your site’s performance. Keeping track of these KPIs will help you allocate your resources and create achievable marketing goals. 

SEO results are not immediate and are largely impacted by your content’s relevancy and comprehensiveness. That’s why many healthcare organizations decide to build a robust blog roll or video series to incorporate useful content and increase their search visibility. Topics like wellness advice, industry news, and explainer videos make for exceptional content. 

Invest in Digital Marketing 

Conducting patient journey mapping, SEO research, and reputation management takes time and expertise to complete. That’s why many healthcare organizations outsource their marketing to dedicated digital marketing agencies to drive better results.  

Partnering with a digital marketing agency can streamline your patient outreach process to bring in new healthcare consumers and shepherd them through the healthcare journey. Their core services include: 

  • SEO: Digital marketing agencies collect and filter through key SEO research to create strategies that increase your organization’s visibility and get in front of more patients.
  • Website: They’ll help you maintain and curate a top-of-the-line website to attract more patients with mobile responsive, organized, and branded website architecture. 
  • Reputation management: By working with a dedicated agency, your organization can improve and monitor its online reputation and leverage positive feedback. 
  • Content marketing: With agency insights, your team can discover relevant and impactful content topics that meet audiences where they are. 

Research the clients of prospective agencies and look into their previous campaigns. Assess your budget and patient acquisition or patient retention goals to discover which agency may be the right fit for your organization. 

Hitting patient acquisition growth goals starts by examining your own internal processes for potential opportunities and areas of improvement. Next, optimize your online presence using reputation management and SEO best practices and consider reaching out to partners for additional digital marketing expertise.