More Secret Sauce for Connecting with Your Prospective Patients
In my last article I covered some “secret sauce” … using Twitter for healthcare research, to find out what your prospecive patents are asking online. After all, if you don’t know what they are looking for, you cannot provide it, and you won’t be found. Provide what they are looking for, and they will find you: “Inbound Marketing”or content marketing. Pretty simple. In this brief article I will give you my own method for finding out exactly what my prospective patients are asking … what they are searching for online. More than just information, people are looking for answers to their health questions, and they demand answers that are provided by someone who knows what they are talking about – someone just like you!
People want their health questions answered by someone with expertise. They are tired of reading so-called “health information” that is designed to drive traffic to sell products. People are wear and skeptical. They are looking for accurate, useful, expert information!
Here is the number-one question that my content brand clients ask me: “I hear you, Dr. Faust, I ‘get’ inbound marketing … but what should I write about on my blog”? Keep reading to find out exactly what you should write about on your blog. [You may also want to take a look at the Physicians Practice website for guidance on using social media in your practice.]
First, a couple assumptions, and I think they’re legitimate:
- You will be found in the digital world if you simply provide the health information – the content – that your prospective patients are looking for
- Therefore, you need to know exactly what content your prospective patients are looking for … and then provide it
- Finally, your prospective patients are looking for exactly the same information that your actual patients are looking for – they are asking the same questions
How does that last point help you?
It helps because you have a direct line of communication with your actual patients. In fact, if you’re a clinician, and you see patients in your office, in clinic, you spend your entire day answering those questions. SHAZAM!
Here’s how to use that information:
Carry a small (cheap!) spiral notebook in the pocket of your lab coat. Every time you notice yourself repeating the same thing – that is, answering the same question – write it down. (As an alternative, you can simply dictate them into your smart phone voice-recorder app and write them down later). These are your patient’s Frequently-Asked Questions … FAQs.
Your Patient FAQ Notebook
At the end of every clinic day, re-write those questions into your Patient FAQ Notebook. There! Before long, you have your book full of blog post ideas. And here’s the sweet thing about this technique: because you spend most of your time in clinic answering these questions, you don’t need to do any research in order to answer them in a short blog post.
You’re an authority on these topics, baby! In fact, I guarantee that you’ll be able to slam out a couple decent blog posts in less than thirty minutes. How cool is that!?!
And you want the best part of this? These represent pure gold to your community. These are the answers to the questions that your prospective patient community is looking for … online … right now!
SHAZAM … Secret Sauce indeed … Inbound Marketing
Follow this technique and you’ll never run out of ideas for content … content that is easy for you to create.
- Content that your prospective patients are looking for.
- Content that they will find online.
- Content that they will value.
- Content that demonstrates your expertise in your area of practice.
- Content that is the basis to build a relationship with your community.
That relationship is the basis for content connecting … read my Content Connecting Manifesto here.
We both know that you’re a great practitioner, a healer. Now you’ll also be a great connector.
Congratulations … you just jumped ahead of about 80% of practitioners ;)
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