Healthcare marketing, like healthcare itself, is a one-of-a-kind industry. When it comes to healthcare marketing, much depends on niche specialties like radiology marketing, advertising surgical procedures, or improving the online reputation of a specific physician.
So, when you’re looking for a healthcare marketing agency to promote your medical practice or healthcare startup, how do you find the one that is best for you, especially as a smaller healthcare organization?
Establish Measurable Goals
First, your organization’s leaders need to sit down and settle on specific goals that they want to achieve. If your company is so small that you alone are the decision-maker, you still have to vocalize your goals.
You may feel silly saying them aloud, so a good old-fashioned list works just fine. This will help you to figure out which services you need and which ones you can go without.
Maybe you have a few great people on your team that can handle social media or blogging in-house, but you need extra support when it comes to SEO and media/public relations. So what questions should you ask a potential healthcare marketing agency before you start working with them?
21 Questions For Healthcare Marketing Agencies
There are many healthcare marketing agencies offering huge suites of services and every one delivers in different ways. Some companies offer all their services as a package deal while others can provide services a la carte. Depending on your needs and goals, the following questions are important to ask.
How do your services work?
Each agency is different, and likely has specific protocols in place for their services. Know exactly how that will function is key to ensuring both you and the agency are on the same page.
Can we pick and choose which services we use or is it only a packaged deal?
At Aginto; for example; we don’t offer a la carte services. It’s a package deal. Sometimes that works perfectly for a practice, and other times, they only need one or two services. Finding out what will work best for you and your practice is the first step, and then asking the agency if they’re willing to fill in those gaps for you is next.
Remember, it needs to be a perfect fit for both you, and the agency.
How many people are on the team that will be dedicated to working on our account?
A partnership functions better when everyone is on the same page. Knowing who you’re going to work with, and being able to trust those people and their skills will go a long way to ensuring your comfortability.
The whole idea of partnering with a healthcare marketing agency is to have experts work on facets of your marketing that you aren’t handling in-house. You want to be able to feel comfortable with the day to day, and when you need answers, you’ve got no time to be trying to figure out who to call.
Will we have a specific person of contact/account manager to work with directly?
Even if there’s twenty people on your account, it helps to have one or two points of contact.
Our medical specialty requires in-depth knowledge when it comes to marketing our services, how much of a learning curve are you anticipating?
Depending on your practice area, you may need a marketing agency that has some experience with organizations like yours. For the most part, research can be done for content marketing and social media marketing, that an agency will be able to perform on an ongoing basis.
But, if you’ve got a specialty field, it’s important to ask if they’ll be able to facilitate your needs, and present your company as experts in your field.
Will we have the chance to approve all content before it’s posted on our website, blog or social media sites?
While most agencies will have writers researching content topics ahead of time, it’s important that you feel comfortable with what they’re publishing on your behalf.
After all, it’s you business, and you’ll want to make sure that they’re presenting you in the best light.
How will you execute a healthcare digital marketing strategy; and are you limited to just Google Ads or are you also experienced in other forms such as social media advertising?
This should be something discussed during initial consults. If your budget allows for it, Google Ads can product great ROI almost immediately.
If not, or if you’re looking for long term growth, other forms of marketing like content marketing, email automation, and the like, might be better strategies.
Note: A smarter option is to choose a company that can offer you experience and knowledge in both.
Will you rely on us to come up with a content calendar and topics for written articles or will you be handling that on your own?
Nobody knows your audience quite as well as you, so it’s always a good idea to start the generation of pieces of written content based on the questions that you hear in the office, or during your sales cycle. But, on a day to day basis, a digital marketing agency should be able to continue creating the topics based on the data, like current trends and keyword research,
Will you rely on us to come up with a social media strategy or will you be handling that on your own?
These strategies will depend vastly on your goals, as well as your industry. Regardless, you should bring the goals, and the agency should be able to create the roadmap and strategy.
Google Ads: Who’s coming up with the keywords that we’re targeting?
Your Google Ads efforts should begin as a collaborative effort, with you and the agency working together (using historical data from Google’s Keyword Planner tool), to develop an initial list of keywords.
After that, the agency should use the data that’s collected after the first 30-60 days to make the necessary tweaks and changes.
Very similar to the Social Media strategy – You Should bring the goals, and hey should bring the strategies and roadmap. This would include managing that Google Ads and making updates according the the data on a day to day basis.
What costs outside of a monthly fee will we be responsible for?
Typically, investments made to third parties like Facebook, or Google Ads, are paid directly to those companies and are the responsibility of your organization. But, you’ll want to make sure of this and be sure that you have an understanding that you’re in control of the budget for these campaigns.
Note: It’s also a good idea to make sure that those accounts are owned by you, so that the data, keywords, and ads are yours to keep if you ever decide to cut this with the agency.
Are you considered a full-service agency or do you have to outsource any of your work?
There’s a difference between a full-service marketing agency, and one that outsources their work. Continuity, among other things, can lack when outsourcing tasks to third parties. But, you might pay less for an agency that doesn’t keep any staff in house.
Every business is different, so the answer to this question can be vital to your overall success.
Have you already developed any unique plans for our organization?
It’s important to remember that your marketing agency should be looked at as a partnership, and you’d hope that your partners have already begun to create ideas and strategies specific to your business or industry.
Experience can play a major role in this answer, so finding a company that works with similar businesses to yours can be extremely helpful toward your goals and ROI.
I already have a website and a social media account, will you be able to work from that one or will you need to create us a new one?
We actually run into this one often, as many clients have paid for websites in the past from other agencies and would hate for that investment to have gone to waste. The real question here is if there is a good website in place, meaning is the site able to work at an optimum level for your business.
And if not, can the existing website be salvaged or edited to prepare it for your campaigns.
If so, then yes you should be able to keep the website. But, I recommend deferring to your potential marketing partner as they’ll be the one’s having to work with the current site.
How soon until we can expect to see results?
I’ve always wanted to use the phrase “results may vary.” I hear it all the time on commercials as I’m walking away from the tv.
Truth is, this is absolutely accurate for marketing campaigns with your healthcare marketing agency. Depending on the practice area, region, competitors, results will certainly vary.
But, using the data and research that a good healthcare marketing agency will have done prior to consulting with you, they should be able to give you an idea of when you will begin seeing results, and what that timetable of deliverables will look like.
Conclusion
Hiring the right healthcare marketing agency is essential to accomplish your marketing goals and bringing in more business to your practice. Make sure to ask all of your questions and don’t be afraid to be blunt about your expectations and needs.
Healthcare marketing, like healthcare itself, is a one-of-a-kind industry. When it comes to healthcare marketing, much depends on niche specialties like radiology marketing, advertising surgical procedures, or improving the online reputation of a specific physician.
So, when you’re looking for a healthcare marketing agency to promote your medical practice or healthcare startup, how do you find the one that is best for you, especially as a smaller healthcare organization?
Establish Measurable Goals
First, your organization’s leaders need to sit down and settle on specific goals that they want to achieve. If your company is so small that you alone are the decision-maker, you still have to vocalize your goals.
You may feel silly saying them aloud, so a good old-fashioned list works just fine. This will help you to figure out which services you need and which ones you can go without.
Maybe you have a few great people on your team that can handle social media or blogging in-house, but you need extra support when it comes to SEO and media/public relations. So what questions should you ask a potential healthcare marketing agency before you start working with them?
21 Questions For Healthcare Marketing Agencies
There are many healthcare marketing agencies offering huge suites of services and every one delivers in different ways. Some companies offer all their services as a package deal while others can provide services a la carte. Depending on your needs and goals, the following questions are important to ask.
How do your services work?
Each agency is different, and likely has specific protocols in place for their services. Know exactly how that will function is key to ensuring both you and the agency are on the same page.
Can we pick and choose which services we use or is it only a packaged deal?
At Aginto; for example; we don’t offer a la carte services. It’s a package deal. Sometimes that works perfectly for a practice, and other times, they only need one or two services. Finding out what will work best for you and your practice is the first step, and then asking the agency if they’re willing to fill in those gaps for you is next.
Remember, it needs to be a perfect fit for both you, and the agency.
How many people are on the team that will be dedicated to working on our account?
A partnership functions better when everyone is on the same page. Knowing who you’re going to work with, and being able to trust those people and their skills will go a long way to ensuring your comfortability.
The whole idea of partnering with a healthcare marketing agency is to have experts work on facets of your marketing that you aren’t handling in-house. You want to be able to feel comfortable with the day to day, and when you need answers, you’ve got no time to be trying to figure out who to call.
Will we have a specific person of contact/account manager to work with directly?
Even if there’s twenty people on your account, it helps to have one or two points of contact.
Our medical specialty requires in-depth knowledge when it comes to marketing our services, how much of a learning curve are you anticipating?
Depending on your practice area, you may need a marketing agency that has some experience with organizations like yours. For the most part, research can be done for content marketing and social media marketing, that an agency will be able to perform on an ongoing basis.
But, if you’ve got a specialty field, it’s important to ask if they’ll be able to facilitate your needs, and present your company as experts in your field.
Will we have the chance to approve all content before it’s posted on our website, blog or social media sites?
While most agencies will have writers researching content topics ahead of time, it’s important that you feel comfortable with what they’re publishing on your behalf.
After all, it’s you business, and you’ll want to make sure that they’re presenting you in the best light.
How will you execute a healthcare digital marketing strategy; and are you limited to just Google Ads or are you also experienced in other forms such as social media advertising?
This should be something discussed during initial consults. If your budget allows for it, Google Ads can product great ROI almost immediately.
If not, or if you’re looking for long term growth, other forms of marketing like content marketing, email automation, and the like, might be better strategies.
Note: A smarter option is to choose a company that can offer you experience and knowledge in both.
Will you rely on us to come up with a content calendar and topics for written articles or will you be handling that on your own?
Nobody knows your audience quite as well as you, so it’s always a good idea to start the generation of pieces of written content based on the questions that you hear in the office, or during your sales cycle. But, on a day to day basis, a digital marketing agency should be able to continue creating the topics based on the data, like current trends and keyword research,
Will you rely on us to come up with a social media strategy or will you be handling that on your own?
These strategies will depend vastly on your goals, as well as your industry. Regardless, you should bring the goals, and the agency should be able to create the roadmap and strategy.
Google Ads: Who’s coming up with the keywords that we’re targeting?
Your Google Ads efforts should begin as a collaborative effort, with you and the agency working together (using historical data from Google’s Keyword Planner tool), to develop an initial list of keywords.
After that, the agency should use the data that’s collected after the first 30-60 days to make the necessary tweaks and changes.
Very similar to the Social Media strategy – You Should bring the goals, and hey should bring the strategies and roadmap. This would include managing that Google Ads and making updates according the the data on a day to day basis.
What costs outside of a monthly fee will we be responsible for?
Typically, investments made to third parties like Facebook, or Google Ads, are paid directly to those companies and are the responsibility of your organization. But, you’ll want to make sure of this and be sure that you have an understanding that you’re in control of the budget for these campaigns.
Note: It’s also a good idea to make sure that those accounts are owned by you, so that the data, keywords, and ads are yours to keep if you ever decide to cut this with the agency.
Are you considered a full-service agency or do you have to outsource any of your work?
There’s a difference between a full-service marketing agency, and one that outsources their work. Continuity, among other things, can lack when outsourcing tasks to third parties. But, you might pay less for an agency that doesn’t keep any staff in house.
Every business is different, so the answer to this question can be vital to your overall success.
Have you already developed any unique plans for our organization?
It’s important to remember that your marketing agency should be looked at as a partnership, and you’d hope that your partners have already begun to create ideas and strategies specific to your business or industry.
Experience can play a major role in this answer, so finding a company that works with similar businesses to yours can be extremely helpful toward your goals and ROI.
I already have a website and a social media account, will you be able to work from that one or will you need to create us a new one?
We actually run into this one often, as many clients have paid for websites in the past from other agencies and would hate for that investment to have gone to waste. The real question here is if there is a good website in place, meaning is the site able to work at an optimum level for your business.
And if not, can the existing website be salvaged or edited to prepare it for your campaigns.
If so, then yes you should be able to keep the website. But, I recommend deferring to your potential marketing partner as they’ll be the one’s having to work with the current site.
How soon until we can expect to see results?
I’ve always wanted to use the phrase “results may vary.” I hear it all the time on commercials as I’m walking away from the tv.
Truth is, this is absolutely accurate for marketing campaigns with your healthcare marketing agency. Depending on the practice area, region, competitors, results will certainly vary.
But, using the data and research that a good healthcare marketing agency will have done prior to consulting with you, they should be able to give you an idea of when you will begin seeing results, and what that timetable of deliverables will look like.
Conclusion
Hiring the right healthcare marketing agency is essential to accomplish your marketing goals and bringing in more business to your practice. Make sure to ask all of your questions and don’t be afraid to be blunt about your expectations and needs.