Facebook Marketing for Medical Groups: How to Get Results

Facebook Marketing for Medical Groups: How to Get Results

By Maria Todd

Table Of Contents Targeting your Ideal Audience(s)

01

Targeting the Right People With the Right Message

02

Conclusion

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Facebook Marketing for Medical Groups - How to Get Results

Have you invested the time and effort and a little cash to see if you get any marketing results (new patient growth, name/brand awareness, special offers, etc.) only to be met with frustration and lackluster performance?

Maybe you have been targeting the wrong audience.

Targeting your Ideal Audience(s) No marketing campaign should ever be launched without a targeted audience and specific performance metrics. Yet too often, medical groups target "the world at large" and assume that their little megaphone approach is bound to be viewed and found interesting by "someone".

Why not try for a smaller scope? Target 5 "real people" in your practice that you know so well that you know without a doubt that the post will interest them. Write your article or design your post as if you were having a cup of coffee with them out on the patio at your home in a relaxed tone.

Start with Real Human #1  Do you know if they are currently on Facebook?  Do you know if they have already "liked" your practice Facebook page?  Have they ever liked one of your posts before? What was it about?  What do you know about their demographics?  What do you know of their non-medical and medical condition interests?  What consumer behaviors do you know about?

Now list the types of posts that would interest Real Human #1: List titles of self-authored articles, types of information shares, curated articles and information (new drugs, procedures, research recently published about conditions, treatments and breakthroughs) that would be of interest to them or a family member, etc.

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Facebook Marketing for Medical Groups - How to Get Results

Next, repeat the same exercise with 4 other Real Humans. You've just built 5 targeted "personas" based in reality instead of hypothetical personalities you might wish to attract.

(Don't worry, we'll get to those in a bit. First deal with real people personas that you know by name.) If you don't know their name, you aren't allowed to list them.

Under each persona, now list other people "more or less" similar in demographics, interests and consumer behaviors. If you can list 15 - by name - you can start posting contents and ads to this group. If you can attract 15, you can attract 150. If you cannot attract 1, you're done.

This is the missing link that I see most bloggers miss completely in their advice about Facebook social marketing engagement and conversions. Is it that they don't know this fact? Is it that they've never really done what they preach themselves?

What I can tell you from experience is that hitting 15 clicks and likes on a commercial Facebook corporate page is reallllllllly challenging for most medical groups. So if you had your heart set on hundreds of clicks and likes, change your expectations. Be grateful for 5 at first.

Targeting the Right People With the Right Message You'll likely have three categories of posts. Those aimed at existing patients, those aimed at prospective patients for the future, those aimed at people interested in your topic that may live across the country and just liked what you had to say.

Each post, story, ad, offer, or share must align with one of the personas you created above to achieve engagement with established patients. To connect with the person looking for a solution, a new doctor, or a second opinion, you must segment the content you share on your Facebook page by the different stages in their customer journey and serve them Facebook ads and posts and shared assets and curated stories according to where they are in the journey. To do this effectively will require a series of ads or posts and shares.

Define your purpose and target audience for each post or keystroke you type on your Facebook business page. You are broadly categorizing for three "results."

 Awareness: For a cold audience that probably doesn’t even know who you are or

for re-engaging patients you haven’t seen or treated or awhile. These posts drive brand awareness and reach. Message: We exist. Call to action: Get to know us. Focus strictly on educational and entertaining, and emphasize your expertise in the problems your target is facing. Objective: Promote your brand. (You have created and launched a brand, right?) Result: Generate awareness.

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Facebook Marketing for Medical Groups - How to Get Results

 Conversion: For a hot audience that’s positively disposed toward you and is ready to

buy a checkup, a surgery, a diagnostic test, or engage in some other interaction with you. These posts drive scheduled appointments and telehealth visits, prescription medication or other requests and inquiries, and treatment procedures or diagnostic services. Message: We have the solution to what's ailing you or how to keep you well.

Call to action: Schedule a visit. Objective: Hard sell using special limited time offers, coupons, drive up urgency. Result: Generate transactional revenues.

 Consideration: For a warm audience (current patients and their families and

friends) who are aware of who you are and might like a little more information before being in a frame of mind to come to your office for care, a checkup, a class or a talk you might schedule to spark interest and rekindle relationships. These posts drive traffic, engagement, downloads, video views, lead generation and private messages. Message: We understand what you need. Call to action: Learn more. Drive connection and commitment. Objective: Project empathy; inspire trust Result: Generate prospects.

Keep in mind that each type of post of the three above will be radically different from one another - because your end objective is different.

For concierge medical practices, In terms of ads, sell your brand, not a membership or product. Free guides, white papers, checklists, informative articles, and videos work well.

Many of these will be delivered via read and lead magnets, which are likely to be found via ads or search. The same goes for plastic surgery practices and cosmetic dental practices that sell appliances or anti-aging and wellness practices that offer anti-aging products and services, stem cell, compounded pharma, hormone replacement therapies, and other procedures and treatments.

One word of caution: If you aren't ready or find it impossible to dedicate staff and time and training to track results from end-to-end, stop reading now. You aren't ready to market on Facebook. Nothing will happen and you'll be more frustrated than you were before you started reading this article.

If you hired me to analyze your current Facebook page setup, use, posts, and shares, what would I see? How many many Facebook ads are on your page are pushing a sales pitch at no one in particular? Are you getting any responses? Probably not.

How to Fix This: Unlike other businesses who are offered guidance by consultants to save sales pitches for retargeting ads, you aren't allowed to use a retargeting strategy because it violates HIPAA. So if Facebook or Google catch you doing that, they save you from yourself and decline to serve up your retargeting campaigns. What are retargeting ads? These are ads where you show a very specific ad to a very specific person, such as an ad about one of your products because they’ve visited a web page talking about that product. Or they’ve already clicked on an ad that was profiling that product or a problem associated with it.

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Facebook Marketing for Medical Groups - How to Get Results

So since you cannot show retargeting ads, which by the way are no huge loss because the numbers are really really small anyway, fix your sales-y, almost spammy posts by using the guidelines I posted above and start matching contents to targeted personas or objectives. Get rid of the noise, untargeted posts, and inappropriate messages.

The more relevant you and your brand are to readers and visitors, the less you'll pay per engagement if you "boost your post". Facebook views its own brand reputation as valuable and your ads must be as relevant to your target audience as possible to be found on their internet real estate. Remember, you are on their real estate. The page costs nothing. When something is free, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. Facebook and Google both reward advertisers who master targeting, branding and relevance by showing their ads to more people and charging them less. The price you pay for ads can vary due to relevance scores:

ď„‘ $0.145 per website click for an ad with a score of 2.9. ď„‘ $0.06 per website click for the same ad but targeted to a website custom audience

of users with a relevance score of 8.0.

How to Fix This: Tighter targeting as I described above will improve relevance scores.

Well designed photographic and graphic images, clear calls to action in the copy, or a callto-action button. They also measure how often you post ads vs high-quality, unique content and less curated information from other sources. Lower ad frequency will also help, as will ads that are designed with your target market in mind—Facebook rewards conversions too.

Conclusion I'm one of those very rare breeds of duck that holds advanced degrees in healthcare business administration, nearly 40 years of practical experience and certification in digital marketing and social media marketing from Google. Much of what you read for general businesses on social media marketing either falls short of practical tidbits you can use immediately, are very theoretical and lack testing or experience actually producing results, or are not appropriate for "white coat" (healthcare provider) marketing and advertising tactics and strategies because of the advertising and consumer protection regulations we must adhere to. Don't be caught coloring outside the lines or you could face serious fines and lots of distraction with avoidable legal and regulatory compliance violations. Get the best advice possible from experts if you aren't sure.

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