The best healthcare marketing books in 2024

Although there’s no shortage of blog posts, articles, and how-to tutorials for marketing best practices available online, books can offer healthcare providers more detailed insight and in-depth plans of action for independent medical practice marketing 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 or are just beginning to market your practice, we’ve compiled five books that will help you succeed.

“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.

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.

A good healthcare marketing strategy requires being able to communicate your practice 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 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 brings the expertise of a marketing professional to your practice at a much more affordable cost.

In today’s healthcare landscape, your healthcare marketing strategy must include medical social media marketing. The US has over 302 million social media users as of 2023, according to DemandSage. 

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 practice brand. This marketing bestseller will show you how to use various social media channels to promote your practice. Even if you don’t grow your audience to one million in 30 days, you’ll learn the basics of a proven social media marketing strategy.

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 textbook is for students entering a professional healthcare environment. Even if you’ve been 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 healthcare marketing book focuses on ideas that specifically translate to patient satisfaction.

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. 

It follows that where you rank on Google is important because, the higher you rank, the more clicks your website will receive. Check out “SEO 2024: Learn SEO with smart internet marketing strategies” by Adam Clarke for the latest SEO techniques. The book explains Google’s most recent algorithm changes and reveals tips to achieve top rankings.

To stay ahead in this competitive healthcare market, you have to keep up on the latest trends and best practices. Pick up one or all of these healthcare marketing books to get a deeper understanding of these topics, so you can grow your medical practice and remain profitable in the long term.