They’re just not that into your website

Hospital communicators, clinical leaders, and physicians: I have news for you. The answer to your marketing problems is not a new website. No matter how hard you try, websites can’t make people care.

What do people care about? Two things:

1.       Can you treat their condition?
2.       What’s the easiest, fastest and cheapest way they can see you?

No matter how hard you try, your website will never be like WebMD
Consumers use the Web to search for health information, but they usually find that information on other sites, such as WebMD, about.com or Wikipedia.. Bottom line: Nobody really needs you to give them lots of clinical content that’s already available online.

Take a moment to consider your own resources and what you can reasonably create and do. Make sure your online marketing strategy is sustainable—you have to be committed to creating current, up-to-date content. Event notices. Information blasts that are useable and actionable. The “once and done” approach doesn’t work. If we’re not keeping our audiences engaged, we’re just creating “cobweb sites.”

Online marketing is only part of a larger marketing strategy. It works best when complementing other marketing tactics to raise awareness. People today may use the Internet more to help find answers to their medical questions, but very few of them expect to purchase surgical services or have their cancer tumor diagnosed online. Health care is still practiced face-to-face, and a comprehensive marketing strategy should include multiple ways for them to engage with you.

Four steps to getting consumers more interested
Your website needs to complement your existing marketing  efforts. Here are some simple tips to keep you on track:

1: Consider where online marketing fits in your overall strategy. If you’re promoting an elective service line, your website should have strong calls to action: marketing differentiators and a phone number / email address / fillable form, so people can get in touch with you directly. If you’re trying to make your practice or service easier to work with/refer to, you need a thoughtful webpage or pages for existing patients and referring doctors—with useful information such as contact names and frequently used forms.

2:  Identify how you’ll measure success, but check your expectations. Don’t just measure page views; measure appointments from the website or email subscribers to your newsletter. Unless you’re promoting your website in all other marketing, or you engage in a very aggressive Pay-Per-Click campaign, you won’t have many people flocking to your site.

3: Make sure your content is relevant and actionable. Give people information they want and need. You don’t need to head shots of your clinical leaders on the website because patients really don’t care. Instead, use the Web to make it easy for them to engage with you. Give them something to do – sign up for your newsletter, contact a nurse or download a PDF to share with their loved ones.

4: Start small and only add content if people want it. Nobody cares about the mission statement of your Ingrown Toenail Institute. They just want to get their ingrown toenail fixed—now. Don’t launch a 30-page “microsite” on hiatal hernias because you think patients need it. They don’t—nor do they have the patience to weed through your content. Put up just enough information to capture their attention and get them to act (preferably by calling to make an appointment).

If you use the KISS method (“Keep it simple, sweetheart”), you might just move your website visitors past first base.