Has your healthcare organization or medical practice added a group of specialist providers? Or are you a stand-alone specialty office? You’re not alone.
Three factors are behind the rise in specialty practices: First, in the ever-evolving healthcare world, profitability is a constant concern. Specialty care is where the margins come from, so financial considerations are driving growth in this area.
Second, an aging population, combined with our general lack of taking good care of ourselves, means that more people are accumulating a host of medical issues. Historically, it has taken patients time to get an appointment with a specialist, so offices are adding providers to address the expanding need.
Third, the market has become highly competitive as the number of independent practices grows and large networks add or absorb specialty offices.
Marketing a wide offering of niche services, though, can be a challenge. That’s because the needs and concerns of patients across a range of practices vary widely. A maternity patient, a person with heart disease, and a candidate for a knee replacement fall into different demographics, seek different levels of care, and require unique education about their condition.
Content marketing is an important tool for attracting patients, building trust, and establishing authority. That’s because education is essential to help people understand why they might need specialized medicine, what it can do for them, how it works, and what to expect. Prospective patients might not know they need to visit a sleep clinic until their primary physician makes a referral, and they’re likely to need step-by-step guidance about what that type of care entails. Short videos are effective for explaining more complex topics; they also work well to attract attention on social media channels.
The nature of specialty care makes it a bit easier for healthcare marketers to identify and understand audiences. You can make some general assumptions about the demographics and lifestyle of patients who are candidates for specialty care, though some specialties reach across demographic groups. Don’t forget caregivers who might be managing appointments for a loved one.
As you build a marketing plan to spotlight a specialist group, messaging across every channel should emphasize the patient’s point of view. Patient-centric communication translates complex medical terminology into plain language. It focuses on how people will benefit from treatment – not just physically, but in real life. Help patients see how seeing a physical therapist will help them move better, giving them more mobility to play with their grandkids. Also, patients are looking for ways they can manage their condition before and after they seek treatment.
Healthcare providers both inside and outside your organization are a distinct audience for specialty practice marketing. That includes potential referral sources (both individual practitioners and also organizations such as social service programs that help people get into addiction treatment, for example). For large medical networks with hundreds of docs, primary care providers may not always know all the specialists working in-house. You may also work with human resources on recruitment for the growing practice area. This peer-to-peer communication, including white papers and case studies, tends to be more technical and focused on the medical info they need to be comfortable referring patients.
We have found that online advertising is one of the most effective ways to promote a specialty practice because it allows marketers to create highly targeted campaigns by region and by demographic. When we worked with Northwestern Medical Center to promote their new sleep center, for example, we designed a series of digital display ads that empathized with people who were having trouble sleeping, emphasized the importance of good sleep, and offered direct links to learn more and get treatment. We paired digital ads with a revamped landing page for the Northwestern Sleep Center that helped patients understand sleep health and treatment. And we built a localized Google search campaign with keywords commonly used by people seeking help for their sleep problems.
Marketing a specialty practice might be a big ask of your team. It requires experience translating medical-ese into relatable, reassuring language for patients. And it’s probably one of many priorities you’re managing. We can bring our expertise to the table — reach out, and let’s talk about how we can help.
Tenth Crow Creative is a brand marketing agency that creates, aligns, and promotes messaging for health and wellness organizations. Through insightful branding, engaging design and compelling marketing campaigns, we help these essential organizations find their identities and effectively communicate with their stakeholders so they can fulfill their missions.
