Reputation marketing is becoming the most important part of online promotion. This kind of activity is aimed at creating a positive image of the brand in the eyes of the consumer. Such work is especially important in the medical field, where word of mouth has a strong effect.
Traditionally, in Russia, medical service providers were searched for using the “word of mouth” method, based on the “friends will not advise bad advice” principle. Acquaintances, friends, and relatives advised each other on specific doctors or certain clinics, based on their own experience.
Medical services require a high degree of consumer trust
Now the reputation on the Internet, the reviews of living people play the role of those same friends and acquaintances. Reputation marketing for dentistry and medical clinics is especially relevant since the competition is very high and there is a continuous struggle for the loyalty and trust of patients.
Pages in social networks, on maps, review sites form an attitude, which determines whether a person applies to this company.
According to statistics, the absolute majority of the target audience first searches for information about the organization on the Internet: on review aggregators, on social networks on Yandex and Google maps.
Higher-ranked competitors will be the priority choice. Users compare clinics, specific doctors, and the more stars, the more likely the patient will choose your services.
Work with the reputation of a medical clinic includes the following activities:
- regular publication of expert articles on the company's website or in online publications;
- systematic work with reviews — both positive and negative;
- purposeful promotion of doctors' personal brand, using two previous activities.
Publication of expert materials
The success of a medical clinic directly depends on the expertise of its specialists. It is important to learn how to translate expertise outside in order to expand the coverage of impact on a potential audience with its help.
Work on articles should be approached extremely responsibly because the PR effect that you get will depend on the quality of the article. Articles can be both aimed at highlighting the work of a particular clinic, and informational — about methods of treatment, equipment, search for clinics and centers, criteria for evaluating doctors.
It is important that the article is visually and grammatically well designed because it is practically the face of your company for appearance.
Small specialized online platforms are interested in expert articles and are willing to work with representatives of clinics.
Ideally, when the article is developed by an SEO specialist and includes key queries that will bring additional visitors to it. This is especially true when placed on TOP and expensive sites.
A published article on a visited and authoritative resource is an asset that will constantly generate a new stream of traffic and hits for you. To search for such sites, you can use specialized services, for example — PR Posting.
Work with reviews
According to our data about 90% of satisfied customers do not leave a review. At the same time, on the sites devoted to reviews, the negative is more than 30%, and the positive is about 24%.
Collection and publication of reviews
The most difficult thing is to motivate the client to leave a review. Most patients are reluctant to leave their comments. It is necessary to make the process as comfortable and simple as possible.
- Use specialized services for collecting reviews, which automatically send a notification to the client with a request to leave a review and redirect him to the desired service, for example, Yandex.Maps.
- It is important to work with clients not only online, but also offline. For example, offer a questionnaire in paper form — many elderly patients do not like to communicate with technology, while others will forget about the feedback when they return home.
- It is best to diversify the formats of feedback from patients, in addition to text options, you can use:
- video format prevails in social networks: Instagram, YouTube, Vkontakte, Facebook;
- screenshots of correspondence with a client are also often published on social networks;
- photographs of hand-filled questionnaires (with text transcripts) can be published on the official website and other sites.
It is important to learn how to properly deal with negative reviews.
It should be remembered that the feedback flow should be dynamic and constant.
Dealing with negative reviews
It is important to learn how to properly deal with negative reviews. Many companies respond to negative feedback by reporting improvements. This works to increase brand loyalty and instill confidence in the audience.
The main stages of work with the negative.
- Online reputation monitoring. It is advisable to use specialized services for the rapid collection of new mentions of the brand in the network. The simplest and free option is Google Alerts;
- Fight against negativity
- Maintaining a positive image of the clinic.
Comments are usually grouped, they are classified, subdivided into:
- positive;
- neutral;
- negative;
Next, a feedback strategy is developed. To do this, you will have to determine whether this review is real. Positive reviews can be ordered by the clinics themselves, while negative reviews can be the result of an attack by competitors.
- Negative real feedback from the patient can be neutralized by admitting one's fault (if any) and offering a discount, compensation, or other solution to the problem.
- Fake, purchased, or deliberately false reviews are deleted by the moderator or resource administrator.
Efficiency is very important in dealing with negativity.
Limitations and pitfalls
You need to take care of the legitimacy of the posted reviews. Despite the fact that they are not covered by copyright articles, it is important to take into account some nuances.
Under no circumstances should you publish without your consent:
- personal data of the patient who left the review;
- his photo and video images;
- health data.
If the patient's consent to publication was given by letter, it is important to retain it. Consent to the processing of personal data in electronic form, which the user gives when registering on the resource, solves most of the problems.
Use in the promotion of the personal brand of doctors
Promotion of a doctor's brand is a complex work that includes both the preparation of expert materials and communication with the audience through comments and reviews. Within the framework of this article, we will only superficially touch upon the main aspects of this important direction in the field of developing the reputation of a medical clinic.
Today, people more often choose not a clinic, but a specific doctor to whom they would entrust their health. One of the solutions to increase trust in the doctors of the clinic can be regular publications of specialists in the company's blog.
Professional, simple, proven advice that does not require serious effort in execution is especially appreciated. For example, you can talk about the prevention of colds, exercises for stretching the spine after a working day, proper facial care with recipes for natural masks. Free information from specialists always attracts attention and works to increase loyalty.
Useful posts will not only increase credibility but also help with the organic promotion of your blog in search engines through information queries.
Of course, it is advisable not to limit yourself to only one platform for posting content — including social networks, online media, specialized publications in distribution. This will help to find out about your specialists to a larger audience.
Doctors who own the world attract a significant audience!
Afterword
Working with reputation is becoming an integral part of the marketing strategy for most medical clinics, and today it is worth approaching this issue systematically.
