How Can SMS Text Marketing Help Small Medical Practices Grow Without Ad Spend?
The healthcare industry is competitive.
As a practice owner, one of your main goals is to grow your practice by attracting more patients. This may seem superficial, and not how you were originally trained to “think” in medical school, but it is the truth in today’s healthcare environment.
Think of it this way: the more patients that will come in, the more the healthcare sector will be helpful to people around us.
The smartest way to achieve this level of growth is to initiate intelligent and precise marketing strategies.
One of the most effective ways to do this is by using SMS text message marketing. This tool is probably one of the most underrated and overlooked advertising strategies.
Let's unleash its magic here.
How does a good SMS marketing strategy save you money?
SMS marketing is effective and affordable. It cost less than $0.02 to send a text message, and 98% of them are opened and read within 5 minutes. Compare this to emails, where only 30-40% are opened and read. Some great ways to use text message marketing in your medical practice are:
● Educational information about new treatments
● Promotional offers
● Appointment reminders
● Limited-time deals
● Special events
● New service offers
● Filling last-minute cancellations appointment spots
Keeping in touch with your patients using the latest technology lets them know you are knowledgeable, professional, and ready to help them if they have questions.
Text message marketing gives you the opportunity to offer your patients offline and online sources of information as a medical professional.
This will assist you in educating your clientele and enhancing your credibility as a top healthcare practitioner.
While marketing may seem unfamiliar to medical professionals, it is vital to the overall growth plan for your practice. Here’s how digital advertising compares to text message marketing:
DIGITAL ADVERTISING STRATEGIES vs. SMS TEXT MESSAGE MARKETING
The three primary goals of medical marketing are to raise brand awareness, enhance engagement, and increase services. While there are several effective strategies in a complete omnichannel medical marketing plan, what makes SMS Marketing stand out?
1. Easy on the pockets
SMS marketing is one of the least expensive methods of outreach when compared to other types of digital marketing.
It also has one of the greatest ROIs, which is advantageous for healthcare practitioners and the medical industry.
2. Direct line of communication
Let's say an average human being is awake for 14 hours in 24 hours. Do you know how much time he spends looking at his phone screen? Approximately 3.5 hours in a day.
Imagine if you could formulate a strategy to capture his/her attention for a few minutes daily in that 3.5 hours of screentime.
This is what SMS marketing does for your healthcare business. Your potential client will receive an SMS whether he has an internet connection or not. This is what gives it an edge over other strategies.
3. It is automated
Automating your SMS text message marketing is key to consistently booking new appointments.
You can create template message for your practice that automatically send at certain times of the day or week.
These can be batched and scheduled for the entire month, to save your staff time and give you peace of mind.
4. Inform about urgent information
Healthcare practitioners and patients both appreciate the importance of urgency. Every second counts when it comes to a person's life.
Sometimes it is essential to impart information in an instant to prevent emergencies.
Compared to email or other methods, SMS makes it simple to communicate any modifications, rejections, general information, or updates with speed and confidence that your patient received the information as soon as possible.
5. Reminds the patient of upcoming appointments
The medical industry relies on regular appointments, but no-shows or late cancellations are unfortunately, a common challenge.
Text message reminders are an excellent way to ensure that your patients don't forget their appointments and quickly fill cancellation appointments on your books.
Configure an automated SMS to follow up on appointments booked using marketing automation.
SMS is the easiest and fastest way to achieve this, and no other digital marketing strategy can get the same accuracy or results.
What should you know about automated SMS Marketing Strategy?
There are a few things to keep in mind before implementing this powerful strategy.
Realize that there is a time and a place for everything, and SMS marketing is no different.
Think about what makes your practice stand out? The content of your text messages needs to be consistent with your brand.
Ensure your SMS is concise and has all the latest updates. Keep your clients engaged with limited-time offers and deals from time to time.
It is important to not overdo it with too many text messages in a short period of time.
If your overall marketing strategy includes 3-4 promotions a year, coordinate your email and text message marketing to these events.
Anything more than 3-4 text message campaigns a year is too much and you could be seen as spammy.
Set up the best time of day to send the SMS by looking at the statistics. Figure out the most appropriate time for your clients to receive your message and schedule your SMS accordingly.
In conclusion, personalized SMS marketing is an fantastic strategy to get more two-way marketing conversations going with your potential clients and increase conversions.
At just pennies per text, this is the most affordable and effective strategy to take your contacts from just another lead to a paying client.
You May also like:
3 Game-Changing Reasons to Use Automated SMS Messaging for Marketing
5 Tips For Sending Effective SMS Messages and How It Can Grow Your Revenue
