10 Must-Have Strategies to Boost Patient Acquisition for Any Health Organization

Patient acquisition is vitally important for health organizations. High-quality marketing campaigns generate interest in the health organization, creating consultation requests, phone call inquiries, and appointments. Personalized appointments and subsequent treatments, lab tests, and product sales generate revenue, which powers the business financially and allows the organization to sustain itself and its employees.

The importance of promotional campaigns is felt across all small businesses, not just health organizations. According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, 18% of small businesses fail within their first year, while 50% cease operations after five years, and about 65% close down by their tenth year in business. Investopedia reports that "poorly planned or executed marketing campaigns, or a lack of adequate marketing and publicity, are among the issues that drag down small businesses."

How can your company stand out and attract more patients? Discover ten actionable strategies to enhance your patient acquisition efforts.

1. Run targeted ad campaigns on search engines and social media platforms to reach new patients.

Leverage the detailed targeting options inside Facebook, Instagram, Google, and other platforms to reach potential patients.

For search engines like Google, you can pay to reach people based on their search terms, location, age, gender, and other factors. After people click on your ad, review the words that they searched for. Creating and managing a Google ad campaign is not a set-it-and-forget-it proposition. You must regularly filter through the search terms to give yourself the best chance for your ads to appear for phrases aligned with your organization.

For social media platforms, you can target people based on age, location, interests, similarity to your current patients, what videos the people have watched, and other factors. Run ads with pictures and videos, compare their performance, and funnel your marketing budget into your highest-performing ads.

2. Post consistently on social media based on your marketing calendar and leverage social proof and patient reviews in your marketing communications.

Publish high-quality material consistently on social media to maintain professionalism and engagement. You can center your posts around hashtags like #MeetTheTeamMonday, #TransformationTuesday, #WhyChooseUsWednesday, #ThankfulThursday, and #FAQFriday. Promote your reviews so prospective patients can learn from your current ones. Patients want to hear from fellow patients about their experiences with your organization. Amazon One Medical, a membership-based healthcare service, spotlights positive patient feedback on its social media accounts. ZocDoc also posts 5-star reviews of patients who had good experiences with their providers. Regarding how often you should post, pick a frequency you can maintain; for example, 1 - 3 times per week.

Craft an occasional giveaway, asking people to tag their friends to enter for a chance to win the giveaway. For example, you can encourage people to like your Instagram post, follow your account, and tag five friends each in a separate comment on your post to enter the contest.

Stay organized by listing the treatments you want to promote, themes you want to emphasize, and topics you want to highlight in your marketing calendar. A calendar will help you stay focused and strategic in your promotional efforts.

3. Send weekly emails to your established and potential patients.

On average, email marketing generates $36 for every $1 spent, a great return on investment. [3] (Litmus, 2020) One of my clients, DermAesthetics Anti-Aging, Laser and Medical Skin Care Center in Southbury, Connecticut, sends a promotional email to its patients once per week. The emails promote a specific service and its benefits to the patient. The emails also have a section called "review spotlight" featuring a 5-star review from a patient. The DermAesthetics team reports that those emails generate phone calls and appointment requests.

4. Send text messages to your patients regularly.

While the average open rate for emails is 20%, the average open rate for text messages is 98%. (Subtext, 2024). There are many factors for this, one of which is that text messages often appear on the lock screen of the recipients' phones instead of nestled inside the email inbox app.

Leverage both platforms for maximum visibility. Strategically time your text messages and emails. For example, send a text message on a Tuesday and a promotional email on a Thursday. The email serves as a reminder to those who received the text message to book an appointment.

5. Create enticing promotions that encourage patients to take action.

A medical organization received 13 bookings in 72 hours from a limited-time flash sale. The flash sale encouraged people to call the business on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday to book their Dysport appointment before the end of the year and save 10% off their Dysport treatment. The patients had to mention the offer to claim the savings. A $100 deposit was required to make the appointment.

A discount is appealing, and a complimentary service can generate even more interest if appropriately positioned. February is National Heart Health Awareness Month, and South Central Health Care Foundation offered a day of free cholesterol screenings at a library in Laurel, Mississippi (South Central Regional Medical Center, 2023). Screenings can help patients assess their cholesterol levels and, in turn, their risk of heart disease and stroke.

What appealing, deadline-based promotion can you craft to encourage your patients to take action?

6. Promote budget-friendly offerings, payment plans, and financing options.

Budget-friendly offerings include memberships like a beauty club, laser hair removal club, or another relatively low-priced subscription offering that allows patients to dip their toes in the water and experience your practice for the first time. Also, affordable standalone services like a lash lift and tint can be budget-friendly.

These offers are like the first step up the staircase that can lead to other, higher-priced services. The details of a beauty club can be as follows: "For just $99 per month, enjoy one treatment per month, plus 10% off most services and products, excluding sales packages and prescriptions."

If your organization offers financing options like Cherry or CareCredit, mention them in the promotional messages.

7. Hold an in-person event at least once a year.

In-person events can be very lucrative for health organizations. The theme of your event can range from an annual patient appreciation gathering, an open house, a lunch and learn workshop, an annual Christmas / holiday party, a service demonstration, the grand opening of your new location, a business anniversary celebration, etc.

Allocate about two months to promote the event. Your patients are busy, so give them enough notice so they can mark their calendars for your event. One of my clients hosts an annual Patient Appreciation Event. They offer exclusive specials, cash-only raffles, food, drinks, and other festivities during the gathering. A portion of the proceeds benefits St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

The event is held from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on a Thursday in October. I started promoting their event about two months in advance. Send messages about your event via email, text, and social media posts.

Over 60 people paid to attend the event. Entry tickets were $50 per person. The office was bustling as patients came in, socialized with the team and other attendees, enjoyed the food and festivities, and stopped by the tables of the promotional partners. The team set up a branded background showing the practice's logo in a repeating pattern, which became the perfect place for photo ops and group pictures throughout the night. Everyone was encouraged to share and tag on social media accounts.

8. Develop and implement a referral strategy in your business.

My client in the orthodontic industry has a strong referral network. He regularly receives referrals from over a dozen dentists in his community. He sponsors an annual CPR certification event for those dentists and their team members and stays in touch with them throughout the year. That is an example of a business-to-business referral strategy.

On the business-to-patient, my client DermAesthetics has a refer-a-friend form in their automated reminder emails. The form asks for the patient's name, their friend's name, email, phone number, and a question about what services their friend may be interested in.

9. Strategically determine your annual marketing budget.

The Small Business Administration published a report in 2019 stating that B2C companies spent slightly more on their marketing than B2B companies on average, with product companies spending 9.6% and B2C services companies spending 11.8% of their annual revenue on their marketing budget. Other sources have suggested budgets ranging between 5% and as high as 25%, depending on your goals.

The Small Business Administration also says, "If you think of marketing spending as eating into your profits, you're thinking the wrong way. Marketing isn't an expense - it's an investment that drives your sales. Without marketing, you won't reach new potential customers, which could mean lower sales."

10. Consistently measure your most important marketing and business growth metrics in a spreadsheet.

Management consultant Peter Drucker said, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." Track your marketing and business growth metrics in a spreadsheet every week. Identify the key performance indicators, often called KPIs, for your business' growth and who is responsible for recording them. For example, the key metrics can be as follows:

1. Year-to-date percent revenue change (for example, is your organization up 4% year-to-date, down 2% year-to-date, etc.)

2. The number of people your ads reached in the last seven days.       

3. The number of times people viewed your ads in the last seven days.

4. Your total website visits in the last seven days.

5. The top 5 most popular, most visited pages on your website in the last seven days.

6. Total number of appointments in the next four weeks.

7. Total number of consultations in the next four weeks.

By monitoring these insights, you can observe when performance spikes, dips, or stabilizes. Then, you can investigate why the peaks, valleys, and consistency occurred. Based on those findings, you can strive to do more of what is working and less of what is not.

Bringing it all together:

Adaptability and continual improvement are vital for success in an ever-evolving healthcare marketing landscape. Start implementing these ten strategies to enhance your patient acquisition plan today.

Hi, I'm Michael Guberti, a digital marketing strategist and freelance writer whose campaigns have generated $90 million in lifetime revenue for clients. As a speaker at major industry events like the annual ISPAN conference and the Vegas Cosmetic Surgery Conference, as well as the winner of the Best Marketing Campaign of the Year Award, and the Sweetwater Clifton City Spirit Award from the New York Knicks, I am passionate about results-driven marketing.

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