Top Patient Acquisition Strategies To Grow Your Practice

Has the competitive healthcare landscape made it hard to grow your medical practice? Start taking patient acquisition more seriously and see the results it can provide.

Once you implement the right patient acquisition strategies, your practice can begin welcoming in more new patients. You can also make the patient acquisition process even more effective by doubling down on your patient retention efforts to keep your existing patients happy.

Not sure where to start when it comes to patient acquisition? Learn more about the steps you should take below to keep new and existing patients coming through your practice’s front door.

What Is Patient Acquisition, and Why Is It Important?

Patient acquisition refers to the process medical practices undergo to attract new patients. The harder a practice works while implementing a patient acquisition strategy, the more medical practice growth it should experience in the coming months and years.

Well over one million physicians practice in the U.S., and Many work at the more than 300,000 medical practices scattered throughout the country.

The sheer number of doctors and healthcare practices often makes it challenging for practices to stand out. By making your medical practice look like a much better option to potential patients, you can enable it to grow in the future.

Successful new patient acquisition directly impacts practice revenue and reputation. Your practice shouldn’t overlook its importance.

Key Components of an Effective Patient Acquisition Strategy

Developing an effective patient acquisition strategy is the key to medical practice growth. However, as most healthcare providers readily admit, developing such a strategy can be challenging.

If you plan to devise a strategy to acquire patients for your medical practice, ensure it features several important components. Discover more about them below to boost patient acquisition.

Understanding Your Ideal Patient Demographics

Everyone should see a healthcare provider regularly, so you may assume that your medical practice’s target audience is everyone. But this isn’t the case.

Not all healthcare providers cater to everyone. Some, like pediatric practices, specialize in providing healthcare services to children, teenagers, and young adults. Others see only those patients suffering from specific health conditions, such as heart or foot problems.

Your practice must have an in-depth knowledge of its patient demographics. This will allow you to gear marketing efforts toward your target audience and gradually grow your patient base.

Building a Professional and Patient-Friendly Website

The patient journey for the people in your medical practice’s community likely starts with researching different healthcare providers by visiting their websites. If your practice still needs a website, building one can work wonders for patient acquisition and retention.

An optimized website is one that attracts visitors and converts them into customers. To establish a strong online presence, ensure it includes features like easy navigation, service pages, and an online appointment booking system.

Prioritizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

It isn’t enough to set up a website for your healthcare practice and leave it at that. You’ll also need a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to ensure prospective patients find it when searching for medical information online.

SEO involves adding high-quality content to your practice’s website and incorporating the right keywords and links. Certain SEO techniques specific to healthcare, such as targeting local keywords and creating health-related blog content, can introduce your practice to new patients.

Creating a Social Media Presence

A 2023 study found that over 70% of healthcare providers utilize various social media channels as part of their marketing efforts. In today’s digital age, it’s nearly impossible for healthcare practices to succeed without relying on social media at least a little.

Establishing a presence on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and even TikTok will allow you to put up informative social media posts for your existing patients. It will also enable you to connect with new patients like never before.

Social media marketing has become an essential component for almost every healthcare practitioner interested in acquiring patients and establishing patient loyalty.

Marketing your practice should involve more than embracing social media marketing and its many benefits. You shouldn’t ignore its immense impact on patient growth.

Effective Patient Acquisition Tactics for Medical Practices

If you follow each of the steps we just mentioned, you should soon start to see more new patients reach out to your healthcare facility. But why stop there?

You can attract even more patients who have never considered your private practice in the past with more advanced patient acquisition strategies. Encourage patients to give your practice a call by using them.

Leveraging Online Reviews and Testimonials

Many potential patients read online reviews before making appointments at medical practices. Will new patients like what they see when they stumble across the online reviews for your practice?

Be proactive when gauging patient satisfaction. Actively seek patient feedback and use it to improve your operation. This should yield more positive patient reviews from your current patients and motivate new patients to make appointments.

Positive reviews will help bridge the gap between your practice and new patients. They’ll notice your practice has a more positive reputation than other practices in the area.

Consider gathering patient testimonials and adding a special section for them to your website as part of your reputation management efforts. Potential patients visiting your site will see them and immediately get the impression that your practice has a strong online reputation.

Starting Referral Programs With Other Healthcare Providers

You might see other healthcare practices in your area as competition. However, some could play a key role in helping your practice acquire new patients.

Think about setting up a referral network with other healthcare providers. If they ever have existing patients who might benefit from visiting your practice, this will increase their chances of providing patient referrals.

You and your fellow healthcare providers will all understand the importance of patient acquisition. You can help one another acquire new patients in a very cost-effective manner.

Putting Together Paid Digital Advertising Campaigns

Online advertising campaigns are so much more sophisticated than they used to be. Your practice can use pay-per-click (PPC) and social media ads to target potential patients looking for healthcare services.

As long as you know your medical practice’s target audience, you can get Google Ads and other PPC ads in front of every potential patient in your area searching for a healthcare provider like you. Running these ads should be an ongoing process to achieve maximum online visibility.

Taking Part in Local Community Events and Health Fairs

Take the time to step outside your medical practice’s building on occasion to enhance patient engagement. Sign up for local community events and health fairs throughout the year.

When taking this approach, you won’t have to deal with much in the way of patient acquisition costs. You can connect with new and current patients at these events and show them you genuinely care about your community’s health concerns.

Patient Retention as Part of Your Patient Acquisition Strategy

Focusing on patient acquisition should help your healthcare practice start seeing more patients. But if you only focus on getting more patients, it could negatively affect the way each existing patient views your practice.

Because of this, more patients might begin to leave your practice. For this reason, you should also constantly monitor patient retention.

Patient retention refers to ensuring your current patients are happy with your healthcare facility’s services. The more satisfied patients are, the lower the chances of them leaving your practice at any point.

Here are a couple of simple ways to prioritize your current patients.

Following Up With Patients After Their First Visit

If you want to witness patient satisfaction play a massive part in patient acquisition and retention, try following up with new patients shortly after their initial visits. Some will be surprised to hear from you so soon.

Follow-ups can enhance patient satisfaction and encourage repeat visits. They can also lead to more word-of-mouth referrals.

Best of all, this strategy will not incur a high patient acquisition cost. You can acquire new patients and keep them around for longer stretches to improve their patient lifetime value dramatically.

Offering Education and Regular Engagement to Existing Patients

Another easy way to retain patients after acquiring them is by routinely engaging with them. You can accomplish this goal by:

• Sending out informative newsletters
• Hosting educational webinars
• Providing them with a steady stream of health-related tips

When you make it your mission to engage with patients regularly, you should see more patients stick with your practice over the long run.

Tools To Streamline Patient Acquisition Efforts

Streamlining your medical practice’s patient acquisition efforts is more manageable than it might seem. The right tools from Weave can inspire patients to stay with your practice and maximize their lifetime value.

Weave can provide your practice with valuable tools like:

• Online scheduling
• Appointment reminders
• Online forms
• Reputation management
• Analytics

These tools can significantly improve the patient experience you provide. They may even be enough to convince your current patients to return to your practice repeatedly.

Put Both Patient Acquisition and Patient Retention Strategies to the Test

The healthcare industry is one of the largest industries in the U.S., which can trick some medical practice owners into thinking that experiencing growth will come quickly. Rather than buying into this belief, test the different patient acquisition strategies listed here. They can put your practice into a much better position and allow it to achieve sustained growth.

Are you interested in learning how Weave can help your practice reach its growth goals and generate more revenue? Take a few minutes to watch the webinar, Attracting Patients to Your Practice!