Effective and Ethical Medical Marketing and Media Strategies for Allied Health Personnel
Ethical medical marketing and media done right can have a positive effect on allied health personnel and to patients. Doctors often face challenges in advertising their medical practice. The problem is how the public perceives their field of expertise. People are now able to obtain information online about their ailments that sometimes they self-medicate before turning to their doctor. Sadly, some of the information on the internet may have come from a doctor or nurse, albeit modified or most likely meant for a specific patient. It’s time for allied health to take back medical advertisements and provide a safe way for patients to obtain information and seek the right practitioner.
Online Self-Diagnosis – Patients who Self-Medicate
Take the case of John Rutherford. A healthy man in his 50’s and has never needed a doctor all his life. The one time he visited a physician was for a mandatory checkup in the company he worked in. For the rest of his employable years, he manages to skip the required physical exam using a variety of excuses. One day, he felt a burning kind of pain at the right upper quadrant of his abdomen. Not wanting to visit a doctor, he took to Google to search his symptoms. He latched on to a web community of self-described medical professionals.
Verifying the credentials of these professionals in an obscure web community is difficult. Yet John felt at ease asking help from anonymous people. He got medical advice ranging from herbs to supplements. One even suggested a trip to a chiropractor, alluding that John might have a slipped disk and might be having “referred pain” from the spine and felt on his abdomen.
After a few hours of self-medication, the pain only increased and could only be dulled slightly with OTC pain relievers. Suddenly, John felt some relief from the pain he felt followed by a lowering of his blood pressure. Thankfully, his wife finally convinced him to see a doctor. After a round of diagnostic exams in the hospital, it was determined that John did have “referred pain” but not in the way it was explained to him. He had appendicitis and the pain he was feeling was referred to pain caused by the swelling of his appendix. The relief he felt was due to his appendix rupturing. The momentary relief was followed by peritonitis and internal bleeding. John had to undergo explore laparotomy to save his life.
John’s story isn’t unique. It’s a tale spun several ways all thanks to advice from unqualified or anonymous individuals. It’s an unfortunate side effect because of the self-confidence one feels at accessing the abundant information on the internet. Medical advice is still one of the top queries in search engines. It’s time for allied health personnel to fight back.
Media has a History of Providing False Medical Advices
Before the internet, other media played their part in misleading the patient. In the old times, oral history speaks of a magical singing bird or some sort of elixir to heal broken bones and even raise the dead. Written documents are no better. Maps detailing the location of the fountain of youth. Books talking about the Philosopher’s stone. Fast forward to radio announcements and TV ads about some snake oil here and there. Buried under those false ads in medical marketing.
The Importance of Medical Marketing and Media
If fake information can take off quickly in all forms of media, why not real medical marketing? Physicians are now seeing the advantages of medical marketing. There are many benefits to using such advertising practice.
- Disseminate the right medical information to patients
- Point or guide patients to the right health practitioner
- Preventive medical media helps prolong the wellness of patients
- Unburdens the physician from handling too many patients by pointing them to other practitioners
In a 2008 study, only 20% of doctors advertise their practice. This means at least 80% are not reaching their patients. Most rely on word of mouth referrals or until the patient has become sick enough that the family scrambles to look for the best specialist.
A Guide to Medical Marketing and Media
Here’s a list of effective and ethical marketing practices for doctors and other allied health personnel
- Offline Media – Appealing to Emotion
Considered as the staple of the healthcare industry. You’ll often find advertisements for psychologists, internists, and even homeopathic doctors in print ads or some form of traditional media.
- 32% of patients still browse the television for research.
- 20% peruse magazines, brochures, and other print ads.
- 18% still browse newspapers, especially the classifieds.
This makes offline media an effective tool to reach patients. Doctors who use medical media found that emotionally charged content ads have a stronger pull than just advertising the name, address, and contact details of the doctor.
Some examples of medical media include a short snippet of the life of a patient and how he recovered from breast cancer. A short sentence of the snippet carries the call to action (CTA) followed by the contact details in the footnote and a logo at the bottom of the page.
Emotional offline content ads are still effective enough to inform patients of the availability of a medical practitioner in their area.
- Search Engine Optimized (SEO) Content
Before the internet age, the Yellow pages reigned supreme. If someone wanted a specific medical practitioner, a big book with iconic yellow pages would have the contact number they’re looking for. However, the population boom meant yellow pages would have to reach 5,000 to 10,000 pages. It’s a good thing the internet was invented. It’s the yellow pages with the click of a search button.
Now, it’s all about search engines and websites or blogs. A recent Pew Internet Research showed that 77% of health seekers use search engines to look for information about their disease/disorder. Taking this into account, an optimized page can help channel those patients to the right medical practitioner.
Google and other search engines are doing their best to weed out fake information. However, you still need to do your job and create a website with authoritative content. You can enlist the help of an SEO agency or do things by yourself.
- Social Media Marketing and Referral System
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms are powerful tools to help advertise your medical practice. You can hire a PR firm to help start-up your account or post things yourself. The goal is to get the coveted “checkmark” status. This means you’re a verified user and most likely authentic or a real person.
Common practices with social media medical marketing include a referral system that gives out rewards when patients or non-patients successfully tags or refers a person to your page or clinic. The process of becoming a verified user is slow but can be rewarding in the long run. Just keep on posting content and replying to comments. There’s a chance one of your posts can become viral and can channel a lot of users to follow you.
You can choose any one of the above-mentioned methods or use all of them. The important thing is you’re doing steps to engage patients and helping in steering them away from self-diagnosis and self-medication. Blaze New Media offers medical marketing to help your business reach a wider audience.
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