This document summarizes a webinar about search engine marketing (SEM) strategies for hospitals. It discusses the importance of SEM and a hospital's website for patient acquisition. It then covers organic search engine optimization (SEO), paid search (PPC), and how they are related. The document provides tips for tracking SEM success and overcoming challenges in healthcare SEM. It also provides examples of successful SEM programs and how marketing managers can improve SEM. It concludes by addressing questions about SEM for hospitals.
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SEO and Pay Per Click (PPC) for Hospital Service Line Marketers
1. SEO AND PPC FOR SERVICE LINE
MARKETERS
Brian Bierbaum, Vice President of Digital Strategy and Sales
Jason Douglas, Interactive Marketing Strategist
The Webinar Will Be Starting Shortly…
Have a question?
We’ll be checking the chat window.
2. WHY IS SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM)
IMPORTANT TO HOSPITALS?
3. YOUR HOSPITAL WEBSITE SHOULD BE A KEY
DRIVER IN YOUR PATIENT ACQUISITION EFFORTS
Attract Engage Convert
Organic SEO Content Events/Classes
PPC Seminars
Social Media Health
Physician Relationship Assessment
Management Tools
Traditional Marketing
4. QUICK CHECK: WHAT IS SEM, PPC AND
ORGANIC SEO
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Organic
SEO
Results
PPC
Results
7. TRACKING SUCCESS
Awareness: Impressions: easy to
obtain in SEM
Interest: The first action: clicking on
the ad
Desire: The level of interest in what
you are offering
Action: What you want the visitor to
do
Some metrics of note:
– Traffic Source/Medium
– Time on page/site
– Bounce rate
– New visitor percentage
– Conversions/goals
.
9. TRACKING SUCCESS - CRM
“To measure is to know. If you cannot
measure it, you cannot improve it.”
“ROI is best measured by tracking early and
for a longer period of time, and CRM
databases are a great tool for this. While
many of your conversations may not yet be
patients, if they are engaging with your
Lord William Thompson Kelvin hospital, we can still gather valuable data
about their behavior.“
Quick Poll: How many of you have - Chris Boyer – Inova Health Systems,
access to CRM (consumer focused) or Thought Leaders Project : Hospital
PRM (physician focused) data in your Marketing
marketing?
10. SEM CHALLENGES IN HEALTHCARE
(AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM)
Recency
– More frequently updated sites rank better
– Long approval processes are common in hospitals
Content challenges
– Physicians and legal often use/require medical jargon in copy
• PPC has character limits. May not fit official medical jargon in ad copy
– Real people use other words in search. i.e. coronary heart disease,
cardiac arrest = heart disease
• PPC: Bid on all variations of terms. Learn about how your visitors search.
Discomfort with social media
– Start simple
– Make sure user guidelines are established
PPC: Must be careful with your message
– What is your conversion point?
• Newsletter sign up
• Survey
• Schedule an appointment
www.shsmd.org
11. WHAT A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MARKETING
PROGRAM LOOKS LIKE
Children’s Hospitals and
Clinics of Minnesota
Objectives: Increase awareness of
Children’s; Social Media
fan/following; increase online giving
Tactics:
– Facebook Advertising
– Google AdWords (grant and paid)
– LinkedIn Advertising
– Dedicated landing pages
– Microsites
12. WHAT A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MARKETING
PROGRAM LOOKS LIKE
Facebook Ad Strategy: target men and women, 22+,
college graduates within five state area.
Results:
– Facebook:
• 110M impressions
• 15K clicks
• 4,200 fans
• CPM: Eleven cents
13. WHAT A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MARKETING
PROGRAM LOOKS LIKE
LinkedIn Ad Strategy: Use compelling images of children,
copy to promote Children’s Annual Gala. Target business
managers and higher to buy individual seats or tables at
gala. Land people on event microsite.
Results:
– LinkedIn Advertising:
• Sold 900 total seats, resulting in a sold-out event raising $1.3 million, 160% above the
target goal.
• 172K targeted impressions to high-level decision makers, age 35+ in Minneapolis/St. Paul
14. WHAT A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MARKETING
PROGRAM LOOKS LIKE
Google AdWords Strategy: Use Google Paid to aggressively bid on
service keywords above $1.00 per click. Land visitors to condition or
service line specific pages. Use Google Grant to bid on low-cost
keywords such as brand and geo-qualified words.
Results:
– Google AdWords: Used grant money to help Children’s reach goal on GiveMN day; placed in
top 1% of total dollars
– Google AdWords: Top positioning for all service based keywords; accounted for 15% of site
traffic. Focused bid strategy on all seasonal giving keywords resulted in Children’s reaching
their online giving goal of $800K
15. LOCAL?
Localizing search is becoming a focal point for
searchers. It is easier to relate to an ad that speaks
to their area.
Facebook ads allow the use of images and more
copy. Highlight a doctor and clinic at the same time.
16. LOCAL?
Jason,
Any thoughts on a slide about importance of local
search for finding hospital locations, services, and
physicians that work out of a particular hospital?
Could we pull visuals from Northfield’s FB ads?
18. HOW MARKETING MANAGERS CAN
IMPROVE SEM
Working closely with PR and Make sure departments are
social media teams to linking whenever they can.
coordinate content Give them a guide to provide
accurate anchor links
Develop an SEM content
strategy to support overall Become good friends with your
content plan web development team. Ask
them for help making the site
Ensure your keyword
more “search friendly”
strategy is being used by all
departments when Work with your CMO to get a
communicating about your CRM in place that ties to your
service line web analytics. The data will be
invaluable to you and your
Spearhead social media
search team
initiatives that include social
media optimization
19. CONTENT AS A LINK BUILDING
STRATEGY
Two off-page keyword-
… linked to landing page
optimized articles ...
20. OVERALL RESULTS
Non-branded inbound keyword traffic to the targeted page increased by
376% in the 8 weeks following the implementation of the test.
21. ROI FOR SEM MADE EASY
Traditional Marketing Channel SEM Pilot Program
Number of pieces sent: 200 • Carve out 10% of your total budget
Cost for printing and for an SEM pilot program
postage: $1.44 VS.
Total cost to send 200 • Ensure each channel in the strategy
pieces: $288 drives to a landing page with a call to
Response rate: 0.5% action and goal tracking in place
Patients acquired: 200 pieces
mailed x 0.5% response rate = 1 • Compare cost per patient acquired
new patient
22. QUESTIONS?
The presentation and highlights of the presentation will be available on our
blog.
priorityresults.com/blog
Brian Bierbaum
www.linkedin.com/in/brianbierbaum
Twitter: @BrianBierbaum
bbierbaum@priorityresults.com
952.920.9909
Jason Douglas
www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmichaeldouglas
Twitter: @JasonDouglas
jdouglas@priorityresults.com
952-852-1150
Priorityresults.com
Notas do Editor
BBAgendaBrief overview of how PPC and SEO work together - Discuss how hospitals are tracking success with their search marketing programs beyond just increases in traffic to the website-Look at other ways to prove your SEM program is bringing in patients.- Tips on setting up PPC and SEO and pitfalls to avoid.And briefly touch on budget expectations and how to tie a SEM program in with your traditional marketing effort
BBBefore we get started… Why is SEM important in healthcare… because health content is being consumed more than music, banking, gaming, and a variety of other types of media and they are finding it via search engines and their social networks.We all know the health care industry is facing challenging times. The industry is awash in regulation, suffering from declining resources and facing impending health care reform. Hospitals operate in an uncertain reimbursement environment, yet have to excel in clinical care, scientific discovery and innovation, reputation management, brand exposure, patient satisfaction and appointment generation. However, despite these hurdles, the public still views hospitals as the most trusted industry according to a Harris Interactive study (“Oil, Pharmaceutical, Health”) where 60 percent of all consumers stated they trust hospitals and they are proving that by turning to search engines and social media with their questions. There are many stats out there that I am sure you have seen at SHSMD events and blogs. You already know there is opportunity for your service lines. You are likely looking for ways to capture more of that traffic or convert more visitors into patients and that is what we will discuss today.
BBYou do that through… We are focusing on Organic SEO and PPC today
BBBefore we move on. Want to make sure we are all on the same page.
JD
JDLet’s look at it from a cost perspective
JDJason to modify for more practical GA tips such as goals, sources, etc.
JD
BBQuick Poll: Not surprising. Next time you are asked to show the success of your work, this is your opportunity to ask for a CRM or PRM. Not only can you use them to mass personalize your marketing efforts, you can also use the data to create micro targeted campaigns and reports because of the confidence you will have in your success. You can test relentlessly to find what works and what doesn't. Web analytics, interactive marketing, offline marketing, call center and many other touch points intersect. Marketers can cross-reference all marketing initiatives -- traditional and non-traditional – to glean insights from results for future planning. Advanced CRM modules enhance the patient caller experience by linking individual calls to patient records, pulling up records by caller (phone number) identification. They can even link a referring physician to a patient for reporting purposes and integrate with marketing reporting to reference the campaign source.From an SEM perspective you can tie a .99/cent PPC lead or a weeks worth of organic web site traffic back to # of patients who signed up for a beratric seminar and then undertook elective surgery.Chris Boyer and Gabriele Detora. Good quotes in the TLP book.
BBRecency- Get a content calendar in place for your service line specifically for SEO. Drip optimized content onto the site and off the site on blogs, and other relevant sites. Having the calendar specific to SEO will allow you to get it through the longer approval process without it falling through the cracks.Content challenges- When developing your keyword strategy make sure the team you are working with understands healthcare and vet the keyword strategy by sampling their search terms for medical jargon. You can quickly test the relevancy of search results by doing a search for that keyword phrase and seeing what comes up. It should be content your target audience would be interested in.Discomfort with social mediaYou simply can’t ignore social media. It is a growing driver in your SEO strategy and at the very least you can encourage social sharing of your content via social networks and ideally you should have a social strategy in place for engaging with your community and driving them back to relevant content on your site.
JD Jason,Any organic here?
JD
JD Jason,Any PPC or SEO stats that tie into this?
JD
See the local results dominate the organic results. Also, Houston Emergency Room ad is using location extensions which show on local results. Importance of an integrated search marketing strategy: local, PPC, SEO.
Another example: see the local results dominate the organic results. Also, Houston Emergency Room ad is using location extensions which show on local results. Importance of an integrated search marketing strategy: local, PPC, SEO.
BB
Here is an example of how having a content strategy for SEM can pay off.
4/4-5/27 (54 days) = Search sent 101 non-paid visits via 59 keywords5/28-7/20 (54 days) = Search sent 380 non-paid visits via 181 keywords= 376% increaseAnnualized: Before = 683; after = 2568; difference of 1885