A strong OB-GYN advertising strategy has become important for any healthcare service in today’s age of technology. Traditional marketing strategies have become obsolete for obstetrics and gynecology practices (OB-GYN). That’s because of the rising importance of social media which has drastically changed patient behaviors.
Interestingly, the healthcare advertising market is estimated to expand by 5.4% from 2024 to 2032. Therefore, OB-GYN services need to follow promotional techniques to keep themselves unique in the healthcare industry.
There are many benefits to OB-GYN advertising. Practices will get better audience reach, higher patient trust, more patient acquisition, and improved online visibility. For example, a strong presence in social media along with an optimized website and targeted ads will motivate new patients to select your service.
Have you recently opened your OB-GYN practice but don’t have enough patients to work with? Don’t worry! We’ve got you covered. Our comprehensive strategies will explore the foundations of OB-GYN advertising and the steps required to get potential patients.
What is OB-GYN Advertising?
OB-GYN advertising encompasses all the techniques used by a medical practice to promote its obstetric and gynecology services by targeting women’s reproductive, pregnancy, and gynecological needs.
Digital OB-GYN advertisements can come in diverse forms, like video commercials, social media posts, informative newsletters, and promotional emails. Efficient OB-GYN advertisements intend to make women aware of the benefits of preventive care, frequent screenings, and check-ups in a professional but compassionate manner. It also advertises the availability of quality medical services throughout women’s reproductive lives.
Why do OB-GYN Practices Need Advertising?
Nowadays patients are constantly on their phones and access medical information at their fingertips. That’s why they want to be constantly in touch with their healthcare providers.
Digital marketing strategies and advertising can however help OB-GYN practices to achieve these patient expectations. This improves online visibility and also enables them to build strong associations with patients.
Let’s have a look at some key reasons why OB-GYN practices need advertising.
1. Focus on Specific Patients
Clinics providing OB-GYN services tend to work with a very particular community. These are usually women with concerns about pregnancy or reproductive health. A good advertising plan can help practices create ads that are compassionate and target the sensitive needs of these people.
2. Improve Digital Visibility
The medical industry is one of the most competitive and complex fields. A strong promotional campaign is a must to make you stand out and attract the attention of your patients.
A comprehensive OB-GYN advertising plan will also help you build a strong online reputation. As a result, you will get better sales and online rankings for your practice.
3. Provide Measurable Outcomes
Several metrics can be used to record the performance of advertisements. For example, website traffic rates and conversion rates.
A good advertising plan also includes the measurement of these metrics in your promotional campaign. This will show whether your ads have successfully reached the desired patient community. These measures are also great for finding out any ways of improving your ads.
4. Regulate Costs of Advertisements
Promotions of your services and products are also important for patient retention and revenue for your practice.
Additionally, a good advertising plan also encourages the use of content marketing and social media marketing. These are cost-effective channels that can control your expenditures. You can further gain more return on investments by using keywords that increase your reach and patient engagement.
Process of Advertising Campaign for Obstetrics & Gynecologists
OB-GYN practices need a good advertising plan to retain patients and boost their online growth.
Here are some of the major steps to create the most robust and effective advertising campaign for your practice.
Step 1: Setting your Goals and Objectives
Clinics need to be clear on what they want to achieve with their OB-GYN advertising plan. This will help them brainstorm and design their marketing efforts accordingly.
Here are the steps to create objectives and goals for your practice:
- Think about the kind of metric you want to measure. For example, patient visits, appointments, conversions, or social media engagements.
- Add a numeric to the metric to measure. For example, the number of patient visits you wish to achieve.
- Add a timeline to the goal. For example, the number of weeks or months you need to achieve this goal.
Step 2: Allocation of Budget
The next step is to know how to distribute costs between various ad groups and channels. This is an important step since healthcare providers shouldn’t recklessly spend without knowing whether the advertisements are truly fulfilling their purpose.
Here are the steps to budget allocation:
- Set a Goal: First, fix the main objective of your ad campaign. For example, enhance brand awareness or acquire new patients.
- Research the Market: Analyze current market trends and patient preferences. For example, what are pregnant or reproductive-aged women expecting from OB-GYN services?
- Fix a Budget: Think of the amount you want to spend on healthcare marketing. For example, how will the cost be influenced by the reach and format of your commercials?
- Choose Platforms: Think about where you want to market your content. For example, Facebook, Google Ads, or local health directories.
- Talk to your Team: Coordinate with your sales team to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding the budget.
Step 3: Doing Extensive Keyword Research
Your advertisements can only reach the desired audience when they contain the correct phrases. Let’s see how clinics can make the most out of this strategy:
- Look for words that people type when looking for OB-GYN practices on the internet. For example, “top pregnancy clinics near me”, “best women’s health doctor” etc.
- You can also use social media or Google Analytics to connect to your target patient community.
- Partner with a premium OB-GYN advertising company to further optimize your content and expand your reach.
Step 4: Implement a Competitor Analysis
It’s also important to see what your rivals are doing digitally to stay ahead in the industry. Let’s see how this can be done:
- Identify your Competition: First, see who your nearby rivals are. For example, hospitals or private clinics that provide obstetric and reproductive care.
- Check their Online Marketing Efforts: See their social media posts and reviews. This will highlight how patients perceive their brand.
- Analyze their Advertising: Look for the channels they are promoting their ads in. For example, LinkedIn and Facebook.
- Evaluate their Content Marketing Strategies: Carefully read their blogs and website content. It shows the efforts they are making to retain their patients.
Step 5: Create a Bidding Strategy
These are the prices healthcare marketers are willing to spend on some commercials. It helps practices understand how much they need to spend on some ads and how they will be understood by patients.
Let’s see how practices can master this OB-GYN advertising step:
- Think about your Target Audience: Consider the kind of patients your practice wants to target. For example, pregnant women and women experiencing menopause.
- Establish a Campaign Goal: Think about the objective of your clinic. For example, improving website traffic or improving the number of appointments.
- Review your Competition: Carefully look for what your rivals are doing. This will help you brainstorm areas of improvement.
- Budget Accordingly: Fix a financial plan and distribute the costs across various advertising channels. For example, Facebook or local websites.
- Make Bids: Consider a bidding strategy to optimize the performance of your ad. For example, cost per click or cost per conversion.
Step 6: Adopt Local Marketing Strategies
Your most loyal patients may just be living in the neighborhood!
Creating ads that target the preferences and needs of local patients can easily be your golden ticket to new bookings and appointments. You can do so by implementing the following guidelines:
- Local Messages: Make sure that your ads are highlighting the uniqueness of your clinic. These should match the preferences and questions of your local patients. For example, promote that your clinic is offering care for high-risk pregnancies if that is the most frequent concern of your patients.
- Make Educational Content: Publish posts that resolve the queries of local people. For example, a blog on “Medicines to Avoid During Pregnancy” to answer questions on this topic.
- Local Ad Channels: Promote your brand messages on local websites and health directories. This will connect you to a wider patient community.
Step 7: Make Creatives and Ad Copies
The ad copies can comprise a combination of educational content and catchy visuals to boost your OB-GYN advertising efforts.
Here are some examples of how you can make interesting ad copies to build trust in your patients:
- Attractive Graphics: It can include infographics on specific reproductive problems or a video showcasing your clinic and staff.
- Creative Visuals: This can be a video montage of images from your clinic, or an infographic about any specific OB-GYN condition, like ectopic pregnancy.
- Educational Content: This could be a blog titled, “Expert Care at Every Step: Our OB-GYN Services”. It can talk about the kinds of OB-GYN services needed at every step of pregnancy with backlinks to your relevant web pages.
- Special Discounts: This can be an ad copy highlighting special offers like, “Expert OB-GYN Care, Now at 20% Off!”.
Step 8: Inclusion of Negative Keywords
These are terms or phrases that are similar to the keywords of your practice but can be associated with a different medical service. Interestingly, they are also a part of effective marketing strategies. That makes it convenient for your commercials to reach your target audience and also exclude any irrelevant content for your brand.
Examples of negative keywords for an OB-GYN practice can include, “abortions”, “free”, and “insurance”. These will prevent your practice’s ads from coming up in searches related to free insurance or abortions. Here’s how you can include them:
- Select the “Campaigns” option from your Google Ads profile.
- Select the “Audience, Keywords, and Content” menu.
- Click on “Search Keywords” followed by “Negative Keywords”.
- Click the plus icon to negative keywords to an ad group or an ad campaign.
Step 9: Monitoring and Optimization
Lastly, you won’t know whether your campaign was successful or not without evaluating its results. Here’s how you can optimize and keep checking the performance of your OB-GYN advertising strategies:
- Ad Messaging: Check whether your ads are optimized to promote the quality of your services and the expertise of your premium staff.
- Target Audience: Evaluate whether your ads are truly targeting patients in need of OB-GYN services. For example, women in the age group of 25 to 45 years who are of childbearing age and are looking for reproductive health services.
- Tracking Tools: Use Google Analytics or other tracking tools like AdBeat or AdEspresso to monitor your campaigns.
- Blind Test: Perform this test on a sample target audience to see if they can identify the message or intent behind your ad.
Top 6 OB-GYN Advertising Strategies to Generate More Leads
Let’s look at some more strategies to create attractive ad copies and get new patients to your OB-GYN practice:
1. Promote your Unique Selling Proposition USPs)
These are unique benefits offered by businesses that make them different from their competitors.
You need to promote what makes your clinic unique from the rest of the practices. For example, the availability of certified screening technologies and registered doctors. It could also be that your clinic is offering 24/7 or urgent care OB-GYN services.
2. Manage Different Ad Accounts
You should make distinct ad profiles for each of the services or locations of your practice.
For example, this could be separate ads for different types of prenatal care services or different ads for two locations of your clinic. This will help patients be more clear with your services. It will also help you track your ad campaigns easily.
3. Target Specific Keywords
Use phrases that are aligned with your practice’s services and products. For example, “women’s health services near me” and “emergency OB-GYN care”. These will make sure that your ads reach patients who are using such terms when searching online.
4. Call Optimization
Create ads that contain your practice’s contact details. These will prompt patients who view your ads to contact you directly.
Remember to make direct and concise ads that motivate people to immediately take action. For example, “Call our doctors now” or “Book now to get pregnancy care at your doorstep”.
5. Maximize Character Limits Using Ad Extensions
These help add extra data to your ads. This will lead to higher interactions with new patients.
It includes callouts and location extensions. For example:
- A callout can display the USP of your practice.
- A location extension can display where your clinic is placed near other hospitals and clinics.
- A site link can direct people to the booking pages or service pages of your website.
6. Optimize your Landing Pages
Did you know that approximately 70% of people search online for any health-related queries before they meet a doctor? Your OB-GYN practice’s website is informative and clear enough to help patients with their queries.
Let’s look at some quick tips to optimize your landing pages:
- Avoid any complex clinical terms.
- Highlight the benefits of your practice. For example, 24/7 pregnancy care, and availability of emergency female doctors.
- Optimize your pages for mobile phones.
- Ensure that the pages do not lag while loading.
- Include reviews and feedback from satisfied clients.
- Include direct links that prompt people to book an appointment.
Common OB-GYN Advertising Mistakes to Avoid
The medical industry is tough and competitive. This makes it all the more important for OB-GYN advertising to be clear enough to reach its target patients.
Regardless, there are some common errors that clinics make when promoting their services and products. Read along to find out the mistakes that you avoid when advertising your OB-GYN practice.
1. Not Setting Clear Goals
This is when you do not have any clear objectives or endpoints for your digital plan. As a result, your advertisements will be directionless and not reach the right audience at the right time.
That’s why your OB-GYN advertising campaign must be built on realistic and concrete goals. For example, perhaps you want to make patients more aware of your practice or simply increase your website traffic.
A clear picture of what you want your practice to achieve will you create a focused ad copy. You can then easily measure whether they are optimized and reach your potential patients.
2. Poor Ad Copy and Landing Pages
This is when your commercials and website are difficult to understand with too many complex terms. It’s also a problem if your content is too promotional but not compassionate enough to appeal to patients.
Create content that uses direct language and empathy. Include good patient feedback and also the background of your staff. As a result, patients will feel that your practice isn’t just always about branding but also about caring for women’s health.
3. Ignoring Quality Score
This is when you do not take the overall depth of your content seriously. This happens when you stuff your work with too many keywords or use language that can be offensive to patients.
Your quality score and reputation can also be damaged if you do not follow HIPAA guidelines and disrespect patient’s privacy.
Design content that includes relevant keywords while also answering patient queries. This will build the trustworthiness and quality of your brand.
You can also partner with a medical search engine optimization agency if you are confused. They will offer you smart reputation management and content marketing ideas that are sure to boost your advertisement returns.
4. Forgetting About Competition
This is when you ignore what your rivals are doing or do not pay attention to existing medical trends.
Observe, but don’t replicate what your rivals are doing. This will help you understand what clients are truly expecting from OB-GYN practices and how are these met by other clinics. This will help you brainstorm ideas to boost your advertisement campaigns.
Conclusion
Digital marketing combined with patient acquisition strategies are the prerequisites for a good OB-GYN advertising plan. The correct tools and knowledge about your audience can grow your practice and patient community to new heights!
In addition to advertising, other reputational and promotional services are equally essential for an OB-GYN practice. To know more about these practices, one can always work with a professional OB-GYN digital marketing agency.
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