Online Advertising: An Effective Tool For Podiatrists
I have been working in internet advertising for the past 3 years and I find it striking
that I rarely read about internet advertising pertaining to the podiatry profession. Occasionally, I stumble upon a blog or paragraph in a newsletter briefly discussing ad options for podiatrists but nothing dedicated and substantial. Since working in this industry I have found only one constant: Change. We all use the internet everyday whether its for email, shopping, or entertainment, but the number of people today who utilize the internet to search specifically for local businesses is ever-growing. According to a Nielson study conducted at the beginning of 2010, 82% of consumers in the US use search engines such as Google and Yahoo to find local information. 49% also use Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) such as yellowpages.com and superpages.com. Compared to two years ago, respondents report that they use search engines 72% more and traditional Yellow page directories 23% less. New patients represent new revenue to your practice, and they are looking for you, online.With the multitude of ad options online, where should a podiatrist be allocating their budget? How do you decide what to get involved with? It can be overwhelming, almost a full time job in itself but not to worry - Ill give you some helpful hints.
The most important thing to remember when advertising is return on investment (ROI). A positive ROI that is when your gain from investment outweighs the cost of investment. Who wouldnt give a dollar to make two? That being said there are very few media outlets by which one can track their actual results. However, transparency is vital if you cannot track your results you will never know if your campaign is successful. If there is a cost involved you need to be seeing new patients as a result. After ROI (and Ill admit I stole this from the Real Estate industry) you have to worry about location, location, location! You must make sure you get the exposure you deserve. If you are spending money to advertise, you better be found by patients looking for a doctor. Keep those concepts in mind while I touch upon a few ad options out there for you.
If you have spoken to an ad agency or an internet guru before then I am sure you have heard of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Most people believe SEM and SEO are tantamount when really SEO is its own division of SEM. SEM seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility, or traffic online. One way to do this is through SEO, which is the unpaid or organic way to improve visibility via search engines. The more relevant a site is to the search, the higher a site appears on the search engine results page (SERP). Algorithms within search engine queries rank sites based on content of the website, the amount of traffic to them, and compare them to other sites for ranking. There is more of a monetary incentive required to participate in SEM campaigns outside of organic SEO. There are a few different paid inclusion models that will place your ad in the top or side sponsored section of search engines but the most popular today are Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. PPC means exactly how it sounds you pay every time somebody clicks on your ad, most likely landing them on your website. The largest SEM vendors are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter. Remember, just because your ad appears high on a SERP or someone clicks on your website DOES NOT mean they will be making an appointment at your practice.
As traditional Yellow Page directories began losing consumers to online search, they changed their platform to follow suit thus creating the Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs). IYPs offer a variety of models such as banner ads, sponsored listings, and email links on your ad. They are becoming more effective as they improved their trackability through clicks and call tracking (which I will touch on later). The most popular IYP directories in the US are Yahoo!, YellowPages.com, and Superpages.com. IYPs have hundreds of variations of packages to choose from and it can be hard to pinpoint the most effective model for your practice but can be beneficial if used properly. However, IYPs require a long-term contract so before you dive in head-first, look into all feasible options.
All of the advertising models that I touched on will increase your exposure. They will effectively promote your practice in the local community and/or add traffic to your site, but are meaningless if you are not seeing new patients. This leads us back to my original point of determining your ROI. There is no value in advertising unless you can track your results. Most SEO models operate on a pre-set budget allocated for a number of impressions or clicks to your website or ad. This is a tricky concept as it is very easy to burn through a budget paying for popular terms such as foot doctor, podiatrist, or the city you practice in. Cost-Per-Click (CPC) can be an expensive bidding process, especially in highly competitive markets. On the contrary, it is possible to under spend in a PPC campaign you are contributing too little to have any competitive edge. Considering the time, strategy, and money that goes into a PPC campaign it is important to understand the local market and the product before allocating a large budget to it. At the end of the day its about tracking the dollars that you put in and all the clicks those dollars generate, but clicks dont necessarily mean new patients or appointments. So instead of paying for a click to your website, wouldnt you rather pay for a phone call straight to your business?
Call tracking has become more popular over the past few years and has proven to be the most efficient way to track ROI. It is more beneficial to drive a potential patient phone call directly to the practice because the business has a clearer understanding of the return they are getting from their ad dollars spent. This feature allows you to not only track booked appointments but to monitor front-house staff as well. The practice gate-keepers are the first impression that a patient has of your practice. Having access to inbound calls ensures that your receptionists are courteous, knowledgeable of the practice, and are booking appointments the way you trained them to. LocalPodiatry, a patient resource dedicated solely to podiatrists, provides the call tracking feature as a universal product to all podiatrists who advertise with them. Most other companies would provide the tracking of calls at a premium. Either way, practices would rather pay for phone calls than clicks.
In summation, exposure and ROI need to be on the forefront of your online advertising plan. I touched upon several advertising avenues in which to get your name out there locally. Each has their pros and cons, but all will give you great exposure and have some sort of way to track your results. You can experiment with each one separately or take advantage of companies that tie it all together simultaneously. For the past couple of years I have learned that many people in the medical community frown upon advertising as it steers away from grassroots referral practices but there is some quality companies buried amongst the stigma Google, Yahoo, IYPs, LocalPodiatry, etc. As web advertising continues to change, so does your opportunity to capitalize on it. Patients ARE looking for you right NOW, and they are on the internet. Now that you have a better understanding of whats out there, give it a shot. Remember, dont get involved with a company unless you are able to fully track your ROI and make sure you are getting the exposure you are paying for.
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