Use your blog to convert patients, build your email list, bring in website traffic and grow your practice
Blogging is an important asset to your marketing strategy. While a well-rounded website rich in content should be the basis of your practice outreach, blog posts are an excellent way for you to stand apart from competitors and garner new attention to grow your practice. Not only can you write about your products and services, you can build your email list, improve your website traffic and better your image all at the same time.
Update and connect with patients
Blogging is a pragmatic way to build connections while covering information about your latest products, services and news. Think what content will be helpful to your audience and embrace blogging as a structured way to show off your offerings. Case studies are a good way to show the genuine personalized benefits of what you do. Blogs offer a chance for u to show personality and provide a means for patients and potential patients to learn who you are. Think of your blog as the dynamic counterpart to your website where you can make new content exciting and discuss emerging news in the world of chiropractic.
Make videos:
Video is a great way to let you talk directly to your target audience. According to the State of Video Marketing survey report on Hubspot, “91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, more than any of the previous years since the survey started.”1
Other key survey findings:
- People are 52% more likely to share video content than any other type of content.
- 75% of viewers watch short-form video content on their mobile devices.
- 83% of marketers suggest videos should be under 60 seconds.1
Short, shareable videos should definitely be part of your marketing strategy. And, once you have published a few, all those videos can be uploaded onto a service, such as YouTube or Vimeo, and will continue to live on separate from the blog post.
Use the blog’s comment section:
Remember what makes a blog special: the two-way nature of its communication. Rarely can patients interact with a website even when they have questions or would like to have a conversation with someone about the practice, services or practitioners. The comment section can be an ideal platform for discussion. Patients can offer new perspectives, which can help you make positive changes to your practice and marketing.
Besides connecting with patients, blogging empowers you to…
Build authority
Your image is an extremely influential facet of your practice’s success. Your blog posts build your authority and trustworthiness. Specific blog posts can be given as a reference to patients to answer common questions. Extend that idea further by having your videos loaded on a tablet in your office where patients or potential patients can view answers and be educated. The well-written post establishes you and your practice in a very favorable light. This extensive expertise and more interesting method of bringing information to others will put you at the forefront of your audience’s mind when their chiropractic needs arise.
Give your website a helping hand
On a basic level, blog posts help add material to your website and keep your website up to date. Search engines reward you for new content. The more blog posts you create on a variety of topics, the greater chance a search engine will help direct people to your website through keywords and other factors. You can also increase navigation and traffic throughout your site by internal linking, which is easy but profoundly beneficial; internal links are simply clickable hyperlinks within blog posts that provide readers more information on a topic somewhere else on your website or in a previous blog post. Also keep in mind, older posts can be tweaked and republished with small updates occasionally to keep them relevant and useful.
Maximize readership with social and email marketing
Although search engines will recognize ever-changing content, it’s up to you to drive traffic back to your blog via social media and email marketing. Sharing your blog content via your warm network (people you’ve had some previous contact or relationship with) is the best way to engage with your current market and encourage them to share with their network, allowing your content to be seen by more people. Blogging is a great way to build authority and give back to your network. It’s a win-win.
Increase your exposure
Blog posts provide you with relevant content to share on your social media without having to do much extra work. Post by post, more people will become familiar with your work, and the likelihood your post will be shared across social media platforms increases. People can share a blog post to a variety of platforms, increasing the amount of people who view the post; plus, this audience will also end up on your website, where they can explore further.
Call readers to action
Adding a call-to-action button — something that literally tells readers what to do next, like “subscribe now” — takes your blog traffic and transforms it into new leads for you. Simply add a button offering a free e-book, article, video or anything else that has value and appeal. Then when the viewer acts, they will be required to fill out a form with their information to receive the complimentary item.
Grow your email list
Your blog can attract people to subscribe to your email newsletter. Adding a link to sign up for your emails in every blog post, along with links to other blog posts or past newsletters, will help your prospective and current patients stay in the loop, feeling much more knowledgeable about you and your practice.
Reap the long-term benefits
Incorporating blog posts into your ongoing marketing strategy will provide long-term benefits and will continue to do so for days, months and even years. Your blog can be a modern approach to complement traditional advertising and give you access to broader audience. Essentially, your blog posts form a portfolio of your brand.
ROB BERMAN is a partner at Berman Partners LCC, a medical device sales, service and marketing company specializing in new and pre-owned therapeutic lasers. He also is a partner at Energia Medical LLC, which specializes in light therapy products. Berman helps doctors improve patient outcomes while increasing their income and has held a variety of marketing roles during his career. He can be contacted at 860-707-4220, rob@bermanpartners.com and through bermanpartners.com or energiamedical.com.
CINDY DONALDSON is CEO of Red Barn Consulting LLC, a strategic marketing, sales and business operations consulting firm located in Connecticut. Red Barn’s niche is working with small to medium companies, helping them find their voice, tell their stories and increase revenues by creating and implementing strategic processes and aligning them with innovative marketing and sales plans. Niche markets include health care, insurance and banking. Donaldson can be reached at 860-469-8090 or cindy@redbarnconsultingllc.com. For more information, visit redbarnconsultingllc.com.
Reference
- Bump P. How Video Consumption is Changing in 2023 [New Research]. April 2023. Hubspot’s 2023 annual State of Video Marketing Survey. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-video-consumption-is-changing. Accessed Sept. 18, 2024.