How Physician Video Marketing Attracts Patients
Physician Video Marketing Is the Quickest Way To Grow a Medical Practice. Here’s How It Works.
If you're a healthcare provider trying to grow your practice, there's something you need to know—people don't look for a doctor the way they used to.
Today, we live in a digital first world. And that means to grow your practice, you can no longer rely on old-fashioned word-of-mouth referrals, or recommendations from insurance companies.
In a digital first world, the patient’s journey begins online, usually with a Google search.
The Patient’s Journey
Did you know 5% of ALL Google searches are health related?
With the wealth of information available on the Internet, the search for a healthcare provider (or any “product,” for that matter) begins with online research.
According to Google, patients who book healthcare appointments run THREE TIMES more searches than patients who don’t book an appointment.
And LSA drilled down even deeper, showing patient research by medical specialty:
Percentage of healthcare consumers who research providers on Google:
- Physical Therapists - 84%
- Optometrists - 74%
- Physicians & Surgeons - 71%
- Dentists - 71%
- Hospitals - 69%
- Clinics - 67%
- Chiropractors - 61%
Physician Video Marketing
With so many patients doing online research, it’s important to give your practice a strong digital presence.
That means an informative website, social media posts, and of course, online patient reviews (84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as referrals from a friend).
However, of all the types of content you can post online, video is by far the most effective.
In the past few years, online video has exploded in popularity. According to Hubspot, video is the number one way to generate leads and connect with new customers.
In creating physician videos, you basically have two goals:
Build Trust
Connect with consumers on a personal level, and begin forming a patient-physician relationship.
Provide Information
Give potential patients the information they need to make better healthcare decisions.
There are several types of physician video that can help you achieve these goals.
Here are some examples:
Differentiate Your Practice
From a marketing perspective, one of the best approaches is to differentiate your practice from other providers. What makes you stand out? Do you offer areas of expertise that are unique in your community?
A good example of differentiation is shown at the top of this post. It’s from our friend Mark Kooyman, with Experience Insights. He correctly positioned his client as the only neurosurgery provider in northeast Georgia offering robotic surgery.
Answer Patient Questions
Another proven approach for creating physician videos is to simply answer frequently asked patient questions.
The example shown here, for North Atlanta Hair Restoration, answers the question “How much will your procedure cost?”
It was produced for Marc Apple, Founder of Forward Push, a marketing agency that helps healthcare clients get more patients through marketing.
Patient Testimonials
Here’s another video produced with Mark Kooyman, for the Athens neurosurgery practice.
Patient testimonials can be extremely powerful, because consumers naturally trust “unbiased” third-party opinions, in the same way they trust online reviews.
The secret here is authenticity. You can’t tell these patients what to say, or write a script. You can learn more about patient testimonials in this blog post.
What To Expect
This last example is also from Marc Apple at Forward Push. It’s a video for New Leaf Family Chiropractic, and lets new patients know what they can expect during their office visit.
According to Marc, “With over 48 hours of video content being uploaded to YouTube every minute, the public’s desire to watch video is stronger than ever. If you are able to capture [viewers’] attention from the start, you can get them to watch an entire video and be able to deliver your marketing message in a way that they will want to engage with you and your business.”
Thanks again to Mark Kooyman and Marc Apple for these examples of physician video marketing, and of course for working with Content Puppy on their production.
About the Author:
Harry Hayes is the owner and executive producer at Content Puppy Productions, a corporate video production agency based in Charlotte. Before starting Content Puppy, he spent 20+ years as an advertising writer and creative director.
