Do you constantly worry about finding patients for your clinic? Well, you are not alone. The medical sector is highly competitive since Singapore is one of the top medical destinations in the world. If you want to ensure that patients are always streaming to your clinic, you have to use various promotion techniques. In this post, we will discuss ways to market your clinic in Singapore and overseas.
A Bloomberg survey in 2014 revealed that Singapore, out of 51 countries, had the most efficient healthcare system. It is no wonder patients from across the globe are trooping to the country to access its healthcare services. Singapore has many highly trained medical experts and advanced technology to deal with a wide variety of medical conditions.
Developing a marketing plan
Considering the popularity of Singaporean healthcare services, you will need to promote your clinic to both the locals and medical tourists. It is no secret that the marketing sector has undergone many changes in the last few years. Traditional forms of marketing such as print, TV and radio aren’t as effective as they used to be.
Nowadays, businesses (clinics included) are using the internet to reach out to potential clients in Singapore and around the world. It is up to you to research and find marketing strategies that will give you the best results. If you don’t do this, you will always face a shortage of clients.
Building a brand
Singapore as a country has established itself as a medical hub. If you do the same for your clinic, you will be on a clear path to success. It’s all about the image you portray to potential clients. There are clinics which are known to give the best medical care to cancer patients. Others are popular for building great relationships with patients. To establish a strong brand, focus on making your clinic unique.
Let’s now discuss some techniques you can use to market your clinic in Singapore and overseas.
Build a website for your clinic
The number of internet users is on the rise not only in Singapore but also across the globe. In Singapore alone, there are nearly 4 million internet users. If you are developing a marketing strategy, you have to include internet marketing. The first step is to set up a website for your clinic.
Internet users in Singapore and other parts of the world occasionally look up clinics. When you have a site, they can easily find you. Include your contact details and location. You site needs to be responsive. It should also include all information visitors may be looking for, for instance a list of healthcare services you offer.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Developing an online presence doesn’t stop at setting up a website for your clinic. You will be competing against many other medical websites so it’s prudent to apply some SEO tactics. Begin by making the site mobile friendly since most internet users use their smartphones/tablets to browse.
Search engines usually prefer fresh content so ensure that you always update your site. It is also vital to improve your site’s loading speed since no one loves to spend time at a site that doesn’t load fast. SEO enables your clinic to reach out to more internet users.
Search engine marketing (SEM)
When you have an online presence, your goal is to increase traffic to your site. SEM, also known as paid advertising helps you do this. Using this technique, you bid on keywords that users are likely to type into a search engine when looking for a clinic.
When they perform a search containing keywords you bid on, you ad will appear above the normal search results. If done properly, it is a surefire way to get more internet users to check out your clinic.
Give talks in other countries
Considering that Singapore is one of the top medical destinations globally, you may think that attracting overseas clients is a walk in the park. It is far from that. You have to employ various strategies in order to attract people from other countries. Giving talks is one of the best ways to do this.
It’s all about showcasing your expertise. Start by organising talks in other countries then sending some of your highly trained medical experts. They have to be exceptional at what they do. If for instance you have the best technology to treat a particular condition, highlight it and encourage attendees to visit your clinic.
A healthcare roadshow to promote your clinic
As you try to attract patients from other countries remember that most will come from Singapore. One of the best ways to do this is through roadshows. It allows you to traverse the country as you create awareness about your clinic. Tell people how they stand to benefit by coming to your clinic. You have to convince the public to choose you over other clinics in Singapore.
Leverage visiting consultations
If you own cutting edge medical equipment and have highly trained and skilled medical personnel, you’ll be in demand. This is where visiting consultations come in. Identify countries where you want offer your consultancy services. Remember you can also do it locally.
Medical practitioners sent to offer consultancy services should be experts in their fields. Patients typically go for someone who is knowledgeable about their condition. It is a great way to increase the number of patients coming to your clinic.
Partner with other countries’ medical authorities
You will be a step ahead of your competitors if you work directly with other countries’ medical authorities. Singapore is one of the best healthcare providers in the world. Healthcare here is superior to many other countries so you need to take advantage of this.
Approach medical authorities of target countries and ask if they can work with you. When they agree, you can always be assured of a steady stream of patients seeking your services. You can include incentives or an exchange program to make the deal even better.
Organise and attend medical symposiums
When developing your marketing, ensure that medical symposiums. There is so much you will gain when you attend these medical conferences. The good thing is, they are held every couple of weeks/months not only in Singapore but other parts of the world. The first benefit you will get by attending is the opportunity to network with colleagues and businesses from all parts if the world.
If you looking to boost your credibility, symposiums will help since many of them award attendees with certificates. They are also avenues for learning about the latest technology/developments in the healthcare sector. These events will significantly boost your brand and attract the public to your clinic.
Creating An Actionable Sales Funnel
It all starts with a good action plan from the management team on how you want your clinic to be branded, what is the positioning you need to maintain, how do potential patients or their caregivers interact with you online and offline.
The above shows a basic actionable plan you can utilise. Core to this plan is to have a good website designed or Facebook page that delivers your unique selling points, your patient care services, network, trust, accreditation and how they can get in touch with you.
The leads is fundamentally important also as you will need clever ways of marketing such as search engine optimisation (SEO) to rank up on Google and the other search engines, search engine marketing (SEM) to cast your net wide with ads, social media marketing (SMM) which builds up your network and funnels in leads.
Digital Marketing For Clinics In Singapore Summary
As a nation, Singapore has become heavily dependent on technology across all aspects of its people’s daily lives. Medical information volume continues to grow online, translating to patients seeking clinic services becoming more dependent on online searches to get healthcare providers and health information. This is part of the greater move from clinic service being a purely provider-steered system to turning into a consumer-steered system.
A study by The National University of Singapore (NUS) concludes that for most patients in Singapore, the trend towards seeking clinic services online is a valuable addition to aiding people becoming more involved their healthcare.
But how then can clinics reach out to patients and be able to market themselves digitally in today’s world of the internet?
Invest in a Mobile Application
Singapore has the highest smartphone penetration in the world. An intuitive mobile application will help you connect with thousands of potential clients efficiently. Include features that will make it convenient for the users to access your health care services.
For example, make it possible for them to book an appointment, contact the support team, and view pricing information from the app. Such convenience will significantly help you connect with the target audience better as well as give your healthcare clinic an upper hand in the country.
Social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are very popular in Singapore. As a result, they present a ripe opportunity for spreading the word about your medical practice and patient engagement online. Whether you are starting a new clinic or just aiming to expand your client base, these forums ought to be part of your digital marketing strategy.
All you need to do is become a creative leader in your medical field by sharing useful and smart content that’s relevant to the types of services you offer at your clinic. If you are a family physician, sharing your own advice or posting articles from medical websites regarding seasonal ailments that commonly affect children could keep patients coming back to your clinic for more information. Some of them may even decide to follow your social media pages!
In the long run, this will build trust and keep you at the top of visitors’ minds and it won’t be long before they make book an appointment.
Hold Live Sessions on Social Media Platforms
Over the years, the number of active social media users in Singapore has increased as evident from the recent statistics. Currently, there are more than 3.46 million users, and this figure is expected to exceed 4 million by 2022. Three of the most popular social media platforms in the country are:
Stand out from the crowd by holding a live session on Facebook or Instagram. The session will give clients an excellent opportunity to ask you questions regarding the services offered as well as express challenges that they might be facing. Make sure that you are open-minded and maintain a high level of professionalism throughout the live session to get the expected positive results.
More importantly, make sure that you inform the audience that you will be holding a live session to get as many viewers as possible. You can do this by designing an ad and distributing it across all social media platforms that you use. The ad will not only help you get more viewers but also enhance your brand awareness efforts.
Optimize your clinic website for search engines
Search engine optimization or SEO includes both the creative and technical elements needed to improve the rankings of your clinic website on search engines, raise awareness of healthcare practice, and increase visitor traffic. SEO entails many facets including the local Singaporean keywords you will use on your page, featured links, or basically structuring your site in a manner that search engines can correctly understand and categorize.
It is of great importance to understand the variations between “long tail” and “short tail” and keywords. Short tail keywords are usually around two words in length, such as “Singapore clinic” and are the most commonly used. As these keywords are searched more regularly, they can be more advantageous in attracting more traffic. However, you will also be more open to the websites of your competitors who are using the same exact keywords.
In contrast, long tail key phrases tend to be 3-5 words in length and are more specific, such as “finding the best clinic in Singapore”. Even though these keywords are not popular, they can be of benefit to your clinic venture as they more targeted to limited searches and face reduced competition rival websites, which raises your web page rankings for those keywords.
To make sure the content of your clinic website is both SEO optimised and professionally presented, consider having SEO experts and specialist developers undertake your website maintenance and development to ensure your website is not getting buried by competitors.
Make Sure your website is up-to-date
Your website is one of the gateways to the target clients. Therefore, make sure that it is always updated with fresh content. If you have a blog section, post new articles regularly to keep the visitors engaged and interested in the healthcare services that you offer.
Note that wrong information can ruin your reputation and chase potential customers to your competitors. For example, if you relocate to a new building, make sure that you update your address on not only your website but also social media platforms and even Google Places.
This will ensure that clients do not waste time driving to your previous location only to find that you relocated but failed to inform them. Social media can help you to share such vital information to a broad audience.
Local SEO
The chances are that most of your patient will be people who reside around the town that your clinic is located. This is where local SEO becomes critically important for people to find you. The keywords that they use to look for information related to the services that you offer will often include the name of the town they reside in. Include such keywords in your website content and blog articles to increase your visibility online.
Here are few examples of potential keywords:
- Family clinic in Woodlands, Singapore
- Women’s clinic in Toa Payoh
- After Hours Clinic in Tampines
- 24hr Clinic in Yishun
- clinic near me
Use Google Keyword Planner and other keyword analytics tools to know the specific phrases that the target audiences use to search for healthcare clinics in Singapore. Make sure that your content contains these keywords to continue reigning supreme in the Singapore private healthcare sector.
Highlight your Doctors Expertise and Qualifications
Sure, good credibility online will enable you to get more clients in Singapore, but some of your patients will relate more to the clinic itself while others will relate more to specific doctors that they interact with at the clinic. Leverage the attention of both segments of clients by providing plenty of information about your doctors’ qualifications and expertise on your website. Make sure that this information is updated regularly to avoid any confusion.
Creating a Mailing List
Email marketing is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies in Singapore. Nowadays, there are plenty of plugins that display a pop-up, which triggers the website visitor to subscribing to a mailing list by providing their names and email address. You can set it to appear once the visitor have read a blog post, when they visit a specific page on your website, or after spending a particular amount of time on the site.
Use the email address captured to send relevant information related to the services offered. You can also go an extra mile to provide expert advice on various conditions such as weight loss. The secret to conducting a successful email marketing campaign is making sure that the information you send out is relevant to the recipients.
How do you achieve that? Through target audience segmentation, that is, group the recipients based on factors such as gender, age, occupation, needs, and health conditions.
Create and Send Out an Informative Newsletter
Newsletters have proven to be effective in spurring engagement with the target audience. Now that you have a mailing list in place and have correctly segmented your audience, go ahead and create an informative newsletter for each group. Make sure that the information contained in the newsletter is accurate and relevant to the audience.
Be sure to include a link that they can click on to visit your website for more details. You can also provide contact information that they can use to call your support team for a free consultation session or to book an appointment. You can also spice up the newsletter by including call to actions (CTAs).
Note all this additional information should be provided towards the newsletter. The newsletter also does not have to be sent out on a daily basis. After all, you might not get time to create a newsletter for every day of the week. Besides, the clients may get bored with your emails and mark them as spam. You can decide to send it on a weekly or monthly basis, just make sure that you do not overdo it.
Closing Remarks
The above digital marketing tips for clinics in Singapore will help you get more clients faster and without contravening the set rules and regulations. MediaOne can help you get more results by creating custom digital marketing campaigns for your clinic. Our team of experts will work cordially with you to ensure that you succeed. Get in touch with us for more details.
