4 Key Private Practice Marketing Strategies to Keep Your Schedule Full of Appointments

As a private practice, you’re competing against a lot of different players — other private practices, hospital-owned practices, larger medical groups, and the list goes on. Trying to stand out in the sea of medical providers feels daunting, but with private practice marketing, you can get your edge and stand out.

So, how do you market your private practice?

We’ve got four key strategies you can use to get started with marketing your private practice online — let’s get into it!

4 key things to do to start with private practice marketing

Feeling overwhelmed with where to start with private practice marketing? Let’s start with the four key things you’ll want to do to get your practice’s marketing off the ground:

1. Build a functional, helpful website

At the core of your entire private practice marketing strategy is your website. Your website is where people go to find helpful information, learn about your practice, and book an appointment with you. It’s important that your website is functional and easy-to-use, so people stay on it and ultimately book with your practice.

Here’s how you can do that:

• Use a design that fits with your practice’s brand: Your branding sets the first impression with prospective patients. Make sure you choose a clean design that integrates your practice’s branding throughout to set a good first impression.
• Keep your navigation simple: When patients come to your website, they don’t want to struggle to find information, especially if they aren’t feeling well. Having a simple, organized navigation allows people to find the information they need without delay.
• Allow people to book online: Did you know that 50% of Millennials prefer to book appointments online? Offering people the ability to book online through your website can help you keep your schedule filled with appointments.
• Make sure your website is mobile-friendly: Many people will use their mobile devices to scope out services and book an appointment. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly, so these users can easily learn about your practice and contact you if they decide you’re a good fit.

Investing time in making your website functional will help you acquire new patients and keep your schedule filled.

2. Build your presence on search engines

Did you know that 75% of people turn to the Internet first when looking for health information? Search engines like Google are a premier place for people to look for a healthcare information or find a provider.

So, if you want people to find your practice’s website when they search for healthcare information, you need to build your presence on search engines. That means developing a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

But what does that entail?

• Identifying and targeting practice-related keywords: Whether you’re general medicine, dermatology, or something in between, targeting keywords related to your specialty will help you appear in relevant search results. Think keywords like “how to improve your heart health” or “tips for handling fevers in children.”
• Building backlinks: Earning links from industry authorities like WebMD, Everyday Health, and the like will help build your practice’s trust and authority in the medical space. You can earn backlinks by producing quality content worth linking to for these websites.
• Making sure your technical SEO is sound: Things like page load time and mobile-friendliness impact the performance of your website in search engines. It also impacts whether patients continue engaging with your practice. Make sure these technical SEO aspects are optimized to ensure you deliver a positive experience.

If you want to see success with your private practice marketing, start building your SEO strategy to reach people searching for healthcare information.

3. Build your local presence

As a private practice, you’re primarily serving people in your local community. That means you need to build your presence in local searches to help drive those leads to your practice. You can achieve that with a local SEO strategy.

Here are some key ways to increase your local presence:

• Target local keywords: These are keywords like “cardiologist near me” or “Phoenix general physician.” Targeting these keywords helps you appear in local searches to reach patients in your area.
• Optimize your Google Business Profile: Your Google Business Profile (example image above) appears in local searches, making it a crucial component to optimize. Make sure all your information is accurate, add photos to enhance your listing, and include a short blurb about your practice to give searchers all the insights.
• Manage local citations: Your private practice’s information appears in multiple places across the web — from Google to ZocDoc to Bing Places. Make sure your information is accurate and updated across the web, so prospective patients have the right info.

Building your local presence will help you acquire prospective patients in your area looking for a private practice physician. 

4. Run paid ads

Since SEO takes 3-6 months (or more) to start showing results, you’ll want to invest in a strategy that can start driving results sooner. Running paid ads is a quick and easy way to start driving patients to your private practice.

Here are some quick tips to launch your paid ads:

• Spend time on your ad copy: Your ad copy is what drives people to click. Spend time developing informative, click worthy ad copy to drive leads to your website. Make sure it’s relevant to the keywords you’re targeting with your ads.
• Use a custom landing page: Creating a custom landing page for each ad you run helps keep prospective patients engaged with your practice. Provide helpful information on the landing page and direct them towards the action you want them to take (like booking an appointment online or calling your practice).
• Set negative keywords: PPC ads, like SEO, operate on keywords. Not only do you need to determine what keywords to target, but also what keywords to avoid. An allergist, for example, might avoid keywords like “test kit” if they don’t offer allergy test kits.

Running these ads will help you reach prospective patients looking for a private practitioner and drive them to book an appointment with you.

FAQ on private practice marketing

What are some other private practice marketing strategies I can use?

The strategies listed above aren’t the only ones your private practice can leverage to increase patient acquisition and retention. You can also use strategies like these to promote your practice:

• Social media marketing
• Social media advertising
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• Reputation management

How do I market my private practice?

To market your private practice, start by choosing the strategies that work best for reaching your target audience. You can use any combination of strategies we’ve listed above — it will depend on your practices’ goals and who you’re trying to reach.

You can always start with one strategy and then branch out into other strategies as you start to build momentum with your marketing. 

What’s a realistic budget to set for private practice marketing?

The typical allotment put aside for marketing is 7-8% of your practice’s revenue. You can adjust this number as needed, but it’s a good starting point for planning the budget for your private practice marketing.

Increase patient acquisition with WebFX

With 98,500+ hours of experience in the healthcare industry, WebFX is an unmatched partner for helping you increase patient acquisition. We’ve driven 9.8M leads for practices like yours.

Our skilled team of 230+ healthcare marketing experts know how to create HIPAA-compliant marketing plans that keep your schedule full of appointments. Best of all, we handle it all for you, so you can focus on patient care.

Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our digital marketing services!