Healthcare Marketing Blog

The senior care space is poised for a massive resurgence. See exactly how we helped three leading senior care groups build growth-oriented digital marketing strategies.

Dentists are busy people. Their schedules must be tightly managed to balance current patients versus new ones. Today those schedules are filled with people who have more choice than ever—both in which dental practices they patronize and how they receive care.

It’s not uncommon for the interests of search engine optimization (SEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO) professionals to clash. In this post, we explore some opportunities for better alignment, including input and examples from our very own team.

The senior care space is saturated, as is the market for senior care marketing agencies. To that end, we’ve prepared a brief guide for selecting the right agency for your senior care organization. Use these best practices to evaluate the agencies knocking on your door.

In the past five years, there has been tremendous growth in the world of digital advertising. Machine learning and algorithms continuously improve to help digital advertisers reach and engage the right audience. The key is finding the perfect balance between artificial intelligence and marketers’ ingenuity. They each have their unique strengths and role in developing effective digital advertising campaigns.

So you’ve got a de novo office you have to quickly ramp up. What are the initial steps needed to stand up your marketing strategy? Here’s our proven four-step framework for generating appointments before the new office even opens.

Have you found yourself stuck with an SEO problem and have no one to turn to? Well, you’re not alone! We asked healthcare marketers far and wide if they had one question about SEO, what would it be? We then gathered those questions and posed them to Cardinal’s SEO experts in this episode of Ignite!

If you’re wondering why your DSO digital marketing strategy isn’t delivering results, you might be making some avoidable mistakes. Here are the three most common digital marketing mistakes we see DSOs make, sourced from our direct experience working with DSOs.

In the private equity (PE) world especially, marketers are regularly asked to prove their worth. In this blog post, I explore some of the ways that CMOs, Marketing VPs, and other marketing professionals can improve how they report on marketing performance to their CEO or board of directors.

If you are a digital advertiser, you know how important ad creative is to the performance of your campaigns. When managing your ad creative you must juggle different headlines, images, text, and CTA options for different placements, across different devices. But great ad creative doesn’t start there. It starts by understanding the patient journey, their motivations and challenges, and providing real value through your offering.

Each year, we take an in-depth look at the most important digital marketing trends for the senior care industry. How is senior care marketing changing? What digital marketing strategies are most effective at reaching the senior population and their families? To engage prospects and keep pace with your competitors, read this blog post.

The new year is nearly here. It’s time for healthcare organizations to hammer down their marketing strategies for 2022. This coming year, your shortcoming might cost you, so use this blog post as your roadmap for strengthening your digital marketing strategy.

Every lead is not a good lead, especially in the healthcare vertical. If you’re looking to fill your patient pipeline with higher-quality patient leads—leads that bring the most value and are easier to convert—here’s our guide to evaluating and improving lead quality.

There’s a lot that goes into reaching, engaging, and converting new patients and affiliates. The trick is finding the value your DSO brings to each audience and using it to design your start-to-finish marketing funnel. Read on for marketing strategies that will help you manage both programs efficiently.

In 2021, a consistent trend we’ve seen is healthcare organizations investing in their digital presence. Not surprisingly, a new or updated website is usually a top priority. It’s your hub, welcome mat, traffic generator, and more. What we tell clients is that design and fancy functionality are just part of the puzzle. It’s not enough to have a good-looking website.

Healthcare organizations need to move their paid search campaigns from an efficiency-based optimization strategy to an effectiveness-based optimization strategy.

See how a 500+ location mental health provider is growing through innovative digital marketing strategies.

The new year is just around the corner, and it’s time for DSOs to think about their marketing strategies. In 2022, your areas of weakness might cost you. So consider this your roadmap for strengthening your digital marketing strategy by making the right investments, optimizations, and hard decisions.

What if cookies go away? With iOS updates, platform changes, and privacy concerns plaguing advertisers; healthcare marketers must seek alternate tactics to collect data. That’s where first party data comes in.

Before you launch a new ad campaign or cut your email newsletter, you need to understand which marketing activities are actually generating leads and revenue. The secret to understanding marketing’s impact? Closed-loop reporting.

It’s no secret, there is an ongoing battle between SEO and website user experience (UX), as each discipline considers its own priorities when it comes to web design. After all, you want your site to be full of content and keywords to help search engines find you, but you also want your site to be easy to navigate and to convert visitors to patients. Is there a happy medium? Is there a way to balance these two marketing disciplines? The answer is YES.

I was recently asked by a marketer at a senior care provider (and prospective client) if they need PPC advertising. My answer was an emphatic yes. In some form or another, PPC can be a critical part of your broader digital marketing strategy and help you capture demand and build your lead pipeline.

Want more conversions from your website? You might have implemented some of the best practices like fast page speed, a clear path for visitors, and a mobile experience. But for top-converting websites, these best practices only scratch the surface.

It’s okay; I do it too. Anytime I talk about cookies in the context of marketing, I picture a big delicious chocolate chip cookie. It’s only natural. Of course, cookies, the marketing kind, have traditionally served a far different purpose. Take it from IBM Watson Advertising, which provides a tidy definition of what cookies are:

I was recently asked by a marketer at a senior care provider (and prospective client) if they need PPC advertising. My answer was an emphatic yes. In some form or another, PPC can be a critical part of your broader digital marketing strategy and help you capture demand and build your lead pipeline.

Learn how a 250+ location ortho-focused dental support organization (OSO) is growing through innovative digital marketing strategies rooted in data.

Let’s put things into context. The senior care vertical is poised to explode in the coming years. More than eight million seniors receive care from some kind of senior care service (nursing home, residential, etc.) annually. Research from the Urban Institute indicates that the number of Americans aged 65 years and older will double over the next two decades.

It’s no secret – you need to be ranking highly on Google to make sure healthcare consumers can find you. But you also need to have a solid website that is built to support search engine optimization (SEO). Here are the 6 principles to follow for creating your dream website, the best technologies to use for building your website with SEO in mind, and how UX can impact your website’s performance.

Dental support organizations (DSOs) face some unique challenges to efficient reporting. In this blog post, I provide practicable ideas for reporting campaign results across multiple brands and locations. Plus, I give you my take on why you should consolidate campaigns and data (and how)

What do your patients care about? That is the first thing you need to think of when developing an offer for your healthcare organization. Once you’ve narrowed that down, you can then start building out your unique offering(s).

Can you believe the year is almost through? It’s true, and it’s time to start planning for 2022. Your competitors certainly are. As we look to 2022 and beyond, here are the digital marketing trends we’re keeping an eye on.

You’ve invested more dollars into your marketing strategy. Your digital marketing channels are bringing patients through the door at a steady clip. And yet patient retention remains a struggle. You’re not alone. By some estimates, patients churn at about a 48 percent rate.

Marketing for healthcare organizations and medical practices presents a set of challenges unlike any other industry. A thorough understanding of how to overcome these hurdles is required for success in healthcare marketing. Here’s how the iOS14 update affected healthcare marketers and Facebook Ads; the hiccups high-growth healthcare organizations face while factoring in local-level needs; and why you should use healthcare marketing best practices to scale your business to new heights in 2022.

In marketing, there’s a difference between modesty and missed opportunities. Your DSO might have a very mature marketing operation. Your teams might be well-versed in traditional DSO marketing practices. You might read our Complete Guide to Digital Marketing for DSOs and say, Yup—been there, done that. SEO, digital advertising, and analytics?

Aside from the whole ten years in medical school thing, healthcare marketers and physicians aren’t entirely different. In medicine, practitioners use certain indicators to measure the success of a given treatment, medication, surgery, and so on. When treating high cholesterol, for example, a physician will likely run regular lipid panels to monitor any changes up or down.

The end of 2021 is approaching quickly, and we are entering that time of year where healthcare organizations start planning Q1. What should healthcare marketers continue to implement in 2022, what marketing practices should they adopt, and what should they leave in 2021?

Dental support organizations (DSOs) have historically been ahead of the healthcare industry in terms of technology adoption. To keep the lead in the coming year, dental marketers will need to tackle some of the biggest challenges that DSOs will face in 2022, as well as invest in the right strategies and technologies.

How can a private equity firm get the most from a multi-location healthcare acquisition? Find and take advantage of efficiencies, restructure the website to support multiple locations, and do so while following SEO best practices. Here’s why and when you should merge websites, how to develop a migration plan, and the best practices a high-growth healthcare organization can implement during their migration process.

Consumerization is just a fancy word for people shaping the market, as opposed to the other way around. In the context of healthcare, consumerization manifests itself in myriad ways.

If we’re sure of anything, it’s that healthcare marketing will continue changing. Who could have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic or 3D organ printing in space? Both happened, and while the organ printing thing is TBD, the pandemic has changed things significantly.

How can a private equity firm get the most from a multi-location healthcare acquisition? Find and take advantage of efficiencies, restructure the website to support multiple locations, and do so while following SEO best practices. Here’s why and when you should merge websites, how to develop a migration plan, and the best practices a high-growth healthcare organization can implement during their migration process.

As a consumer, there’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to patronize a business but being prevented from doing so. You’re upgrading your phone online, and the cart experience turns into a Rubik’s cube. Or the page times out with a “There’s been a problem” error after you try to purchase concert tickets online. Even finding contact information can be challenging on some websites. If it’s me in those situations, my next step is to bail—I move onto another vendor, or I abandon the purchase decision altogether.

For a social media platform with nearly two billion daily users, there’s sure to be a lot of hype. This is especially true for digital advertising. The thought of placing ads in front of an audience as large and engaged as Facebook’s makes most marketer’s eyes light up. We understand the sentiment! As a digital marketing agency, we help a lot of different healthcare organizations use Facebook Advertising to drive serious results.

Do you have clicks and traffic but are struggling to book patient appointments? The problem could be your website or landing page. Minor annoyances or confusing features can deter users from taking action. To increase conversion rates, you need to examine your user experience and remove all barriers that might prevent patients from booking an appointment.

Too often, healthcare organizations waste time and money on the wrong digital marketing strategies. They focus on the wrong channels, use outdated best practices, neglect to test, or chase the latest hyped-up marketing strategy. Here are the top three mistakes healthcare marketers commonly make—over-segmenting their Google Ads account, investing too much in organic social, and halting their SEO investment—and how to avoid making them again.

By definition, a dental support organization (DSO) is meant to help member practices serve patients better. That means reduced administrative burdens and improved standards of care. It also means finding greater insights into where to focus time and resources.

The first place healthcare consumers go to find a provider is Google. Having an SEO strategy is no longer optional if you want to grow your healthcare organization. Get our three-part SEO framework and watch several audits of real-world healthcare sites.

Too often, healthcare organizations waste time and money on the wrong digital marketing strategies. They focus on the wrong channels, use outdated best practices, neglect to test, or chase the latest hyped-up marketing strategy. Here are the top three mistakes healthcare marketers commonly make—over-segmenting their Google Ads account, investing too much in organic social, and halting their SEO investment—and how to avoid making them again.

Consistent new patient acquisition is essential for dental practices. According to a report by Aldrich Advisors, every dentist needs at least 20 new patients monthly to achieve business growth and success. The question is, where are dental practices supposed to find those new patients? Start by investing more in digital marketing.

When I was growing up, we had a family orthodontist that I’ll never forget. Well, I’ll never forget his office. The place was made for kids, replete with neat-o games, books, toys, and even a Sega Genesis. I think this might have been the only orthodontist that kids actually wanted to go to. Ever. That experience set his office apart, and it made it quite easy for my parents to refer his office to other families.

For all of the flak, jokes, and jitters targeted at dentists, most people feel a pretty close relationship with their provider. After all, you trust this person to dig around in your mouth—to stick needles and blades in there, make changes, even perform surgery. Some people have been going to the same dentist since their childhood.

The pandemic disrupted the hospital and doctor referral pipeline, and a once steady pipeline of referrals dried up. While referrals have resumed, the pandemic revealed the vulnerability of relying on one patient source. Our hosts discuss how defining your USP, diversifying your marketing strategy, and exploring other digital marketing channels can replace your referral pipeline so your healthcare organization will never be left in that situation again.

Get lean and get mean might sound like advice you’d get from a fitness coach, but it’s pretty good advice for healthcare marketers, too, who have an imperative to reduce patient acquisition costs while still growing patient volume.

For DSOs, it can be a challenge to achieve a balance between patient acquisition and patient experience. We’ve written a bit about marketing’s role at each step of the patient experience; suffice it to say, the two should not be mutually exclusive. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to focus more closely on patient acquisition.

In fiercely competitive healthcare markets, your patient experience can differentiate you from other providers. Healthcare consumers expect the same level of convenience and service they find in other aspects of their lives. If it’s difficult to schedule an appointment, your website is outdated and cumbersome to use, or if your customer service lacks, they’ll go back to Google to find a provider that delivers the experience they demand.

You’ll find a lot of people talking about centralization within dental support organizations (DSOs) circles. Typically, it’s consistency that DSOs are after. After acquiring new practices or completing a merger, there’s plenty of incentive to centralize administrative and operational functions like practice management software, call centers, billing and accounting, and so on.

These days, much of the patient experience begins and ends online. This is especially true in light of the ways digital healthcare has evolved, including online appointment scheduling, patient portals, and telehealth. As a result, patients expect low-friction digital experiences across the board. Moreover, patients consider digital channels as essential parts of their healthcare decision-making processes.

If you’re generating a steady flow of website traffic, but your lead volume is low, your website experience might be to blame. Healthcare consumers have high expectations and will quickly bounce if they don’t find what they need. If you want to improve your conversion rates and generate more leads, you should consider conversion rate optimization (CRO). By aligning your user’s goals with your website experience, you can remove barriers preventing them from taking action.

There’s a simple reason that personalization is such a huge trend in healthcare marketing: it’s a win-win. On the one hand, consumers in the healthcare space and beyond want personalized experiences. They want to see tailored content. They want to be addressed by their first name. In its 2020 ​​Trends in Personalization report, Salesforce found that 92 percent of marketers state that their customers and prospects expect a personalized experience (up from 85 percent last year).

One of the most common questions that clients ask here at Cardinal is: how much do Google Ads cost? This is a fair question especially when many businesses these days invest in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. On average, businesses make $3 in revenue for every $1.60 they spend on PPC ads.

As a healthcare marketer, how do you measure the effectiveness of a marketing campaign? In website traffic, clicks, or direct sales? While digital platforms make it easier to track engagement and conversions, determining marketing ROI can be difficult if you don’t have a plan.

Why does link building matter for your healthcare organization? You don’t just need patients to find you; you need Google to find you and source you as a credible, trustworthy, and authoritative site. Here are a few strategies and tactics healthcare marketers can use to develop their link building portfolio, boost their rankings, and increase their visibility on Google.

Both the Google algorithm and how people search are evolving, sometimes in lockstep. In the past, Google trained us to search using specific formulas, especially in healthcare. You might have better success searching for “back pain relief” versus “how do I make my back stop hurting?” The onus was often on the person searching to unlock the right search results with just the right keyword.

Most people avoid the dentist if they can, a stigma made worse by the emergence of COVID-19. It’s no slight to dentists, of course. In the end, who really wants to be poked, prodded, or numbed? Then there’s the shame that comes with having bright lights shown on chompers that haven’t been flossed in months.

Defining your unique selling proposition (USP) is the first step in determining what makes you different and why patients should choose to visit your practice. If you can’t identify your USP, you’ll have a hard time convincing patients to visit your practice instead of your competitors.

Getting dental practices to collaborate and work together can be challenging. Many DSOs have shared with us their frustrations around uncooperative or unresponsive doctors. “Why won’t they implement our recommendations or use the technology we’ve invested in?” they’ll ask. As it turns out, many DSOs struggle to facilitate communication and get everyone on the same page.

To improve campaign performance, Google’s algorithmic strategist developed Smart Bidding. It uses machine learning to analyze millions of signals to predict which auction will lead to better conversion rates. With that insight, it can set the right bid for the auction and help you get more from your marketing budget. While Smart Bidding has been around for several years, many advertisers have resisted adoption. But we believe Smart Bidding is the future of digital advertising.

Why are you sending a request for proposal (RFP) to a marketing agency? Your healthcare organization is probably looking for a quality partner to enhance your strategy and help you get patients the care they need. Here’s how to create a solid RFP, what research you should do before looking for a partner, how an agency can detect a genuine RFP, and how to find an amazing marketing agency that fits your needs.

The pace of consolidation continues to quicken across the healthcare industry. By most estimates, hospital mergers and acquisitions will remain robust through the end of 2021 (at least). Unsurprisingly, the private equity firms involved in these deals will need to rapidly incorporate and ramp up their new acquisitions and businesses.

At the Google I/O Developer Conference in May 2021, they released two new conversation technologies: LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) and MUM ((Multitask Unified Model). They promise to change the way people search and improve search results for long-tail queries that Google hasn’t seen before.

If you want to maximize your healthcare organization’s reach, build brand awareness, and nurture prospects until they’re ready to visit your office, then you need to consider Facebook advertising.

Patient loyalty is top-of-mind for many healthcare providers. And for a good reason: according to a patient loyalty report from NRC health, the dollar value of a lifetime patient can reach $1.4 million. Beyond the dollar signs, continuity of care and better healthcare outcomes are more likely for patients who come back for follow-ups, check-ups, and post-op consultations.

The decision to get plastic surgery usually takes some time. Prospective patients need to be nurtured—they need to see services, pricing, and reputation that align with the kind of results they’re looking for. And one of the best ways to reach and nurture prospective clients is through Facebook.

For an industry that depends on the ability to reach people and provide care, healthcare still struggles to keep up with the latest digital marketing trends. Marketing technologies can help your healthcare organization elevate the patient experience and drive serious bottom-line results.

Healthcare marketers don’t have a choice: monitoring performance metrics is crucial to success. The numbers matter! What marketers sometimes forget is that there’s also a person behind the metrics they care about most. Real people. Current and future patients. What those patients want, need, feel, get frustrated about—their surprises, disappointments, and desired outcomes—comprises a more qualitative aspect of healthcare marketing called patient insights.

The world of healthcare marketing moves fast. If you’re not getting the results you expected from digital marketing campaigns or failing to meet industry benchmarks, your conversion rates might be the culprit. That’s the work of conversion rate optimization (CRO): to evaluate campaigns and systematically improve conversion rates on key pages. The goal? To increase conversion volume, lower cost per acquisition (CPA), and increase the lead-to-sale ratio.

If healthcare organizations want to rank on the first page of Google, they need a solid SEO foundation. That means having a scalable, organized, and efficient website that supports your content strategy and a strong backlink portfolio that tells Google your website is reputable.

Two trends are guiding group dentistry above most others: consolidation and resurgent demand. People are making dental care a priority again. Dental practices are retooling, restaffing, and looking to the future. Perhaps more than ever before, dental service organizations (DSOs) have an imperative to operate efficiently, improve performance, and build scalable marketing frameworks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way people receive care, and an unprecedented number of providers and patients have tried telehealth. As we adjust to post-pandemic life, many are questioning telehealth’s staying power. Will consumers continue to use virtual care?

What if we told you that the equivalent of 23 percent of the world’s total population was active on Facebook every day? It’s an over-the-top number, but it’s true: Facebook has more than 1.79 billion daily active users (a number that’s increasing by ten percent annually). So when we tell our clients that Facebook advertising is an effective way to engage healthcare consumers, build brand awareness, and drive leads, we really mean it.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is more than just design or analytics. It’s about understanding human behavior centered around motivation. As a healthcare marketer, you want to make it easy for a user to convert into a patient. By creating ads, landing pages, and content that appeals to people’s aspirations, you’ll be able to persuade them to take the actions you want. See how understanding human behavior can help you optimize conversion rates at your healthcare organization and increase patient acquisition.

In healthcare, the name of the game is reaching patients. Consistently and with purpose. In an increasingly noisy digital marketplace, Google is still the best place to start. Of the three principal ways you can do so—paid ads, reputation, and local search optimization (SEO)—local SEO has particular upside for healthcare marketers. And one of the first steps toward shoring up local SEO for each of your locations is with a strong location page.

In the healthcare industry, inbound phone calls have always played a significant role in the patient’s journey. By tracking calls with a dynamic solution such as CallRail, you can not only improve your practice operationally, but you can also use data synced to Google Ads and Google Analytics to optimize your ad campaigns in real-time. Hear how healthcare marketers can use call analytics to get better marketing results, improve their business, and what to look for once they implement it.

Healthcare consumers care a heck of a lot about reviews. Going online to check out the Google reviews for a particular practice, for example, or directory ratings for a specific surgeon is now an essential component of the decision-making process.

As search algorithms have become more sophisticated and able to provide better results, user behavior has evolved. Instead of searching with fragmented keywords, longer, more conversational queries are now the norm. CEO, Alex Membrillo and SEO Director, John McAlpin, discuss how user behavior and semantic search have evolved over this past year and how the pandemic has fueled more changes.

So, you want to hire an agency to help you launch your next big marketing thing. A flagship advertising campaign, maybe. Or a spiffy new website. Now, you already know how important your request for proposal (RFP) is, or else you probably wouldn’t be here. But take it from us: a rushed or boilerplate RFP can be like putting honey out to attract bees—you’ll just end up getting brown bears and carpenter ants.

The coming year will present new challenges for dental marketing professionals. COVID-19 has created tremendous uncertainty, economic instability, and political volatility. Within the world of dentistry, where so much person-to-person contact is required to provide care, safety is top of mind for everyone involved.

Your online reputation is too important to neglect. It influences patients’ perceptions of your brand and determines if they’ll choose your healthcare organization when conducting research online. Our hosts discuss the role online reviews play in the patient journey, how reviews impact local SEO, and the essential steps healthcare organizations need to take to build and protect their online reputation.

There’s a new digital marketing paradigm that dental service organizations (DSOs) are finally realizing. Today, so much of the patient’s journey has moved online. If you’re not present, you’ll fail to build the kind of demand necessary to scale your dental organization.

As competition in the dental industry has increased, more dentists and DSOs have realized that investing in digital marketing is no longer an option. If you want to reach healthcare consumers, you need to go where they spend their time. One of the best ways to reach people online is through Facebook. The famed often embroiled social media platform enjoys more than 1.79 billion daily active users (a number that’s increasing 10%+ annually).

In July, Google Ads will be rolling out a new update for its platform. They are taking away broad match modifiers and replacing them by expanding phrase match. By doing so, advertisers will be able to target a more-specific audience; their ads will match the intent a user is searching for. Listen as our hosts discuss the ins and outs of the Google Ads update and the reasons behind this new shift.

To help people in the digital era, you need to be able to reach them online. One of the best ways to do so is through social media and, more specifically, Facebook. With its 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook is an absolute juggernaut. For addiction centers, this platform—and Facebook Ads, specifically—is a perfectly viable way to maximize your center’s reach, build brand awareness, and nurture prospects until they’re ready to seek help.

In the past year, the healthcare industry has experienced tremendous uncertainty and economic instability. Many questions remain on what the future of healthcare looks like and how marketers can connect with healthcare consumers. Our hosts dig into the State of Healthcare Marketing in 2021 survey results and discuss the digital marketing strategies that will help healthcare organizations bounce back in 2021.

Digital marketing agencies are like a box of chocolates. Only, you do have some control over what you get. It just takes a more complete understanding of the types of digital marketing agencies that are out there, how they work, and which is the best likely fit based on your specific needs. Take it from us: it’s not always a good fit, and that’s okay!

People take their healthcare needs seriously. Before making healthcare decisions, they go online to research their options, evaluate providers, and read reviews. Your online reputation influences their perception of your brand and determines if they’ll choose your healthcare organization. Your digital reputation is too important to neglect.

Google has big things planned for 2021. Several updates that have been postponed due to the pandemic are finally making their debut. Cardinal’s Director of SEO, John McAlpin, reviews Google’s mobile-first indexing and ranking shift and the upcoming Core Web Vitals update.

Core Web Vitals establishes three metrics related to speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. These new metrics combine with existing page experience metrics, like HTTPS-security and safe browsing, and will become a new ranking signal called page experience. Google will use the page experience signal to determine whether or not a page is providing a good user experience. If it is, it’ll rank that page higher.

For an industry that depends on an ability to reach people and provide care, healthcare still struggles to keep up with the latest digital marketing trends. Data analytics, marketing tracking, and reporting are particularly lacking, due in part to three common challenges: Lack of funding and marketing budget, siloed departments and functions (especially in larger health systems), and need to protect and adhere to HIPAA.

Smart marketers know it’s not SEO versus PPC; you need both. See how these two foundational tactics work together to increase brand awareness and your visibility on search.

Anybody who’s had a cavity or two knows just how important dental health really is. But that’s just the thing: people usually go to the dentist only when they need to (they have a toothache or a chipped molar) or they’re getting their annual cleaning. For the most part, it’s just not a high-consideration medical decision the way orthopedic surgery, addiction recovery, and even plastic surgery tend to be. You fit your dental appointment in when it’s most convenient to your life.

With all the buzz around the “mobile-first” experience, you might be wondering just how important mobile optimization is in healthcare marketing. Here’s the long and short of it: better mobile websites and overall digital experiences need to be an investment priority moving forward.

The battle that has been brewing between Apple and Facebook is coming to a head and marketers need to prepare their digital advertising campaigns. As Apple’s iOS operating system upgrades to version 14, it is introducing privacy policies that will affect how Facebook handles ads.

The healthcare industry is experiencing fundamental shifts and more organizations are fueling growth through innovative digital strategies. Here’s how 3 healthcare marketing experts are using digital to attract and engage patients.

Is COVID-19 over yet? We wish, but not quite. Though change is on the horizon, the pandemic lingers on. As does the demand for telehealth. Out of preference or necessity, many patients still prefer the telehealth option unless an in-person visit is absolutely necessary. Many people are not willing to go back to their primary care provider just yet. In other words, people are on the fence.

This episode of Ignite takes a look at the biggest changes that have occurred in healthcare marketing in the past year. Our hosts discuss how the pandemic has accelerated virtual care adoption, shifted marketing messaging, and pushed more healthcare organizations online as they try to recoup patient volume.

No year passes without change, but 2020 was in many ways profound. Tumultuous, you might say, given all the new challenges that faced the healthcare industry. How patients seek and receive care underwent fundamental shifts, which extend directly to the world of marketing.

Dominate your local markets and rank higher in Google Maps when you implement these local SEO best practices for your multi-location medical practice.Hosted By:Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing Watch the Recording Quotes From the Webinar: “[Conversations] come from your location and your service pages. They don't come from your blog. Your blog is [...]

At first glance, marketing and addiction treatment centers might seem like strange bedfellows. A closer look at how people struggling with addiction seek help, however, reveals that marketing—and search engine optimization (SEO), more specifically—makes a lot of sense.

For addiction treatment centers, this first page of Google search results is an opportunity to connect with people who need help in the area. From a marketing perspective, there are two primary ways to do so: SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements.

Welcome to the new Ignite Digital Marketing Podcast. We’re bringing together Cardinal’s top healthcare marketing experts to share the high-level digital strategies and tactical advice that will help you reach more patients and grow your organization.

Your digital reputation can permeate all the digital channels that people use to find you online. Just do a simple search for rehab centers in your city to see what we mean. Every search engine results page (SERP) and Google Maps experience includes reviews, star ratings, and so on.

Understandably, people tend to scrutinize dental practices before pulling the trigger. How? They go online to read the latest reviews, for one. Generally speaking, nearly 60 percent of patients have decided against a healthcare provider based on negative online reviews. Overall, 34 percent of people consider online reputation to be an important part of their decision-making process.

The beginning of the patient journey boils down to: a “prospect” picks up their smartphone and searches Google. What exactly do they search for? Maybe it’s a specific type of plastic surgery in their city—an “Atlanta tummy tuck,” for example. A “Pacific Beach breast reduction surgeon.” Or maybe they type in a longer-form query to get more in-depth information about a particular procedure they’re considering (“how long does breast augmentation recovery take?”).

What does 2021 have in store for plastic surgeons? With elective surgeries still suspended in some states, and many patients opting to postpone elective surgeries due to coronavirus, it’s hard to say. What we do know is that the competitive landscape is likely to remain white-hot.

Keywords are the foundation of search engine optimization (SEO) in healthcare. They’re the language that people use to look online for information and answers related to their health. They’re embedded on website pages, blog posts, and social media. They’re the very fundamental “stuff” that search engines use to connect patients with what they need online.

As a patient and healthcare consumer, there’s something attractive about getting digital updates directly from local and national healthcare providers. It’s an authoritative, trusted voice to turn to for guidance, recommendations, and reassurance. For healthcare providers and medical practices, this “natural value” has tremendous potential.

There’s no other way to put it: healthcare marketers have their work cut out for them in 2021. Even though agility and adaptability are nothing new to the work of a healthcare marketer, it has never felt quite like this. COVID-19 has created tremendous uncertainty, economic instability, and political volatility. Locally, nationally, and globally, healthcare is both top of mind and totally upturned.

As important as your next breakfast burrito might be, there’s a difference between picking up your smartphone to find good Mexican food and seeking a local healthcare provider. People take their healthcare needs seriously. Finding the right surgeon, dentist, or primary care physician is very often a life decision.

Another year, another period of considerable growth for the dental industry. Healthy smiles don’t go out of business, it seems. Take the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing privately-held companies, for example. The 2020 list includes a lot of dental group practices, dental support organizations (DSOs), and dental companies. As GroupDentistryNow.com points out, there are 34 dental-related companies on the 2020 list, 18 of which are “dental care providers with a mix of DSOs, single location dental practices, and dental group practices.”

While the outside world might seem like a ghost town, at least for the time being, lots and lots of people are going online each and every day. That goes for the world of healthcare, too, where people tend to turn to their smartphones first when they need medical care. Pandemic or not, much of the patient journey is now conducted online and will be into the foreseeable future.

Healthcare marketers can learn a lot from JetBlue. Seriously. In recent years, the budget air carrier has totally revamped its customer experience, to wide and well-deserved acclaim. How did they do it? They put the customer experience at the center of their entire design. Today, things are much easier for passengers flying with JetBlue, from self-check-in and bag drop to a handy dandy mobile app.

Daily health-related searches total 70,000 a minute. That’s more than a billion healthcare-related searches a day. Plastic surgeons, listen up. With that many prospective patients looking for care, it’s no surprise that the top spots on search engine results pages (SERPs) are very competitive. No matter how large or small your plastic surgery practice is, you’re likely battling it out with other practices, vendors selling to hospitals, and even health insurance companies.

Remember when CVS and Aetna announced their merger back in 2017? At the time, it was the latest blockbuster in a series of high-profile healthcare mergers, a trend that has continued into 2021. Cone Health and Sentara. Four hospitals on the south side of Chicago merge. Tenet Healthcare just announced plans to acquire up to 45 ambulatory surgery centers.

Now more than ever, patients call the shots. Thanks to 24/7 internet access and unprecedented access to information, patients can be a lot more selective when it comes to finding and choosing a healthcare provider. Maybe they want to switch primary care providers. Or maybe they need to find a reputable implant surgeon for the dental procedure they need.

Gain guidance on the top trends impacting patient acquisition by viewing a round table hosted by Cardinal Digital Marketing, with some of the nation’s leading healthcare marketing experts.Hosted By:Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing Kelly Hammons, Executive Director: Business Development at Cameron Memorial Hospital Amanda Howard, Director of Marketing at CityVet Blair Primis, SVP [...]

When we talk about driving growth with search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC), we’re talking about ways to get to the top of the search engine results. We’re talking about outranking competitors and outstripping advertisers. We’re talking about winning both organic and paid search engine traffic.

How far the world of healthcare marketing has come. Think back to 1990, when urgent care centers were originally designed to fill gaps in the health service chain. Since then, urgent care facilities have evolved into a unique niche within the healthcare industry.

Despite their recent hype, chatbots are not a new phenomenon. The technology has been around for many years. In fact, you’ve likely encountered chatbots in your myriad internet adventures. Today, they’re everywhere, poking and prodding you from the bottom-right corner of every website. From basic question-answer bots to AI-powered healthcare chatbots like Baidu’s Melody, chatbots can create tremendous value.

While we watch hospitals in Utah, Des Moines, and other midwestern cities become overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, we’re reminded of yet another problem brewing throughout the United States’ healthcare system: surgical backlogs. Exacerbated by the widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the backlog of outstanding surgeries has grown to near-record levels.

The world of healthcare is all about people. From patients and their families to the nurses, physicians, and specialists that care for them, people make the whole thing go. And wherever people are the foundation, good storytelling is sure to follow.

Uncertainty seems to be the word du jour for 2020. People are uncertain if it’s safe to travel, go out to restaurants, or send their children back to the classroom. This is especially true within the healthcare space, where consumers are continuing to defer treatment out of an abundance of perceived caution.

So much of the external circumstances shaking things up in 2020 are inextricably tied to the world of healthcare. Here’s to hoping, first and foremost, that a lot of things get a whole lot better in 2021. As healthcare marketers look to their 2021 strategies, there’s certainly room for optimism. As we see it, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, in particular, presents a tremendous opportunity for healthcare organizations to survive the pandemic and emerge even stronger.

Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, hospitals have been at the forefront of global pandemic response. When we here talk of “at capacity” ICUs, ventilators, and PPE—case surges, staff shortages, and new details about the disease itself—we’re often talking about hospitals and hospital staff.

For better or worse, a complete return to normalcy seems unlikely, especially in the world of healthcare. Now that we’ve had a chance to settle into the whole quarantine, wear-a-mask, and social distancing thing, it’s clear that COVID-19 has dramatically impacted the behaviors of healthcare consumers.

Gain guidance on how to navigate these challenging times by viewing a round table hosted by Cardinal Digital Marketing, with some of the nation’s leading healthcare marketing experts.Hosted By:Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing Jennifer Schultz, Senior Vice President of OU Medicine Cody Lee, Vice President of Summit Partners Leslie Gibbs, CMO of Modern [...]

In facing a global pandemic, patients and providers everywhere are being forced to re-evaluate access to healthcare. For patients, the days of personal house calls made by the family pediatrician seem quite distant. Senior care and elective surgeries might never be the same. And for physicians, well—most healthcare organizations are still strictly limiting in-person care on an as-needed basis.

The patient experience has drastically changed in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Out of an abundance of caution, patients now have to jump through new hoops to seek medical care, including new appointment procedures, telehealth requirements, and increased wait times.

Amy Marshall walks us through how the healthcare industry must pivot business to provide COVID services to increase revenue through trying times. The willingness to change your business model within healthcare marketing will help keep your business afloat.Resources from this interview Automated Female Voice: Welcome to the IGNITE Podcast, where we help marketers and CEOs [...]

The primary goal of a healthcare marketer is to attract and retain patients. Behind every hospital or urgent care facility serving a particular community, every “body contouring” brand providing elective plastic surgeries, there’s a marketing function hard at work. And while the types of medical practices vary, there is one undercurrent running throughout them all: data.

Paul Gross walks us through how the evolution of optometry marketing through the years has moved more to digital marketing to increase sales for National Vision. Then, he explains how personalizing ads and tailoring content for specific posts in certain areas will make the biggest difference in marketing successfully.Resources from this interview Announcer: Welcome to [...]

When Cardinal Digital Marketing first started, we were strictly an SEO agency. Although we’ve diversified with time, we remain heavily invested in this aspect of digital marketing for our clients. Why? Because the first place people go to find a healthcare provider is usually their favorite search engine. Ranking at the top of search results is one of the most pivotal pieces to a healthcare provider’s marketing and patient acquisition strategy. Local SEO is especially critical for healthcare providers as people prefer to see medical professionals located near where they live and work. Nearly all of our healthcare clients have some kind of physical location where they see patients.

The job of a healthcare marketer involves a lot of moving parts, from how you first engage a total stranger coming across your brand for the first time, to how you follow up with a patient to ensure they’ve had a great experience. Being both easy to find and a trusted resource for medical information is at the very center of a healthcare marketer’s work, but, fortunately, most times you can’t do one well without simultaneously accomplishing the other.

Here at Cardinal Digital Marketing, we give out advice to many different industries. We write blog posts about marketing for the healthcare industry, restaurants, the legal field, franchises, and more. All those industries have one thing in common: they want to rank at the top of the search engine results page, especially for local searches. Many turn to Search engine optimization (SEO) because investing in robust advertising campaigns can become costly. Comparatively, SEO is relatively inexpensive. Sure, there are startup costs, like buyer intent and keyword research, content writing, and website optimization. But once you start ranking for the keywords that drive leads, the business walks in the door all by itself.

In the healthcare industry, inbound phone calls have always played a significant role in the customer journey. In fact, Google reports that 56% of patients schedule their healthcare appointments over the phone even after doing extensive research online. On the healthcare provider side of things, speaking with patients on the phone can be a powerful way to guide them in the right direction and drive marketing and revenue objectives while doing it.

But there are an incredible number of benefits to doctors and practitioners as well. Unnecessary visits can be reduced, or altogether eliminated. Doctors can get more involved with their patients. And, of course, they can reach a wider patient base.

For healthcare consumers, your website serves many important purposes. First and foremost, your site is a place for consumers to find your physical location, book appointments, and explore detailed information about your services, physicians, and products.

From SEO to PPC to review generation, Kurt and I cover all of the quickest wins to help achieve growth in a multi-location healthcare group.Resources from this interview [music] Voice Prompt: Welcome to the Ignite podcast, where we help marketers and CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. [...]

COVID-19 and stay-at-home orders have changed the way marketers do business, forcing us to be innovative in the ways that we serve consumers. Together, we’ve shown how nimble the healthcare industry can be by quickly putting new methods into practice, such as telehealth, to make sure patients can get the care they need.

To be the best in any business, you have to learn, take risks, and iterate your strategies. Those that fine-tune their marketing strategies are better able to meet evolving consumer needs and grow their healthcare organization.

Cody walks us through how you can get buy-in for your maketing campaigns and how to keep yourself sharp amidst the changing world of digital marketing. Finally, we delve into how you can work on your attribution solution (that ryhmed!) without any fancy tools.Resources from this interview Alex Membrillo: Hey, everybody. I'm really excited to [...]

Telemedicine, often called “telehealth,” brings healthcare to the patient when they can’t get to their provider through real-time audio-visual visits between a provider and patient. Right now, telehealth is playing a significant role in the way that providers treat patients during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has all healthcare marketers pivoting to patient communications, emergency and “essential” service line adjustments, and telemedicine integrations. Much of the traditional patient acquisition talk has gone out of the window as we focus on keeping both our healthcare workers safe and our patients well-cared for.

Leslie Gibbs is wasting no time in prioritizing technology & lead generation at Modern Vascular. Listen in to hear all the marketing tactics she is deploying!Resources from this interview Announcer: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast where we help marketers and CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. This [...]

At its core, healthcare is about taking care of the patient. While long ago a patient’s experience likely involved a telephone and an in-person appointment, things are far different nowadays. Most patients begin their journey online. Some of those journeys end online, too. In a recent consumer healthcare survey, 81% of patients reported that they read reviews about doctors even with a referral, and 63% choose their providers based on a strong online presence. When it’s time to make an appointment, nearly 50% prefer to make their request through some digital channel, further underscoring the significant shift in preference toward digital experiences.

Hernando walks us through how he is growing NYP, one of the world’s premier medical institutions affiliated with the renowned medical schools of Columbia and Cornell, is a leader in medical education, groundbreaking research, and innovative, patient-centered clinical care.Resources from this interview [music] Announcer: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast, where we help marketers and CEOs [...]

For most business websites, securing the top position on Google is the ultimate goal. A medical website is no different.

The content, length, grammar, and tone of your headlines determine whether a person will click on your headline or not. If your headlines don’t appeal to your target audience, your content will go unread.

Chryssa walks us through the variety of marketing & branding strategies she uses to maintain PHMG's status as the top dog in town.Resources from this interview [music] Narrator: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast, where we help marketers and CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. This isn't your [...]

If you’re trying to reach more people and SEO isn’t proving effective, you might want to consider paid search advertising. Paid search, specifically using Google Ads, can get you front of a large—highly targeted—audience quickly

Blair shares phenomenal tips on how he is adding online scheduling, more centers, and quicker visits to grow OrthoCarolina!Resources from this interview Voice over: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast where we help marketers and CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. This isn't your typical marketing podcast. We [...]

The future of healthcare marketing is here and it’s increasingly powered by patient experiences. Healthcare consumers are now, more than ever, in the driver’s seat.

Search isn’t the only way to get people to your website. There are many other channels that you can use and it’s important to diversify your traffic sources. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket.

The extent to which a medical practice can capture, share, and act on data will determine its success in so many aspects of business. Beyond that, your ability to meet and exceed customer expectations—to improve the patient experience and quality of care—will depend on your ability to make the most of your data.

Marketers are allocating a greater portion of their advertising budgets to digital channels now. Digital advertising platforms offer increasingly precise data to marketers, so they’re able to reach their customers more effectively. PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook report predicts that by 2022, more than 50% of advertising budgets will be digital. Earlier this year, [...]

In the constant struggle to get noticed on the Interwebs, search engine optimization (SEO) is important. Like, really important. For proof, look no further than the thousands of SEO companies out there offering outsourced SEO packages.

Facebook advertisers have an arsenal of tools for engaging their audiences, which is why Facebook takes up 38% of the entire online advertising revenue in the U.S.

In this article, we’ll share tips on how SEO can help you attract new patients to your practice. We’ll explain how to use these simple strategies, which don’t require much technical knowledge, and help you attract new patients and retain existing ones.

Year after year, social media use has increased. Since 2018, worldwide users have increased by 9% and now total 3.5 billion. Social media platforms are constantly evolving as they grow and adapt to consumer behavior and incorporate new technologies.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a form of digital marketing that’s widely used today, not only because it’s cheap but because it delivers impressive results. Because of its ability to drive leads, an increasing number of companies are incorporating PPC advertising into their marketing strategy. 

Now more than ever, people have a renewed focus on health and wellness. Patients are demanding better services to improve the quality of their lives. As a result, many options for care have appeared and competition is fierce in many healthcare markets. If you continue to use dated marketing techniques, the chances of growth are [...]

As online competition continues to increase and new websites are being launched, it’s time to rethink your content marketing strategy and invest in SEO. Websites must meet specific requirements set by search engines like Google, and this is where SEO strategy becomes very important.

You must know what SEO trends are on the horizon so that you can update your website accordingly and ensure that more prospects and customers find you in the search engine results.

At your medical practice, it’s likely that your ultimate goal is to help as many people as possible to live healthy lives. This can be difficult if potential patients don't know that you exist. Implementing a solid marketing strategy is vital if you’re looking to grow your practice. So, how do you increase your medical [...]

When people have health-related problems, they urgently seek answers and help from reputable experts. The first step in getting this information is often a visit to a search engine. Research has shown that “77 percent of patients conduct an online search before making an appointment with a physician.” If you want to reach potential patients, [...]

Utilizing search engines in your digital marketing strategy is the best way to drive sustainable leads and sales for your business. Because when your website ranks high in the search engine results page, it results in organic traffic and leads. Recently, HubSpot conducted a survey showing that“57% of B2B marketers stated that SEO generates more [...]

Jennifer walks through the details of how she and her team are increasing patient volume in a big way this year!Resources from this interview [music] Speaker 1: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast. Where we help marketers and CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. This isn't your typical [...]

There are countless factors that impact the success of your dental practice. Consumer rights, public policy, health trends. But one of the most influential components that dictates the fate of your practice is the demographics of your patients.

For many people, understanding medical information can be challenging. Even though healthcare practitioners are enthusiastic and willing to help, people can get lost amid the technical jargon. Medical content that is too technical can fail to connect and engage with potential patients. Think about it, as a healthcare practitioner what's the point of producing content [...]

If you’re reading this post, you know how important local SEO is for your local business. In simple terms, if you’re not ranking high enough for search terms related to your business in your area then in the Google map pack, you’re probably leaving a lot of money on the table. Your business deserves better! [...]

It’s accurate to say that Google is the number one search engine, and it’s clear that in the world of search engines, Google has the final word when it comes to instituting ranking factors. The other search engines out there- Yahoo!, Bing, Safari- simply follow the big G. Essentially, if your site ranks highly on [...]

As a medical practitioner, you want to help as many people as you can live healthy lives. But how can you reach more people if you’re attracting zero patients already? Our Healthcare Marketing Agency offers SEO solution or paid search service that can help you to generate high-quality leads/new patients to your medical practice. Think [...]

When it comes to SEO, there are several opportunities and techniques that could help you to rank higher in the search results. But it does take some time to figure out how to do it right. Cardinal Digital Marketing can help you with your SEO. As a premier SEO company, offering full SEO Services, let [...]

Have you dabbled in digital advertising and Google Ads, but haven’t gotten the results you were looking for? Did you feel like you were spending a lot of money, but not getting many new patients? If so, you may want to consider revamping your Google Ad campaigns. According to the Google Economic Impact Report, businesses [...]

For your medical practice, driving leads to your website translates to driving more customers into your business. And one of the best ways to generate qualified leads is to use search engines. Check out our SEO services or ask us any question here. Many of your potential customers use search engines to find medical professionals [...]

Did you know that Facebook advertising can help you to reach your offline audience better for conversions than what you can generate online? In fact, you can use Facebook ads to promote online and offline products, services, and events regardless of the competition. That’s just one aspect of social media advertising services that we offer [...]

There are countless factors that impact the success of your dental practice. Consumer rights, public policy, health trends. But one of the most influential components that dictates the fate of your practice is the demographics of your patients.

Ben Goodman plans to continue growing CareSpot & MedPost through increasingly effective and trend setting digital advertising strategies.Resources from this interview [music] [00:00:01] Recorded Audio: Welcome to the Ignite podcast, where we help marketers and CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. This isn't your typical Marketing podcast. [...]

Due to the advent of the internet connecting people like never before, you now have the opportunity to get customers from all around the world. However, one detail many businesses forget is that people within their 10-mile radius are probably their best potential customers. People in your locality continue to use search engines to find [...]

Christina Fleming understands that it takes a consistent brand and message if you want to resonate with your local population.Resources from this interview [background music] [00:00:00] Voice over: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast, where we help marketers and CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. This isn't your [...]

Anaye Milligan, Director of Marketing for Houston Methodist, is focusing his team on lead quality and using technology to better understand marketing ROIResources from this interview Podcast Announcer: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast where we help marketers and CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. This isn't your [...]

Brittaney shares tips on how she helps MSM's community involvement and awareness.Resources from this interview Announcer: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast where we help marketers & CEOs learn the latest tips and tricks to help ignite growth in their business. This isn't your typical marketing podcast. We push beyond platitudes to deliver you real-world stories [...]

Hey everyone! On today's episode of Ignite I am honored to say we have one of the top healthcare marketers in the country on the line with us. Matt Gove was the first to put reviews of doctors on a medical website and now he is the first to integrate with a CRM and tie [...]

There are roughly seven billion people on Planet Earth. Roughly 2 billion of those people are on Facebook. No other online network boasts that kind of dominance. Not even close. It’s safe to say that no matter your industry, no matter your niche, a significant percentage of your target market actively uses Facebook.

There are countless factors that impact the success of your dental practice. Consumer rights, public policy, health trends. But one of the most influential components that dictates the fate of your practice is the demographics of your patients.

Most people know that poor oral hygiene can lead to gum disease, tooth decay and, of course, bad breath. But not too many people know that poor dental hygiene can lead to a host of other more serious illnesses.

A child’s first visit to the dentist is like a rite of passage. But it’s also a necessity. The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) recommends that a child go to the dentist by age 1 or within six months after the first tooth erupts.

Women are far more likely to be proactive about maintaining their oral health, according to a 2011 article published in the Journal of Periodontology.

We live in the world of data. No place is that more evident than in the medical field. In fact, in 2012, Forbes predicted that Technology will replace 80% of what doctors will do. They’re not entirely wrong. "Most doctors couldn’t possibly read and digest all of the latest 5,000 research articles on heart disease,” [...]

Facebook ads can be tricky and confusing for new advertisers. Even for experienced marketers, there’s always something new to learn.

There was a time when Baby Boomers were the largest segment of the U.S. population, but that time has passed. There are now some 83.1 million Millennials in the U.S. today (people born between 1982 and 2000) according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

While organic marketing strategies (SEO) can be effective in growing the reach of your practice, most medical professionals still prefer to invest their dollars in PPC campaigns, and for good reason. Clicks on paid search listings beat out organic clicks by nearly a 2:1 margin.

Amazon, the e-commerce company widely known for selling virtually everything under the sun, has reportedly created a secret lab (called 1492), aimed at bringing the massive company into the healthcare technology space.

Physician Dr. Sonia Henry recently published an article, on http://kevinmd.com, titled Doctors: Don’t lose your humanity, in which she discusses how important it is for professionals in the medical field to retain their humanity.

77% of Adults Own a Smartphone. How Do You Connect to Mobile Patients? If common sense hasn’t helped you realize just how prevalent mobile devices are in today’s search society, maybe a recent Pew Research Center report will: “Today just over one-in-ten American adults are “smartphone-only” internet users – meaning they own a smartphone, but [...]

Over the last month or so, two rather significant media outfits (MTV News and FOX Sports) announced they were ditching written content entirely, and instead focusing their efforts on video.

This shift even has a fancy term: “pivoting to video.” And aside from meaning layoffs for content creators with a writing background, the recent pivots by folks like FOX and MTV may actually impact how you market your medical practice.

This shift toward video isn’t exactly new. It started a few years ago, right about the time that Facebook changed its News Feed ranking system. During that algorithmic update, FB began to weigh videos more heavily than links to external articles.

Have you ever noticed that some web pages show up above the first search result? Not only do these pages appear above the other organic results, but they are also displayed in a far more attractive, eye-catching manner. How do pages achieve what we like to call “position zero”? They do it through a featured snippet.

Over the last few months, politicians in Washington have openly discussed completely repealing the Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare) and replacing it with something deemed as more sustainable. This article isn’t designed to fan the flames of politics. Its purpose isn’t to set one side against another. What it is intended to do is to help medical practices – be them small solo operations or multi-location clinics and hospitals – identify a very specific need shared by their patients and prospective patients alike.

Since the dawn of marketing, customers have mistrusted paid advertising. They know better than to believe that 3 out of 4 dentists choose one toothpaste over another, and they know better than to think that a bottle of beer will transport them to an island paradise. That’s been true since the time when radio and TV reigned supreme, and it stands true today in the digital age, particularly as social media ads and sponsored content have become more and more prevalent.

The medical industry is increasingly turning to content-led strategies to create and nurture relationships at all stages of the customer journey. And it’s paying off. A 2015 Aberdeen study shows nearly 8x year-on-year-traffic for content marketing leaders versus followers. Content marketing adopters can also expect to see 6x greater conversion rates than non-adopters.

But those actions, alone, aren’t enough to boost your website conversions. While changing your call-to-action button color to red, green, or polka dots might help, if you really want to grow your website conversions and get more prospective patients for your practice, you need to focus on the types of offers you’re promoting. Folks who […]

A recent report publicized by Search Engine Land suggests that more than 60% of searches are now performed on a mobile device. With more mobile devices in use, your potential patients find it easier to use their voice to conduct a search rather than type on a tiny screen. That means you, as a medical […]

How can you tell which of your marketing strategies are working effectively? That’s where we recommend call tracking to most of your medical professional clients. Call tracking analyzes individual phone calls based on how the callers accessed the phone numbers they’re dialing. That little piece of added tracking data is enough to clear the fog […]

When it comes to turning online visitors and leads into patients, there are a lot of marketing tactics you can employ. However, more often than not, what it boils down to, is psychology. Understanding a bit about behavioral psychology can help you understand why your audience does (or doesn’t) take actions online. One of the most effective marketing tactics to use – that’s built on the foundation of customer psychology, is social proof.

There was a period of time when digital marketers and SEOs swore by the shorter-is-sweeter approach to content. Articles and blogs that hovered between 300-600 words seemed to be long enough for search engines to find them, but short enough for people to appreciate them.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. And even if that were true, these “kids” are among the people in the country who are in need of the services you offer at your rehab center. The reality is social media networks like Facebook are where your target audiences spend a considerable amount of […]

Still, an ad’s headline remains its most important feature. Within your text ad, your description line, display URL, and ad extensions only exist to complement the headlines. Where are your eyes drawn to in the ad above? Chances are, the headline demands your attention. In fact, many online searchers all but ignore the other text […]

Organic website traffic is pure gold if you know how to use it to your advantage. The important thing to remember is that unlike paid or direct traffic, organic visitors came to your website by clicking on one of your pages or posts that Google ranked high. As a result, there’s a very good chance these visitors have never heard of you or your practice. And that, right there, is why so many medical professionals out there don’t understand how they can get a lot of web traffic, but fail to make conversions. They’re not speaking the right language to these organic visitors!

And while you might be able to come up with your own AdWords keywords, it’s worth your while to check out the free Keyword Planner built into your AdWords account. But to even access your keyword planner, you need to first officially create your AdWords account: Setting up your account means essentially creating your first […]

Of course, that umbrella phrase – digital marketing – can be a bit vague. One man’s idea of digital marketing might not reflect another’s. So, when we talk about growing your medical practice through digital marketing, what exactly do we mean? Here at Cardinal, we invest a lot of time, energy, and passion into working […]

Search engines are often the first place people go to find help for their addiction. These SEO tips will help your rehab facility be found when they go searching. Marketing services are a necessity for any business, but it’s a particularly delicate matter for drug and alcohol addiction treatment centers. On one hand, you don’t [...]

That’s right. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other platforms can add true value to your marketing efforts. But first thing’s first. You have to have a presence on these platforms if you ever want to make any headway. But before you go out and create a handful of profiles for your dental practice, ask […]

Long before online ratings and reviews were the norm, there was Yelp, a small but growing platform that gave normal guys and gals one singular place to make – and seek out – reviews from the trenches. Now, Yelp is synonymous with internet reviews. Can’t decide which restaurant to go to for brunch? Check out Yelp! Wondering if that hair salon downtown is worth visiting? Use Yelp!

According to BrightLocal: 80% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations 60% of consumers need to read four or more reviews to perform an opinion Nearly half of all prospective patients say a doctor’s reputation matters But if you happen to have negative content posted online associated with your practice – regardless […]

But you’re likely asking yourself: how can I possibly find the time to blog and post on social media regularly when I have a practice to run? Fortunately, there is a way for you to make a tremendous impact with your marketing efforts, without investing an incredible amount of time or energy. That solution is […]

And while there are many components to an SEO strategy for medical practices, one of the most important – yet interestingly easy – steps to take is to set up your Google My Business. Google My Business is a free service that gives your medical practice a solid presence on Google. The information you provide […]

One of the biggest concerns with using pay-per-click ads is the potential expense associated with it. But you can control and limit that spending by ensuring your ads are only shown to geographic regions that matter to your practice – be it an entire city or just a few blocks within that city. That’s where geotargeting comes into play. Geotargeting – also known as local PPC – is a feature built into AdWords that lets you target your ads to prospective patients in a certain location, or set of locations, that you specify.

When bidding on a keyword for your PPC campaigns, you have to choose your preferred keyword match type. This match type tells Google how you want it to match your ads to keyword searches. When advertising in Google AdWords, you have four keyword match types to choose from – broad match, modified broad match, phrase match, and exact match. But how do you know which match type is right for your campaign? Let’s break it down for you.

If you aren’t using sitelink extensions with your Google ads, then your medical practice is missing out on attracting qualified prospects to your website. While AdWords boasts a few types of ad extensions, the most versatile of these extensions are sitelinks, which show links to specific pages of your website under your ad text. Thanks to sitelinks, you can consume more real estate on the search engine results pages and share more relevant information with your audience.

Regardless of if you’re new to AdWords or have run successful PPC campaigns for your healthcare practice, you likely know that keywords play a huge role in your strategy. Most folks spend a great deal of time determining which keywords will result in more clicks and higher conversions. But how much thought have you given to building a negative keyword list?

Not everyone who visits your website the first go-around is ready to schedule a consultation or make some other form of conversion. In fact, 97% of visitors, on average, don’t complete any type of action during their first visit to a website. Perhaps they stumbled onto your site from an optimized blog you published. They got the information they needed and decide to close out of your site. That’s a lost lead, right? Wrong. Thanks to remarketing you now can connect with past visitors to your website (through targeted ads) as they browse elsewhere around the web.

As you look to grow your healthcare practice, you typically turn to two types of digital strategies: Organic/SEO strategies and Paid Advertising (PPC). While organic/SEO strategies can be very effective, they tend to take a long time to make an impact and can be challenging to scale with predictable results, which is why most healthcare practices rely on paid advertising to drive exponential growth.

We’ll be the first to admit that local business and healthcare directories aren’t the prettiest things to look at on the web. But despite their visual shortcomings, healthcare directories are, without question, a fantastic way for you to get your practice on the radar of local prospects.

Long before there was even the Internet, public relations professionals worked hard to build relationships and find press opportunities for their clients. Fast-forward to today, and PR pros still subscribe to the same mission; only, their approach has become digitized. These days, one of the most effective ways to “build relationships” on the web is through high-quality links that direct back to your site. How can you build your database of high-quality links that not only broadens your audience reach but can also improve your rankings in search engine results pages?

From PPC ads to social network advertising, deciding which type of paid digital advertising to use for your next healthcare marketing campaign can be a challenge. This guide covers the three most important types of paid digital advertising to help you decide which is right for your marketing needs

You might have heard the phrase content is king. While it’s true that developing quality, unique content (like articles, podcasts, graphics, and videos) is key to getting found online, content alone isn’t enough to get you ranking high on search engines like Google. Much to the dismay of many, there are some technical SEO aspects to factor in. But before you roll your eyes or open your wallets to pay for a pricey SEO expert to do the work, check out our handy guide, designed to help you manage and optimize the 6 technical website modifications that can build your rankings.

Ranking high on Google’s results pages is good but for healthcare practices- ranking high for Local Searches is far more important. In general, Google places a tremendous emphasis on local searches, and for good reason. Take, for example, folks searching for a doctor or hospital. What good is it for Google to come back with results in a city 5 hours away? Rather, they do what they can to emphasize and promote the top tier of local searches, which is what the Local 3-Pack (or map pack) is all about.

People tend to go to the web before anywhere else when looking for health answers or looking for a new healthcare provider. By making the most of your presence online, you can significantly increase your visibility and the level of trust you build before a patient ever walks in your door.

Some 350 million daily searches on Google are related to medical symptoms. That is a lot of people turning to the web to find out what’s ailing them! As a result, Google’s announced it’ll start displaying a list of conditions related to symptoms that are described in users’ searches.

Instead, they turn to the words of others to help them come to a decision for their healthcare needs, in the form of: Reviews Testimonials We’ve talked at length about reputation management and how best to protect the online personas of your doctors and organization. But while you can’t entirely control the climate of online […]

That’s why so many orthopedic surgeons invest thousands of dollars on TV ads. But there may be a more effective way to spend your money: social videos. Aside from being far less costly to produce and market, social videos have the advantage of being able to focus on smaller – yet more appropriate – demographics, […]

Regardless of whether you run an entire hospital, or specialize in a specific field (such as plastic surgery or orthopedics), marketing is an integral part of growing your practice. The basic tenet of marketing is: “Go where your customers are.” It doesn’t take an expert to know that your prospective patients spend an overwhelming amount of time online, specifically on social media.

Most physicians today seldom give Pinterest a second glance as a viable source for attracting and converting prospective patients. But late 2016 has been very good for the photo-heavy social media platform. Pinterest has grown from 100 million users last year to 150 this year (with 70 million users hailing from the US).

Take, for example, the aging population of baby boomers. As baby boomers are beginning to hit the Medicare age, hospitals would do well to focus energy on specific service lines like: Geriatrics Orthopedics Cardiology Oncology Neurosciences But, based on changes in healthcare (and the general view of healthcare), it’s worth considering tying in these service […]

The latest Penguin algorithm update, however, is set to have a much larger impact on the internet as a whole, and is certain to affect the digital marketing strategies of plastic surgeons and their practices. What’s new with the Penguin update? Enter Real Time First, you should know what the Penguin update is in general. […]

Through PPC, you can determine: who clicked on your ad what web pages they visited prior to clicking what actions they took once they landed on your site From this, you can make changes and improvements to your campaigns to help broaden your reach and get the best return on your investment. But here’s the […]

But many of these same physicians – orthopedics included – overlook perhaps the most important aspect of reputation management: implementing a strategy that encourages more positive reviews. This type of proactive approach to your reputation management is directly related to how effective you can be at addressing your negative online comments. It’s a lot like […]

A recent study states that 72% of internet users said they looked online for health information within the past year. That was a few years ago – imagine how many more people rely on the web for their health answers today? Many marketers will rightfully tell you that content marketing is the key to attracting […]

Social media has forever made its mark on cosmetic surgery. People openly share news about their upcoming Botox treatments. Men and women alike post before and after shots on Instagram. More and more people are willing to talk about plastic surgery on social media, making these networks the ideal place for a plastic surgeon to […]

Ruben Mesa, M.D., is the director of the Acute and Chronic Leukemia Program in the Division of Hematology-Oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. His YouTube videos on hematology and oncology topics1 – ranging from myelofibrosis to polycythemia – have been viewed tens of thousands of times. These views have resulted in referrals and patient […]

Of all organic traffic, Google makes up more than 90% of the market, meaning if you want to grow your practice online with digital marketing solutions, you need to set your sights on Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages). More specifically, your goal should be to rank in the top 5 results, as these results […]

But these days, a different acronym is often tossed into the mix as well: H2H, or human to human. This H2H movement is built upon the premise that the humans that make up your target market respond to – and connect with – other humans. In other words, if you want to connect with your […]

The retail industry has used geotargeting to push deals and notifications to consumers based on where these consumers are on any given day. If timed properly, and delivered in a message that speaks to the current mindset of the consumer, these push notifications help retailers lure motivated customers into their stores. There is absolutely no […]

Few things look the same in the 21st century as they did just 30 years ago, but one thing holds true: word of mouth is a huge part of the success of your practice. But how you generate that word of mouth, well, that’s a different story. While happy patients continue to be your best [...]

He’s also highly active on Facebook and YouTube. His video on meniscal tears (and whether surgery is always necessary) has been viewed nearly 175,000 times. And it’s not like he spent thousands of dollars producing some flashy video with every bell and whistle Hollywood has in its toy chest. It’s just him and a camera. […]

Authorities including the Archives of Internal Medicine have observed a link between a patient’s social connectedness and their health. Many articles have been published about the significance of loneliness in an individual’s health, raising public awareness of this issue. By addressing concerns and opening conversation in your digital marketing during July, you can increase online […]

Offer the best value propositions by understanding your patient’s personas and decision making process.

Find the “Next Big Thing” in healthcare digital marketing by conducting an effective market analysis.

See how an accurate competitor analysis can provide invaluable insight into new opportunities and help prepare for longterm digital marketing success.

What are smart goals, and why are they so important for digital marketing success in healthcare?

A successful SEO strategy is a hugely important part of healthcare digital marketing success. Get to know the most important factors in 2016.

Online reviews are part of a new client’s decision making process. Find out what you can do to most effectively manage your reputation online.

Jumpstart brand awareness through harnessing the power of social media with these simple but powerful tips.

Find out why content marketing is such a powerful way to build and nurture relationships with prospective clients in the healthcare industry.

When you’re looking for a doctor, you aren’t going to just go with the first one you find, right? So, where do you turn? You could ask friends, coworkers and family members for suggestions. You could also request a referral from one of your current physicians. Or you could do as Americans increasingly are and […]

Social media has become as important to health care as good bedside manner. For your practice, social media can help you gain new patients, strengthen relationships with current patients and even help you create ‘brand ambassadors’ – patients who promote your practice for you through testimonials and referrals. A recent study found that over 90 […]