Marketing is an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing industry. What was true and effective a decade or two ago might as well be ancient history. The proliferation of the internet and mobile technology has completely changed the way consumers get information and form their opinions. While many industries have actively worked to adapt, many of those involved in healthcare digital marketing have been slow to come around to the necessity of a robust digital marketing strategy that is optimized to generate website traffic and convert that traffic into leads and sales.

Fortunately, with the right roadmap, it is feasible for marketing departments in the healthcare industry to adjust their strategies to benefit from the online revolution. Best of all, online marketing strategies tend to have significantly lower overhead than traditional marketing formats such as television, radio, and print ads, while also allowing for far greater flexibility and specific audience targeting. A successful digital marketing strategy can be broken down into three main parts: Get more traffic, engage your traffic, and then convert your engaged traffic into leads and business.

Get more traffic

The first step, even before actively searching for more traffic, is to make sure your website is as glossy and professional as possible. Remember, the website will be the first significant impression your company makes on potential customers, and it is completely under your control. Make sure you maximize the opportunity to create as positive a branding impression as possible by creating a modern and functional website, even if it requires hiring outside assistance (it probably will).

Once you’ve gotten your website to an acceptable standard, focus on creating as much high quality content as possible. This means useful and readable information about the company, the primary players, and some of the products or services you offer. While it is true that you should create the proper tags (meta and otherwise) when designing and posting content on your website, finding the perfect keywords is less important than it was in the past. This is due in large part to Google’s efforts to revamp the way their search engine works. According to many experts, Hummingbird (which is the name of Google’s new search algorithm) makes the quality of content far more important than highly targeted keywords. This means that by focusing on creating high quality and useful content, you will be helping your potential customers while also optimizing your website for search engines.

In addition to good content, your company should build out a social media presence on the major platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) which tie back to your primary website. Targeting advertising on search engines like Google can also help job start your company’s healthcare digital marketingcampaign.

Engage your traffic

Now that you have increased your website traffic, you’ll want to make sure you are engaging them properly so they feel a connection to the company and return to find out more information. In addition, you should always look for ways to create content that creates an emotional response. Numerous studies have shown that social media users share content that engages them emotionally. You can leverage this engagement by communicating regularly with your followers on social media. Many large companies, including Ford, are actively using social media as a way to communicate with their customers.

Convert engaged traffic into business

Let’s be honest, this is what all of the traffic building and engagement is really for. Conversion is the holy grail of any marketing campaign, and a digital marketing campaign is no different. The first step in converting traffic is to understand what your traffic is looking for. Use of analytics software (such as Google Analytics) is a great way to see what is driving traffic to your website and what they are looking for when they arrive. You can use this information to create customized calls to action and landing pages designed to make it as easy as possible for your website visitors to get more information about a product or service you are offering. Another useful tactic is to provide special offers or incentives (for a limited time of course) to website traffic that will encourage them to act.

Regardless of which specific strategies you choose to use, the key to a successful healthcare digital marketing campaign is an attention to quality and utilizing the analytics tools at your disposal to maximize the traffic you are able to generate. By creating lots of high quality and engaging content, you can generate a significantly greater return on investment based on conversions per marketing dollar.