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The $14.5 billion Urgent Care Industry is growing at 5.8% annually in US.  The main reasons attributing to this growth are aging US population, increase in insured people, lack of access to primary care and an increase in the demand of accountable care.

Even though the urgent care industry is growing but it also implies that competition is high and agencies which understand how they work are a handful.

Urgent Care facilities don’t operate like healthcare specialties primarily because patients don’t need to take require appointments. They simply search for the nearest urgent care clinic or facility. It implies that you need a solid digital marketing strategy. I’d say that not only do you need a solid strategy but also one that is in perfect sync with the changing digital trends. We keep hearing the buzzwords innovation and technology every now and then but my friend, the time has come, when these are no longer buzzwords but something which we need to adopt in the way we market the urgent care practice.

Getting new patients, more sales, long-term growth and high Return on Investment (ROI) – well the expectations from the digital marketing unit of Urgent Care Industry seem to be mounting (like other industries) and all you need to do is to find a reliable digital marketer who understands your industry and the digital marketing tactics that will work best in the urgent care industry.

1. Reinvent your SEO strategy

There are too many algorithms that change every year. It’s important for your digital marketing partner to be aware of how each algorithm change will make an impact to your business and if you need to change anything about the way you’re doing business.

Ensure that the digital marketer has relevant and updated trainings and certifications. The right person on the job will refine your SEO strategy as per the algorithm changes to ensure that your rankings don’t suffer.

2. There’s a lot you can achieve with blogging

Just run away from any digital marketer who says blogging is not meant for the urgent care industry. Google gives preference to fresh content and if you update a blog regularly on your website, chances are that your website will be ranked higher. Engage ace bloggers to help you generate content that is informational and positions you as a market leader. Valuable content (use new and creative forms to present content through infographics and videos) can increase your traffic and brand recall. With an increase in business visibility, there is a boost in the search engine results rankings as well.

3. Be responsive

You need to make your website accessible on all digital platforms. There are chances that patients are searching for urgent care services from their mobile phones and tablets. Ensure easy access and high engagement of your website’s content on all devices.

4. Do not ignore social media

Even urgent care service providers cannot ignore social media. Personalized page, regularly updated content regarding your practice, practitioners and events will keep your followers engaged and promote registration if you plan a health camp or something similar.

5. Use different formats of content

If you can get other formats of content right, your urgent care practice will experience a positive impact. People are losing patience and the attention spans are decreasing so if you can create effective videos, infographics and images, not only can it help you to increase the traffic but also increase your engagement and search rankings.

6. Switch to contextual targeting technique

With the introduction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), digital marketers must be careful about the use of cookies. This is one of the reasons to change from audience targeting strategy to contextual targeting strategy to ensure that the page content is relevant for the user context.

7. Increase CTR with PPC ads

Adding site-link extensions to PPC ads had helped our urgent care clients to improve their CTR considerably. Ads with a poor headline are not able to garner as much attention so your digital marketer must be a pro with that.

8. Use social media live video features

You need to humanize your brand and connect with the people. The urgent care service provider needs to send out a strong message which says – we care. Carefully planned love streamed events and help people to grow fondness and trust of people. You can harvest an engaged set of followers who may or may not convert to walk-ins when the need arises.

9. Rope in influencers

Credibility matters a lot for your practice. And influencers can get you just that.

There are people on social media and video outlets who are more powerful than celebrities. These are influencers. They can engage with your followers and persuade them. Native advertising is totally out. Find the relevant micro-influencers for your practice and get them to talk about your practice.

10. Rank higher on review websites

The industry standard is that 9 out of 10 people look for online review before deciding to buy a product or use a service. I think in case of urgent care service providers, 10 out of 10 will be relying on reviews. If your urgent care practice has more positive reviews, people will trust you more.

The digital marketing tactics that we followed till some years back are not relevant anymore. The new digital marketing tactics are the cornerstone for the continued success and growth of your urgent care practice. Get started with Digital Success team today.

Tags:- audience targeting strategycontextual targeting strategycontextual targeting techniqueDigital Marketer