Enhance Practice Marketing Strategies by Staying Current on 2020 Trends
For marketers, its business as usual to keep up with ever changing digital marketing trends, but for a small business owner it may be quite the challenge. As we wrap up the end of the decade, our cherry-picked trends really focus on enhancing your strategies to keep up with channel progressions. If small business owners focus on optimizing their efforts towards these top trends, they will see quarterly improvements in engagement, acquisition, and revenue.
Automated communications for personalized messaging
If you haven’t used your email marketing tool to trigger any automated messages to a segmented audience, 2020 is your year. The easiest place to start is your welcome email flow. This flow is normally triggered by a new email subscriber, which is where segmentation comes into play. Generally, new email subscribers recently started a new relationship with your practice. This makes your welcome flow the perfect time to set up 2-3 automated emails introducing your practice or staff, promoting your top services, and expanding your relationship by asking them to follow you on your social media channels. If you’re introducing your practice to a new subscriber, you’re personalizing your automated communications. And with the right mix of engaging content and sales content, you could bring in some revenue with this program.
When it comes to automation, think about the stages a patient typically experiences with your practice.
Voice search on mobile phone
It’s not just about search engines anymore. Now we have to consider mobile voice-related searches, and how prepared our practices are in the digital landscape to occasionally appear as the one definitive result. When looking for a local practice, a potential patient may ask their phone, ‘what’s the best physician in Glendale?’ Understanding that the search is a more natural question gives practice owners the opportunity to look at how they’re marketing on their website and online business listings. If you include copy on what your practice is best known for, whether you found this from patient feedback or your own practice value proposition, you’re already better prepared for voice search.
When it comes to this channel, ask patients how they use voice search to plan content that is natural and conversational.
Mobile optimization for shoppable experiences
Today, the majority of people walk around with a computer in their hands. As consumers continue to receive sales promotions and appointment call-to-actions through email and text, there is a standing expectation to be able to complete the transaction from their phone. In 2020, make a commitment to send emails or texts about new promotions that your practice is offering. This will be an investment of money and resources, but it will have a return.
The email or text message should represent your practice well, along with clearly communicating the promotional offer. Once they click through to your website or landing page they should be able to easily find more details about the offer, making it a win-win for your patients and your practice.
When it comes to this strategy, mirror it to the ease of shopping in-store.
The best way to avoid being overwhelmed by emerging marketing trends is by choosing 2-3 that you want to focus on at a time. What strategies and channels make the most sense for your practice? Which efforts will make your patients more loyal, and in turn bring in more revenue? Start with what’s attainable, and fully commit to the effort for the most success.
Sources
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/10/03/top-marketing-trends-for-2020/#20de606113d5
https://ducttapemarketing.com/voice-search-small-business/
About the author,
Melody Gandy-Bohr
Melody is a marketing professional with more than 10 years of experience in digital marketing. She currently works for Demandforce as a Content Marketing Manager, creating engaging content collateral for several health marketing brands. Melody has extensive knowledge about the digital marketing tools that practitioners need to succeed in business, including email automation, online reputation management, patient communication tools.
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