The United State’s healthcare industry is a big, crowded sector that’s set to be worth a staggering 8.7 trillion dollars per year by 2020.
As consumers spend more on healthcare, more facilities targeting people’s various healthcare needs are starting to pop up nationwide. That growing healthcare presence means more competition and less profit per healthcare facility.
If you want your healthcare organization to flourish amidst increased consumer spending rather than get crushed by increased competition, marketing is a must.
Our recommendation when it comes to investing your marketing dollars is to focus on “inbound marketing”.
Inbound marketing utilizes educational content, social media, and search engine optimization collectively to serve valuable, on-brand information to consumers. That information discreetly moves leads down sales funnels.
Below, our team shares a few reasons why implementing inbound marketing strategies is so helpful to healthcare.
1. It’s Cost Effective
Blog posts. Infrographics. Videos.
These are all content-pieces that are cheap to make and can generate thousands of leads for your healthcare brand.
People collectively watch billions of hours of video per day on YouTube. They individually spend 3.4 hours reading content online.
Look no further than those numbers to understand the potential your brand has to connect with customers via sharing inbound marketing content.
2. Google Loves Inbound Marketing
Did you know that Google fields over 5 billion searches on its platform per day?
Your healthcare facility’s ability to get seen by Google and to start scaling the engine’s search results pages means a lot.
Just think, if 10,000 people were searching the term “healthcare in Nebraska” per month and your Nebraska-based healthcare facility ranked number one for that search phrase, statistics tell us that you’d net over 3,000 leads to your website per month!
That could translate into thousands of dollars per year for your business.
When you work with professionals to boost your search engine optimization and increase your inbound marketing traction, your chances of Google taking note and moving you up its ranks skyrockets!
3. You Build Trust in an Industry Built on Trust
There’s nothing more important than people trusting your brand when you’re in healthcare. That’s one of the chief reasons why inbound marketing strategies are such a good fit for the industry.
When investing in inbound marketing, you could be producing shareable content that helps people get better sleep or pack healthier lunches. You could be producing content that shares inspirational patient stories.
All of that valuable material will serve to inform your readers while passively building a rapport. That rapport will lead people who are antiquated with your marketing to go to you when they have relevant healthcare concerns.
4. Inbound Marketing Isn’t One and Done
When you invest in standard marketing tactics like pay per click ads, once people click on your ads and your budget evaporates, that’s it. You’ll either have to re-up your ad spend or give up on that means of attracting clients.
With inbound marketing strategies, your marketing efforts are long lasting!
For example, if you work with a team of marketing professionals to get ranked on Google for keywords important to your business, you could possibly retain your Google ranking for years!
That means any investment you put into optimizing your search engine placement could continue to pay you dividends for a very long time.
5. You’ll Attract More Job Applicants
Inbound marketing isn’t all about attracting customers. It can also be valuable when attracting clients.
When you share stories via inbound marketing strategies that are important to your brand, talent can get a sense of your company culture. That sense could inspire more interested people to start flooding in when job openings come up.
6. Your Vetting Process Will Improve
Is it important to you that your job candidates be familiar with your brand? Inbound marketing gives people an opportunity to learn about your organization. It also weeds out people who aren’t interested in taking the time.
For example, if your inbound marketing has led to you having a robust, search engine optimized website that’s filled with educational content, asking applicants what their favorite blog post is that you’ve written can give you insight into their level of preparation and their interest in your brand.
7. Good Inbound Marketing is Consumed Naturally
People don’t like being advertised to. As a matter of fact, online consumers have become so inundated with blatant ads over the last decade that many people don’t even see them anymore.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, means passively advertising to people in ways that make sense to them.
It can mean getting helpful videos in front of consumers. It can mean helping consumers find what they’re looking for online. It can mean a number of other helpful things people appreciate.
Bottom line… When you put consumer experience first and marketing second, customers pay attention. That’s what inbound marketing is all about.
8. Inbound Marketing Is Here to Stay
4.2 billion people are consuming content online today. That number grows substantially every year.
You focusing your marketing efforts on things that entertain, educate, and help users navigate while they’re online are investments that will stand the test of time.
Inbound marketing is not a flash in the pan marketing tactic. It’s a tactic that is built to evolve with changing consumer tastes and is primed to help your healthcare facility stand out among the masses.
Wrapping Up Reasons Why Healthcare Facilities Need Inbound Marketing Strategies
Inbound marketing strategies offer a lot of benefits to those who invest in them.
Are you moved by the possibilities when it comes to inbound marketing but aren’t sure where to start? Let our team help.
At Sweetgrass Marketing, we’ve been helping businesses specifically in the healthcare industry build better websites, improve their brand deposits online, and better their relationship with consumers.
Let us provide you with the same value.
Learn more about our marketing services and contact us today to learn about the specific value we can bring to your operation.