Medical Tourism Marketing can bring benefit everyone

By: Taylor405 Miles405


Medical Doctor Marketing, Medical Tourism, Ethics, and Quality Medical Care

“Medical Doctors around the world are realizing that they must market themselves just like any other business, but with an increased awareness of quality and its relation to cost.”

Mass Marketing has become something that can be a double edged sword: On one hand it is needed to promote your service, but if done cheaply or too aggressively it can portray and image of the used-car salesman or the classless of a late night infomercial. These feelings have never been truer when it comes to medical doctor marketing when you promote their practice.

Public Relations

The international medical tourism and travel industry is new and the world needs to be informed and educated, not sold. PR in the medical tourism industry should not sell or persuade, but instead it should help create trust and credibility.

Advertising

Advertising in an international hospital should not focus on Sales, but quality, integrity and trust. Advertising like PR should inform and educate the prospective patient.

Why do you need a web site?

It is an undisputed fact of international medicine: An educated consumer spends a large amount of time researching medical care in the internet. The same holds true when locating a physician. The facts are simple: the physician who has a quality presence on the Internet will increase their chances in getting international patients.

It is important to reach a large audience and watch costs while still maintaining a classy, quality image. Medical doctor marketing, if done correctly, is nothing more than providing accurate and truthful information about your services, and helping the prospective patient make informed choices about the service they seek. In the Medical Tourism Market there is a specific need for maintaining moral and ethical principles and conveying accurate information to as many people as possible in a classy high class manner.

International Medical Patients use a variety of methods to evaluate their options when considering medical care abroad. The internet is the primary method for their research, and personal referrals are a close second.

In most cases personal referrals are preferred because of the higher perceived value and trust, while the internet is preferred for its anonymity, ease of use, and personal customization. While the quality of care is one important factor in this decision, it is often very difficult for a patient to determine where to get the best care initially. Instead, they often rely on a number of other measures to assist in this decision process.

Word of mouth and personal recommendations are the most powerful marketing tools a Medical Doctor can have. A doctor’s current patients can have the greatest influence on directing future patients to their practice.

If a doctor has a strong positive relationship with his current patients, their recommendations to family, friends, co-workers and new arrivals to the neighborhood can do more to build a successful practice than any other method in medical doctor marketing. Another benefit is that this tool will not cost the doctor time or marketing expense, but instead will allow them to focus on what they enjoy doing, being a doctor!

Other methods of doctor marketing include:

PPC Marketing – If you have a website you can buy traffic from Google or Yahoo.

Organic Search Marketing – If you have a high quality site with original content people should be able to find you via web search.

Direct Mail Marketing – You can mail marketing material to lists.

A medical doctor marketing campaign does not end with getting the patient to come into the office: it never ends! Your past patients are your most valuable asset in generating future referrals and building a list of testimonials. Such a complex topic is actually very simple: Take care of your patients, before, during, and after their procedure. Keep in contact with them and you will be rewarded in the long term.

For many international doctors, they need to generate new patients first before they can grow a referral based business. This can be achieved most efficiently and at the lowest cost through the internet.

Doctor marketing through word of mouth, or through some other method, does not need to break the bank. It is simply a means for letting patients know that the doctor is willing and able to care for them.



Taylor Miles is author of this article on Doctor Marketing. Find more information about Hospital Marketing here.