How Healthcare Marketing Automation Can Benefit Your Practice

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How Healthcare Marketing Automation Can Benefit
Your Practice

• Have you ever sent an automated message to your
  patients to remind them of appointments or health
  checkups? Or does your practice still spend
  precious staff time calling or typing out
  individual emails to patients?
• Automated marketing can help you save time and
  money while increasing impressions among current
  and prospective patients. It can help you nurture
  leads and speed up communication. And all of that
  that can translate into growth for your practice.
• In this article, well explore seven ways you can
  use healthcare automation for your practice.
• What is Healthcare Marketing Automation?
• Automation means using technology-powered
  healthcare marketing
• campaigns and strategies to improve your
  engagement with previous, current, and
  prospective new patients.
• Healthcare automation lets you reach out to
  prospective patients using targeted messages to
  urge them forward in their search for relevant
  health information and needed services.
  Automation tools allow you to plan for different
  patient actions and create predetermined
  responses.
• For example, how do you respond to people who
  visit your website? Do you direct them to health
  surveys or send them meaningful content? Do you
  link them to an online appointment setting form?
• You can use automation in many ways including
• Patient scheduling
• Patient referrals
• Physician referrals
• Appointment reminders
• Patient feedback
• Email and text messaging
• Online reputation management

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7 Ways Healthcare Marketing Automation Can Boost
Your Practice 1. Patient Scheduling These days,
people expect to be able to do most things
online. Scheduling appointments is no exception.
In fact, more than 60 percent of patients prefer
to book their appointments online. So give your
patients a convenient way to set appointments.
Add a Request an Appointment link to every page
of your website. Include a calendar so patients
can choose their preferred days and times.
2. Patient Referrals Your current client base can
be your best advertisers. After all, people are
more likely to trust a doctor if a friend or
family member recommends them. So make it easy
for happy patients to refer friends, family, and
co-workers to your practice. Add a simple
referral form with spaces for names, phone
numbers, and email addresses. Some practices use
referral management software to send automated
surveys to patients immediately after seeing
them. These surveys help you gather insights and
reviews that reveal exactly how your patients
feel and think about you.
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• Follow up each positive response with a referral
  solicitation email. Include an option that lets
  happy patients automatically send referrals to
  friends and family by email.
• Automation allows you to communicate with large
  numbers of patients about topics they need and
  want to know more about promptly.
• Physician Referrals
• Your network of colleagues can work much like
  your happy clients when it comes to referrals.
  Try using referral management software to
  establish connections with other healthcare
  practices and make it easier
• for providers to refer patients to you. Referring
  practices can communicate a patients appointment
  details and securely exchange electronic health
  records. Remember to give potential referrers
  reasons why they should refer patients to your
  practice.
• Appointment Reminders
• Instead of wasting your front office staffs time
  to call patients and remind them about upcoming
  appointments, use automatically generated text
  messages and emails. Automated appointment
  reminders will save you time and money.

• Patient Feedback
• In lieu of friends and family or referring
  physicians to vouch for you, many patients turn
  instead to online reviews to vet a doctor before
  making an appointment. And automation makes
  soliciting patient feedback fast and easy. With
  the right automation software, youll gain
  insights into patient needs and satisfaction
  levels. You can also use good reviews on your
  website to attract potential patients.
• Email and Text Messaging
• Automated emails are effective for making
  patients aware of updates and new developments in
  your practice. Use automated emails for
  reminders, post-diagnosis notes, and home-care
  suggestions. Help your patients take better care
  of their health conditions, take prescribed
  medicines, and follow your instructions.

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Use your marketing softwares text message and
email features to send important messages to
individuals or many patients at once. Consider
sending promotional messages or service-related
announcements like vaccine availability and
changing office hours. Automation software with
two-way text messaging lets you send appropriate
messages quickly and allows patients to respond
in real time. With these functions, your team can
focus on more important tasks, like taking better
care of patients and improving customer
service. 7. Online Reputation Management You can
make your practice more relevant by getting
regular reviews from your patients. Some
reputation management platforms let you
automatically capture patient feedback from
dozens of popular review sites, including Yelp,
Healthgrades, Vitals, and Google.
The best reputation management solutions
integrate with leading review sites and let you
engage unhappy patients and resolve their issues
to protect your online practice reputation. Give
Your Practice a Competitive Edge The healthcare
industry has been slow to take advantage of
marketing automation. Some providers are still
hesitant to add automation technologies to their
healthcare marketing campaigns due to fear of the
unknown or lack of time to learn something
new. If you havent yet added automated marketing
tools to your practice, now is the time to take
advantage of their benefits and become more
competitive in the healthcare industry. Your
digital healthcare messages should get seen and
heard by the right audience at the right time.
Youll boost prospects awareness of your
practice and encourage them to take the next step
on their healthcare journey. With the right
automated marketing strategies and patient
engagement tools, you can increase engagement
efficiently and consistently. You can send
regular blogs, e-newsletters, new service and
provider announcements, and other relevant
messages to your patients and
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prospects. You can make your healthcare practice
more valuable to them. To make the most out of
your new healthcare marketing strategies and
patient engagement tools, or learn more about
automating your practice communications, contact
us.