Although there’s no shortage of blog posts, articles, and how-to tutorials for marketing best practices available online, books can offer readers more detailed insight and in-depth plans-of-action than any other resource. Healthcare marketing books — or marketing books, in general — can help you with everything from establishing your healthcare practice brand and growing your social media following to delivering a positive patient experience and building your online reputation.
Whether you’re looking for new healthcare marketing ideas to try in 2020 or are just beginning to market your practice, we’ve compiled five books that will help you succeed.
Boost your healthcare marketing with these reads
1. “Healthcare Marketing in the Digital Times”
“Healthcare Marketing in the Digital Times” by Olivia Flaggert is a great choice for the doctor or provider who is new to online healthcare marketing and is particularly strapped for time. Within its 42 pages, you will find healthcare marketing ideas meant to help you attract more patients in 2020.
According to PatientPop, about three-in-four people have looked online to find out about a doctor, a dentist, or medical care. If your healthcare marketing strategy hasn’t yet shifted online, this book will serve as a primer to search engine optimization, social media marketing, and search advertising, among other healthcare marketing ideas. There are also 30 Facebook post ideas to kickstart your social media strategy.
Check out: Outdated healthcare marketing ideas providers should stop
2. “Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen”
A good healthcare marketing strategy requires being able to communicate your brand. Your brand helps convey who you are and the value you provide to patients. Your brand also helps differentiate you from your competitors. You likely already know what sets you apart in your local market, but communicating your differentiator in a memorable and consistent way can be a challenge for even seasoned marketers.
Although this book is not specific to healthcare marketing, add “Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen” by Donald Miller to your 2020 reading list. Miller, the CEO of StoryBrand — a company that helps businesses with branding — gives readers a guide to developing and refining brand messaging. This book can help bring the expertise of a marketing professional to your practice at a much more affordable cost.
3. “One Million Followers: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days”
In 2020, your healthcare marketing strategy must include social media marketing. With 72 percent of U.S. adults using at least one social media site, according to the Pew Research Center, there’s ample opportunity for you to build an audience of engaged patients online. However, creating a social media calendar and engaging on these channels can be time-consuming. For some providers, it can be difficult to know where to start and, once they get started, it can be even more difficult to find an engaged audience.
Check out “One Million Followers: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days” by Brendan Kane to learn how to grow your audience and your overall online brand. This marketing bestseller will show you how to use various social media channels to promote your practice. Even if you do not grow your audience to one million in 30 days, you’ll be able to learn the basics of a proven social media marketing strategy.
Try this: 15 ideas to increase healthcare social media reach
4. “Healthcare Marketing: Strategies for Creating Value in the Patient Experience”
If you’re looking for a comprehensive guide to healthcare marketing, look no further than the textbook “Healthcare Marketing: Strategies for Creating Value in the Patient Experience” by Barbara Ross Wooldridge and Kerri M. Camp. Written by marketing professors with ample healthcare experience, this book is for students entering a professional healthcare environment. Even if you’ve been in practicing medicine for a long time, this book can give you the tools you need to successfully promote your practice in today’s rapidly changing healthcare industry.
Although general marketing principles carry across industries, the health industry has its own unique set of characteristics as well as its own set of rules and regulations that come with practicing medicine. This book focuses on healthcare marketing ideas that specifically translate to patient satisfaction.
Read more: 5 ways patient experience affects healthcare practice success
5. “SEO 2020: Learn SEO with smart internet marketing strategies”
If you know about search engine optimization (SEO), then you understand how important it is to your healthcare marketing success. SEO is a strategy you employ on your healthcare website so people find you when they are searching online for care. According to Google, one in every 20 searches on the search engine — which, according to GlobalStats statcounter, has about 93 percent of the worldwide search engine market share — is health-related.
Where you rank on Google is important because, the higher you rank, the more clicks your website will receive. According to Advanced Web Ranking, the top desktop result on Google has a click-through rate of about 31 percent. This goes down to 16 percent for the second desktop position and almost 10 percent for the third. The Google algorithm, which is largely kept secret, is also constantly evolving, which makes staying on top of SEO a challenge.
Check out “SEO 2020: Learn SEO with smart internet marketing strategies” by Adam Clarke for the latest SEO techniques. The book, which was expanded and updated in November 2019, explains Google’s most recent algorithm changes and reveals tips to achieve top rankings.
Learn more: Understanding Google search ranking factors for healthcare websites
To stay ahead in healthcare marketing, you have to keep up on the latest trends and best practices. Pick up one or all of these books to get a deeper understanding of these topics, so you can succeed with healthcare marketing in 2020.
Are you planning your healthcare marketing strategy for 2020? To stay ahead of the curve, download the whitepaper “2020 healthcare marketing trends for independent practices.”
