How to Market a Functional Medicine Practice

More and more people today see healthcare quite differently. In fact, instead of sticking to conventional medicine, about 12 percent of Americans take advantage of other non-mainstream approaches to heal like functional medicine.

As the demand for functional medicine increases, it helps to have a marketing strategy to share your message of hope and healing with more people. Learn how to market a functional medicine practice in our comprehensive guide below.

#1. Start with a Marketing Strategy

Every marketing campaign needs thorough planning and a well-defined marketing strategy. This way, you can align your content with your goals as a functional medicine practitioner. It also allows you to customize your message according to the needs of your target audience. 

A robust marketing strategy also helps you to anticipate potential hiccups along the journey and determine how you can solve them. With a good functional medicine marketing strategy, you also get to have a more precise grasp of where to spend your budget. This comes in handy, especially if you have scarce resources, as it eliminates guesswork and prioritizes tactics that would bring the most value to your practice.  

#2. Create a Website for your Functional Medicine Practice

Websites are a must these days, regardless of your industry or the size of your business. It’s more like your virtual clinic or dedicated space on the world wide web. If you don’t have one set up yet, you’re missing out on benefits, such as:

  • Gaining a competitive edge and establishing trust and credibility among your current and potential patients 
  • Having a platform where you can grow and nourish your community 
  • Learning more about the specific types of content your readers love 
  • Building your authority as a functional medicine practitioner in your city
  • Having a platform that you can control completely

We specialize in designing functional medicine practice websites.

#3. Ensure that you Rank in Search

Around 547,000 websites get launched each day. These come from various sectors, including healthcare and functional medicine. Search engines like Google have to sort through all these websites and their respective web pages to provide relevant results whenever someone keys in a query like “functional medicine practice near me.”

To help your website get sorted out properly and displayed on the top page of search results, you need to work on your website SEO. Essentially, SEO (search engine optimization) refers to an extensive list of techniques used to enhance a website’s online presence. It includes tactics such as:

  • Knowing the top keywords used by your readers to look for information about functional medicine
  • Adding your target keywords to your website content
  • Fixing technical SEO problems like pages that won’t load properly and broken links
  • Optimizing your website images for search by adding keywords and an image meta title
  • Working on your website metadata so search engines can find and index your site pages
  • Setting up analytics tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor your website performance and identify potential SEO problems.

#4. Work On Your Local Online Presence

Local SEO is also another tactic in our playbook on how to market a functional medicine practice. It’s a crucial marketing tactic that helps you translate online traffic into clinic visits. According to statistics, around 50 percent of people who search for a brand's physical location pay a visit within 24 hours. 

By implementing local SEO tactics, you can provide details that a patient needs when looking for a functional medicine clinic nearby. These pieces of information include your practice location, contact number, and patient reviews. 

To set up your local SEO, you will need to:

  • Create or improve your Google My Business Listing 
  • Keep your GMB listing by posting content regularly
  • Ensure that your NAP (name, address, and phone number) appear consistent on every online listing or directory
  • Add location to your most crucial pages, such as your service and contact page
  • Publish content with local keywords such as functional medicine practice [in CITY, STATE]
  • Engage with your community by joining campaigns, sponsoring events, or even volunteering 

 #5. Engage Your Audience On Social Media

Social media, when used properly, can quickly turn into a powerful digital marketing tool. It gives you a unique and fun way to engage with potential and existing patients. You can also tap into your social media pages to distribute content from your website, such as blog posts and special clinic events. 

Patients also use social media to connect with their favorite brands. They often ask questions about a service or recently published content via social media. In fact, according to the latest stats, 70 percent expect their brands to reply to their social media queries

If you’re not on any social media platform yet, you might want to start setting up your accounts. You can focus on the most popular options like: 

#6. Establish More Personal Connection with Email Marketing

Despite how others see email as an obsolete option to connect with patients and establish rapport, statistics show an opposite trend. The latest numbers prove that email marketing continues to stay relevant and practical. Here are quick facts and stats on email marketing:

  • About 3.9 billion use email to communicate back in 2019
  • Roughly 293.6 billion emails got sent each day in 2019
  • Email marketing delivers about $42 ROI for every dollar spent
  • 81 percent of small and medium businesses tap into email marketing to acquire new customers
  • 49 percent of users want to receive promotional material through their emails

When setting up your email marketing campaigns, it’s essential to have the main components such as a targeted email list, your set of goals, a clean email layout, and attractive email opt-in forms. We also recommend preparing an email marketing funnel to identify the best time to send out materials, depending on your patient’s buyer journey.  

#7. Reach More Patients with Paid Advertisements

To many practices, paid ads remain unchartered territory in their digital marketing campaign. That’s because of the common notion that paid advertisements on Google Ads or social media ads can cause a considerable dent in your marketing budget. 

However, in truth, paid ads can come in extra handy, specifically when you’re still building your presence. It gives you quick and measurable results. You also get to have complete control over your spending. That’s because aid ads allow you to customize campaign goals depending on your needs for your functional medicine practice. 

You can choose from various online advertising models such as Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Pay-Per-Call, and Pay-Per Impression. 

#8. Tap into Video Marketing to Spread Your Message

The last tactic in our guide on how to market a functional medicine practice is video marketing. Over the last decade, video marketing has evolved into a highly effective platform to capture the attention of web users. It gets the message across fast and generates instant shares. Statistics reveal that video marketing also comes in handy in improving conversion rates by up to 80 percent.

If you’re eyeing video marketing, but you’re not sure where to start, you can use the following tips:

  • Plan your content and include topics that explore how functional medicine works
  • Stick to a consistent posting schedule and frequency
  • Captivate your audience by unlocking the power of storytelling
  • Rise above the competition by incorporating your branding into your video content
  • Don’t forget to engage with your audience by including user-generated content
  • Make sure to include call-to-action at the end of your videos and your video descriptions
  • Analyze your video marketing insights and plan necessary adjustments

 

How To Market A Functional Medicine Practice with HHS

Building a marketing strategy requires intensive planning and research. It also pays to have technical and marketing know-how. Thankfully, with Hope and Healing Solutions, you can promote your functional medicine practice or personal branding with great ease. 

We offer an extensive selection of digital marketing services that can augment your existing marketing campaigns. Some examples of services we provide to functional medicine professionals include website design, SEO, social media marketing, video marketing, and email marketing. We make sure to tailor-fit the services to your needs. This way, we can help establish crucial touchpoints that can lead to increased patient visits. 

Learn how to market a functional medicine practice the best way possible with the HHS digital marketing team. Call us at Hope and Healing Solutions today for a quick consultation. You can also get in touch with HHS using our online form.

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