Going through medical school may have seemed like the toughest period of your life. Completing your residency and setting out to set up your own practice may have been your light at the end of the tunnel.
But creating your own practice comes with its own set of challenges, such as attracting patients to trust in and use your services. For that, you need to consider using digital marketing to bring in the people who’d benefit most from your skills.
In this article, we’ll discuss what geofencing marketing is and 8 ways it can help boost your medical practice.
What Is Geofencing Marketing?
As the name suggests, geofencing marketing is a targeted type of marketing based on your target audience’s location. If they come within the “fence,” they’ll be marketed to. This is usually done through a push notification on their smartphones since it inspires instant action.
How is this achieved? Through the use of RFID, Bluetooth, and GPS.
It may seem like a startling invasion of privacy, but don’t worry: all consumers who are marketed to have to opt in for data and location sharing. In other words, they know they’ll be marketed to, and may even welcome it.
Now that you know the basics of geofencing marketing, read on to find out the 8 benefits your medical practice can get from it.
1. Better Reach of Desired Audience
Let’s say you’re an ENT specialist. With traditional blanket marketing, if you reach 100 consumers, maybe only a handful will need your services, if you’re lucky.
But let’s presume your practice is in a medical building, where there are GPs who practice in that building. You send a push notification about your ENT services with geofencing marketing. You have a significantly higher chance of reaching your desired audience since a decent amount of patients who are seeing GPs will need a referral to an ENT specialist.
2. Better Marketing Spend
You may believe that to get new patients, you should market to as many people as you can. But that may not always work out best for you financially. A lot of your marketing spend may be wasted on people who probably won’t ever use your services.
When you use geofencing marketing, it’s true that you’re eliminating a good amount of potential reach. But when you look at the results side by side, geofencing marketing will get you better outcomes. Just think of the example in point #1.
With a more targeted approach, you’ll be able to make better use of your marketing budget. You might even be able to lower it so you can allocate the leftover money elsewhere.
3. You Are Where Your Prospective Patients Are
Traditional ways of marketing include radio ads, television spots, and newspaper ads. Now, it relies more on digital methods, such as email.
But even email can be too sluggish to catch your patients. Geofencing marketing lets you catch their attention immediately on the medium they prefer most. Today, almost everyone owns a smartphone, and they’re likely to check it right away when they get a notification.
4. You Can Create Beneficial B2B Partnerships
If you work nearby other medical professionals, you can cooperate to have geofencing marketing benefit everyone. For instance, a GP sees a patient. Afterwards, the patient is sent a push notification letting them know your pharmacy is right around the corner.
And it can work the other way around. Your pharmacy can send a push notification saying if anyone experiences adverse side effects to medications, to see the GP located nearby.
5. Attract Patients from out of Town
Whether they want a cosmetic procedure done or need a small wound taken care of, visitors may have a need for local medical practices. Since they don’t know the area, they most likely search for something like “walk-in clinic near me.”
With geofencing marketing, those searches will be picked up by the system, and a message will be sent to them letting the user know about your nearby walk-in clinic.
6. It’s More Personalized
You may think medical marketing differs from traditional marketing, but here’s the truth: personalization matters no matter who you are and who you’re marketing to.
With all the marketing noise nowadays, consumers are apathetic and demand more of brands. Consumers want them to understand exactly what they want, and when they need it.
Going back to the example in point #1, when you send patients a push notification about relevant services while they’re in the hospital, this is highly personalized. They feel understood and are more likely to trust in you.
7. Collect Useful Data
Geofencing marketing isn’t just used for sending messages. You can also use it to collect data for your local area. For example, you can see what the foot traffic’s like at other nearby clinics to hone your marketing. If they’ve seen an increase in visits before a neighborhood elementary school starts, you might consider sending out messages about vaccines to parents a few weeks before the start of the school year.
8. Encourage Your Current Patients to Come Back
Geofencing marketing is useful in gaining new patients, but it’s also good for retaining your current ones. You can set up parameters such as reminders for a followup appointment after a patient’s left the “fence.”
This shows your patients that you care about their well-being and are thoughtful enough to send them a reminder to book their next appointment.
Attract More Patients to Your Practice
You can let your reputation and skill speak for itself, but the fact is, you can speed up the process by using geofencing marketing. By reaching out to people who potentially need your services, you’ll eliminate the usual waiting time for a patient to do research and decide on a doctor to see.
If you would like to take advantage of geofencing marketing, please get in touch with us today.