As patients become more digitally savvy and actively involved in researching healthcare decisions, Orthopedic practices must adapt their marketing strategies to remain competitive and get more patients. Understanding effective Orthopedic marketing strategies is no longer optional – it’s essential for practice success. Here’s why:
- Differentiation in a Crowded Market: With increasing competition from other Orthopedic specialists, hospitals, and surgical centers, a strong marketing presence helps your practice stand out and communicate your value proposition.
- Less Dependence on Referrals: While physician referrals remain important, direct-to-patient marketing creates an additional pipeline of patients. Think of it like you would a financial investment – diversification lessens your risk and helps you grow over time.
- Enhanced Clinical Revenue: A well-executed Orthopedic digital marketing strategy not only brings in more patients but helps attract those seeking specific high-value procedures that align best with your practice’s expertise.
All of this can be accomplished with the following strategies we’ll cover in this guide.
Table of Contents:
1. Build a Strong Foundation With Your Orthopedic Website
Your practice website serves as the cornerstone of all your Orthopedic practice marketing efforts. It not only creates a first impression of your practice, but is responsible for converting visitors into leads. Here’s how to optimize your Orthopedic practice website:
Create Clear Conversion Pathways
Conversion pathways are simply the opportunities you create on your site for potential patients to reach out and become a lead. For most Orthopedic practices, these are phone calls and “request appointment” forms. We recommend the following best practices to maximize the leads you can generate.
- Implement prominent call-to-action buttons for request appointment forms: Place these buttons in contrasting colors above the fold on every page, with clear, action-oriented text like “Schedule Now” or “Request an Appointment” These should be immediately visible without scrolling on both mobile and desktop.
- Place phone numbers in highly visible locations, especially the header: Ensure a visible phone number appears in a consistent location across all pages and use tracking numbers to measure marketing effectiveness from different sources.
Optimize for Search Engines
Your site also must be friendly to search engines in the following ways:
- Build a site that’s fast and responsive on mobile: Google prioritizes site experience, and that means making sure your site loads fast and works well on mobile devices. This is most effectively measured through Google’s Core Web Vitals, which will diagnose how well your site performs. The most common issue we see holding practices back are large images or videos taking too long to load.
- Create pages for each location: Local SEO is of critical importance, so make sure you create location pages for every one of your locations.
Develop Educational Content
The content on your site helps bridge potential patients from looking into booking. Educational content does this better than any other type.
- Create both condition and treatment pages: Create a prioritized list of both the treatments you offer, as well as the conditions that you want to target. Make sure these pages are comprehensive and include detailed explanations and frequently asked questions.
- Maintain a regularly updated blog: Publish fresh content at least monthly around common questions or objections that potential patients might have. Provide unique insights and perspectives, and try to optimize these blog posts around keywords you’ve prioritized for SEO.
- Share patient success stories and testimonials: Feature patient testimonials that showcase successful outcomes for different conditions and treatments. Text reviews are fine, but video testimonials will have even more impact if you can create them.
- Use video content to improve conversion rates: Video education is not only a great way to build trust, but our own data has proven that video content will increase conversion rates. Ideally, you want to create educational videos for your highest priority conditions and treatments.
2. Implement a CRM to Track Patient Leads
A CRM system allows you to track all incoming patient leads generated across your marketing, rather than just sending them to an email inbox. RUNNER’s Front Office Helper CRM was specifically developed to meet the unique needs of Orthopedic practices. Here’s what it allows you to do:
Patient Lead Tracking and Attribution
- Track the patient journey from first contact to appointment and treatment: One of the most valuable things a CRM provides is tracking and insights into the journey that potential patient leads go through from first arriving at your website to scheduling and attending appointments. Without the tracking a CRM enables, you’re just making assumptions.
- Monitor which marketing channels are most effective: Track every incoming phone call and form submission to understand which marketing efforts are driving the highest quality patient inquiries, down to the individual ads and keywords.
Automated Patient Lead Nurturing
- Automated responses in email and text messages: Whenever a potential patient submits a form, you can send automated messages letting them know someone will be in touch. This is particularly important to set expectations after hours.
- Reminders and follow-ups: Create follow-up outreach sequences to reach leads that have not yet responded to increase the percentage of new patient leads that eventually become office visits.
Marketing Optimization Insights
- Generate detailed reports on marketing ROI: Because all marketing can be tracked down to the OV and treatment level, you can connect this tracking to revenue and truly understand the return on your marketing efforts.
- Identify opportunities for marketing campaign improvement: Use data to spot underperforming campaigns and refine them, or reallocate to more successful marketing strategies. This is the key to getting the maximum amount of results for your investment.
3. Build a Local SEO Strategy
Local SEO is arguably the most critical component of your Orthopedics marketing strategy. That’s because local listings like Google Business Profile are the most consulted marketing channel for potential new patients. Their reviews and local relevance to where a patient lives make them indispensable. They should be prioritized in your marketing strategy as such.
Google Business Profile Optimization
- Build out your listings completely: Fill out all available fields with comprehensive details about your practice, including services offered, parking information and more.
- Include accurate information: Keep your hours updated, including holiday schedules and any special hours for specific services like urgent care or physical therapy.
- Add high-quality photos: Upload professional images of your office exterior, reception area, exam rooms and equipment. Include photos of your physicians and staff to help patients feel more comfortable before their first visit.
- Regularly post updates about your practice: Use Google Posts to provide locally relevant content about conditions and treatment to create more local SEO relevance for your practice.
Review Management
- Implement a system to request patient reviews: Create a process for consistently asking your most satisfied patients to share their experience. A system is the only way to truly scale the number of reviews you generate. We developed RUNNER’s review management service to automate that process, and to only ask your most satisfied patients.
- Respond promptly to patient reviews and questions: Monitor your reviews and respond quickly, maintaining HIPAA compliance while showing genuine care for patient feedback. Address any questions posted through Google Q&A thoroughly.
4. Start Running Google Search Ads for Your Orthopedic Practice
Google Search Ads provide immediate visibility for your practice in the Google Search results. Your highest quality digital advertising leads will come from Google Search Ads following these principles:
Use a High-Intent Keyword Strategy
- Focus on high-intent keywords: Prioritize terms like “Orthopedic doctor near me,” “knee surgeon in Dallas” that suggest immediate need for care. These searchers are more likely to book an appointment.
- Monitor search term reports regularly: Regularly review actual search queries triggering your ads to keep Google aligned with the keywords that are best at driving OVs and treatments.
Dial-In Your Geographic Targeting
- Focus on the areas most likely to drive patients: Don’t waste time and spend going after locations that aren’t in reach. Analyze your historical patient volume and focus on those areas where you’ve already proven you can get patients to travel from.
- If you’re a new practice, stay close: If you don’t have historical patient data to direct your ad targeting, stick to the zip codes and cities nearest your practice.
- Include bid modifications to direct spend: Google Ads doesn’t always spend in these locations according to your priorities, so make sure to include bid modifications where appropriate, as it shows Google your priorities for spending your ad dollars.
Differentiate In Your Ad Messaging
- Highlight unique qualifications or expertise: Feature board certifications, years of experience, and specialized training in ad copy to build credibility and trust.
- Communicate authority points that differentiate your practice: This might include number of patients treated, data on outcomes and more. The more data-driven these authority points can be, the better they’ll drive preference for your practice.
Related Reading: How RUNNER grew Parker Performance Institute’s leads by 195%
5. Analyze Your Data and Build a Feedback Loop
In order to have the greatest impact on your Orthopedics practice, you need to create a feedback loop between the data you learn and both your marketing campaigns and your front office. One of the best ways to create this feedback loop is to track the following kinds of metrics:
- Total number of website leads (calls and form submissions)
- Cost per lead by marketing channel and campaign: Calculate the total cost to generate each lead type from different marketing sources, as well as the cost per lead of specific campaigns.
- Lead to office visit conversion rate: Calculate the percentage of leads that successfully schedule and complete an office visit.
- Treatment indication rate: Track the proportion of new patient office visits that result in the indication of a treatment, like a surgery.
- Procedure booking rate: Monitor the percentage of patients who proceed with recommended treatments, identifying opportunities to improve patient education and financial discussions.
- Average revenue per patient: Calculate the typical revenue generated per patient, broken down by treatment type and marketing source.
Related Reading: How RUNNER grew Spine Team Texas’ new patient leads by 348%
Putting It All Together
Effective Orthopedic marketing requires a comprehensive, data-driven approach using multiple channels and strategies. Practices that embrace the foundational strategies above can grow while maintaining a focus on measurable results and ROI.
Working with an experienced agency with proven results in Orthopedics marketing can help you navigate these complexities. If you’re ready to take your practice marketing to the next level, contact RUNNER Agency and speak with one of our medical marketing experts.
