Pretty much all of us in London will have used an independent clinic at some point. Whether we’ve gone to the dentist, booked a massage, spoken to a counsellor or gone to see a physiotherapist for a sports injury, small independent clinics and medical practitioners are at the heart of our communities and essential in many of our lives.
But how do we find these clinics in the first place? While many of us will have chosen our treatment based on a personal recommendation, or on a clinic we walk past every day, successful clinics are also putting a lot into marketing, to ensure they are seen when you search on Google or browsing social media.
That’s the job of Chris Dann and his colleagues at Market Your Clinic Online (MYCO). Based on Greenwich Peninsula, MYCO works with small clinic owners to achieve their goals of exposure and growth. They cover websites, SEO (search engine optimisation, or getting your business higher up on Google), paid advertising, social media, and organic outreach and press.
Although MYCO works with clinics all over the UK and beyond, many of their clients are London-based. As Chris explains:
“London is such a competitive and densely populated area that the game of marketing is very different to what it is for a lot of more rural practitioners. London practitioners can charge more money, especially if they have additional credibility like having a clinic on Harley Street, being a recognised specialist in their field or having extensive NHS experience. That means the same investment in marketing can bring them greater returns than someone practising in a more rural location and not charging so much money.”
Most of MYCO’s marketing clients are physiotherapists, dentists and osteopaths, but they also work with a variety of other disciplines including psychiatrists and counsellors, massage therapists, chiropractors and private doctors. And it’s a bigger industry than you might expect. There are specialist digital marketing agencies for almost every kind of therapy you can find, as well as more general healthcare marketing agencies, all with prices and services tailored to suit different sizes of clinic.
So how does one market a clinic? Chris explains there are several different approaches. It works best when all the methods are tied together into a coherent campaign, but it also depends on the unique situation of each clinic, their budget and the preferences of the clinic owner.
Website
According to MYCO, it all starts with the website. Generally, no matter what else you’re doing in terms of digital marketing, the whole point is to drive traffic to your website. If people are landing on a clinic’s website and it’s not making them feel reassured and comfortable, answering their questions and making it easy to book an appointment, then the effort in getting you to look at it in the first place was wasted. For this reason, Chris explains that at MYCO they always start with creating a good website for their clients, that gives a good experience to you, the user, whether you’re looking on your computer or on your phone.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
SEO is a large industry within itself, with many companies vying to get their clients to the top of Google. Interestingly, Google themselves say not to trust anyone who promises they can get you into the top spot. There are simply too many factors at play and Google are changing the rules all the time. What worked a year ago won’t work today, as Google and other search engines constantly tweak and update their algorithms.
Very relevant to healthcare marketing, a few years ago Google released the “medic update”, which looks to ensure that any medical advice you find via Google is only written by qualified professionals, avoiding the “quack” advice that once permeated “Dr Google”.
Digital Advertising
You’ve no doubt searched for a service online and noticed that some of the top results are marked “sponsored” or “ad”. These are paid digital ads. Companies bid on certain keywords (such as “dentist near me”) to have their ad nearest the top of the page.
Creating and optimising these ads is another important part of what MYCO does. The huge amount of data available on advertising platforms such as Google Ads means there is constant optimisation work to be done. Advertisers look at what is working, what isn’t, and what is providing the best return on investment, and constantly adjust their ads accordingly.
Social Media
Many clinics also maintain an active social media presence, which is often managed by social media managers at marketing companies. The social media team will create engaging content and post regularly to social media, as well as reaching out to other groups or pages to share their content and replying to comments and likes.
Organic Outreach
Of course, not everything is digital. For any local business, community still is and always will be important. As Chris explains:
“It’s clinics who are really prepared to work with and engage with their communities that thrive. That means partnering with other local businesses to co-promote and to succeed together, helping local charities and schools and doing things which are interesting and beneficial to the local community. We help them by looking for opportunities to do that and making as much noise as we can about it when they do. It’s one of the most rewarding things about marketing small businesses – not only seeing people succeed in their dreams of helping other people but watching communities benefit from it at the same time.”
You can find out more about MYCO and marketing clinics at www.marketyourcliniconline.com.
