Still rush and new tasks. You do not have enough time to systematically conduct effective marketing activities in the crowds of classes. The best solution for a medical facility is to commission the promotion of your brand to experienced specialists. But, how to know if the selected agency will perform the assigned tasks? What questions should you ask a marketing agency to ensure that you have come to the right address?
Medical Marketing – A list of questions for the agency
This is often the first question that may arise. Unfortunately, the answer may disappoint you, and you’ll usually hear: little about medicine but a lot about how to create a medical brand and reach potential patients. Like you, medical marketing specialists develop their knowledge and implement the most effective solutions.
Of course, you can look for a multidisciplinary agency, although specialization is important here. Targeting a specific industry allows us to propose proven and effective activities that help achieve a specific business goal.
What distinguishes it from other medical marketing agencies?
Ask this question. It is very right. The promotion of your practice can theoretically be done by any marketing agency and does not have to include medicine in the name. Not necessarily.
Medical marketing agencies specialize in activities focused on reaching potential patients based on the latest global trends.
When choosing specialists involved in the promotion of medical services, you can expect that they will be able to offer the most proven options for your practice. Questions for the marketing agency should also cover this area.
Why should I entrust you with the promotion? After all, I know my industry and patients best?
This question does not necessarily hit the nail on the head, although it sometimes does. Nobody can deny that you have great medical knowledge and know perfectly well the needs and expectations of patients. Just like parents who know their child best, and yet in some cases have to use the help of a pedagogue or child psychologist.
A medical marketing agency will look at your practice like a child psychologist would look at a child: from a different perspective and with no emotional charge. A self-respecting agency does not question your skills, knowledge, or approach to patients but may notice what can be changed or improved on the website, social networks, or in SEO activities.
What solutions can you suggest?
There was a bit of it on the blog, but let me remind you – a good plan precedes every success. A medical marketing agency worth cooperating with will start its activities by presenting a marketing strategy based on an audit of your website, social media profiles, and competition analysis. Experienced medical marketing specialists should offer you:
- SEO audit, i.e., checking your website in terms of search engine optimization,
- A strategic approach based on real data, not clichés read on the Internet
- content marketing – a way to provide content that is attractive to patients
- SEO campaigns – a modern approach to positioning your website is the basis for good-quality traffic that should hit it
- Creating websites – often, even a relatively fresh website does not fully fulfill its tasks as a marketing tool. A good agency will suggest changes or do a new project.
- Copywriting, i.e., creating high-quality content tailored to the needs of your potential patients,
- Creating modern infographics,
- Setting up profiles in social media and constant care for them,
- Training and marketing consulting as needed. Sometimes larger medical centers have their employees who can even partially participate in promoting the facility. Ask the agency if it has experience providing such training.
After presenting the rich offer, you will probably have another question:
Do you employ specialists for specific activities?
The principle is that if something is good for everything, it also works in marketing activities, so it is difficult to expect that one person will create content for a blog, run your profile on social media, optimize the website and position your website.
Before cooperating, find out if the selected medical marketing agency employs experienced copywriters, SEO specialists, or growth hackers. I have already written about the importance of content in marketing activities. You should be sure that a person with extensive experience creating medical content will handle the texts for your website or blog.
How do I know what you are doing is working?
This is one of the most important questions verifying the skill level of a medical marketing agency. Experienced specialists will propose monthly reporting of the activities carried out and their effectiveness. In addition, they will showcase studies of clients who achieve their business goals thanks to them.
You, as a customer, have the following right to anticipate specific results: Optimization of the website increased conversion. What’s more, by working with the agency, you have the right to access, for example, your statistics, analyst, data from the course of Google Ads campaigns, or Facebook Ads. As an experienced marketer, I will tell you an important secret: not all marketing activities will be effective for your practice.
A professional team of medical marketing specialists will propose solutions that bring the desired effect, and during the activities, it will also indicate those worth giving up.
You probably also meet patients for whom standard methods do not bring the expected results in your practice, and you are looking for alternative options.
Sometimes you also change antibiotics during treatment or offer alternative procedures or treatments if the most common ones do not work properly. An experienced medical marketing agency works similarly.
What successes can you boast of?
Of course, an experienced agency has had numerous successes in creating and running a medical brand, building its image, and increasing the number of patients.
This is also where professional secrecy comes into play. Of course, no reasonable person will tell you about the details of activities for their clients.
However, you can get information about implementing effective solutions and learn about the order of magnitude of traffic or sales.
A good marketing agency will provide os recommendations of your clients and will also show you ways to confirm them directly with their current clients.
What contracts do you conclude?
OKAY. Let’s assume that you have almost chosen a contractor for cooperation. You have already learned how a medical marketing agency works, and you will cooperate.
However, before you do it, find out how the contract for conducting marketing activities is structured.
What should not be included?
It is impossible to terminate the contract for a specified period – especially for a long time.
Unfortunately, some companies insert such a provision in contracts with customers. They are illegal and may prevent you from changing agencies for a long time, e.g., for 2 or 3 years. Professional medical marketing specialists know how beneficial cooperation will be for you, so they will not force you to use their services with unfavorable provisions in the contract. Fixed-term contracts are suspect – those who give them to you – too.
Inability to verify the effectiveness of the activities carried out
The medical marketing agency should include in the contract an obligation to provide regular (e.g., monthly) reports on the activities carried out and the effects of the implemented solutions.
What should it contain?
Description of the activities carried out or the process these activities may change during the contract term. A marketing agency is unlikely to guarantee the level of sales because, as a medical facility, you are largely responsible for it yourself. At the same time, usually for a longer time) with a company, expect as many details as possible.
These are more or less the most important elements on a list of questions for a medical marketing agency.
At the end of this text, a bonus from me:
Remember – a professional medical marketing agency takes the initiative on its own, proposing the most interesting activities based on the latest global trends. She does not wait for the client’s ideas but rather calls, writes e-mails, or otherwise contacts you and suggests what can be improved and improved so that your business can achieve even more with her help.
