12 Top Tips from a Medical Copywriter

Marketing for Medical Practices

Last updated August 2nd, 2022 by Declan Davey — Freelance Medical Copywriter

At this point, Google gets more than 1 billion health-related searches per day. 

It’s no surprise then, that the 2022 marketing scene for medical practices is more of a digital endeavor than ever…

Maybe you want to…

• Grow your medical brand online

• Attract more patients to your practice/clinic

• OR just be a more respected voice of authority in your niche?

Well, this “top tips” guide will give you a range of medical copywriting and marketing strategies you can start (or scale up!) today.

12 Medical Copywriting & Marketing Strategies — Quick Summary

1. Boost your search ranking with SEO for medical practices 🔎

First up, let’s talk about SEO (“search engine optimization”)...

Is there a secret key to growing your practice online?

Probably not.

But if I had to opt for only one strategy, targeted SEO for medical practices would be my choice.

Naturally, you want as many people to reach your website as possible...

Organic traffic reaches your site via queries on Google, Bing, and other search engines. 

This is the opposite of paid traffic, where users will click on ads.

The latest stats show that organic discoverability provides 53% of total traffic.

Paid ads, meanwhile, are stagnant at 15%… 

In fact, only a measly 4% of consumers trust ads these days.

There’s still a role for marketers who manage to avoid cliches and false promises, but paid advertising ought to be lower on the “priority list” than SEO.

How can you maximize the number of patients you attract through SEO?

Simple:

Appear in the top three results for the search terms you want to rank for.

The top three results for a search (e.g. ‘‘chiropractor in miami’’) will get approximately HALF of the clicks.

No kiddin’.

All in all, SEO is the smartest long-term medical marketing strategy.

Throughout your website, you’ll want to include ‘‘keywords.’’ A medical copywriter can help you do this.

Keywords are words and phrases that your consumers type into search engines.

Let’s say you’re an online pharmacy...

If you search ‘‘online pharmacist’’ on Google, a list of suggestions appear.

Here are a few examples that show up when I do exactly that (bear in mind, search suggestions will alter depending on your location):

Now, some of those terms aren’t going to be relevant for you to rank for.

If you’re in Vancouver Canada, content on your site with the keyword ‘‘online pharmacist jobs london’’ won’t do you any good!

But let’s examine a few of the more relevant keywords on the list:

• ‘‘Online pharmacist chat’’

• ‘‘Online pharmacist advice’’

• ‘‘Online pharmacist consultation’’

• ‘‘Online pharmacist paracetamol’’

This is where hiring a medical copywriter for SEO can be a powerful strategy.

All of the search terms above may be lucrative to rank for.

Yet many businesses struggle with SEO…

There are a few reasons why:

• Research: Finding keywords that are high demand yet easy to rank for isn’t always straightforward… 

• Content frequency: Medical practitioners are some of the busiest people in the world. When time is scarce, writing regular articles is a challenge…

• Algorithm changes: Google made six updates in 2019 to how it prioritizes content and released a significant update in May 2020. Keeping track of the constant updates can be a headache for business owners.

If you need support with any of these tasks, my (obviously biased!) recommendation is that you use an SEO-trained medical copywriter. 

Does this involve an upfront investment? 

Sure. But when a professional can reduce your workload and help you rank in Google, you’ll be able to focus on your most important tasks.

SEO for medical practices and other industries does take time.

Typically, you’ll need to wait four to six months to see results.

After you post new content, search engines need to process and analyze what you’ve published to check for quality.

So, it goes without saying that a little patience is needed in the early stages. 

But if you’re publishing consistently, your number of site visitors are bound to increase at the 6-12 month mark.

This has an accumulative effect, as consumers will often share this content with friends, family, or coworkers.

And ultimately…

MORE site visitors = MORE potential patients. 

Ready for tip number two?

2. Make Google happy with 2000+ word blog articles 🖊️

The truth is, Google doesn’t want you to throw a ton of keywords on your site if the context doesn’t make sense...

‘‘Keyword stuffing’’ tactics can actually harm how well your site ranks.

So, what approach should a medical marketing business plan follow when posting online? 

Google bots reward high-authority sites with higher rankings.

They'll assess your authority using a range of measures.

Established brand names help, of course.

But long-form articles with 2000-3000+ words perform very well, too.

This is because educational articles improve SEO and build trust with patients.

Medical practices can experiment with writing niche guides on their site.

I see this as being one of the most effective marketing strategies…

The latest scientific research can be included in extended guides, as well as useful health tips.

Skilled medical copywriters can write 2000+ word articles and guides for your brand. 

As a freelance medical copywriter, this is my process to write articles for medical practices:

1. Consider the tone of writing that your audience prefers

2. Use software to research keywords

3. Analyze how to outrank your competitors

4. Include images and infographics for visual appeal

5. Link to other pages on your site 

6. Reference appropriate external sources (e.g. studies)

7. Promote your practice with action prompts

If you’re thinking ‘‘do I need my articles to be that long?’’ then have a look at the graph above.

Each of the top ten results on Google averages over 2,000 words, ranging from 2,032 in tenth place and 2,416 in first place.

It’s certainly getting competitive!

The days of 500-word blog posts ranking are pretty much over.

3. Turn boring data into infographics 🎴

Health is one of the “hottest” topics of interest around the world.

It’s no wonder — health impacts quality of life on so many levels.

But there are different ways to communicate health information. In this sense, a lot of medical practices are too, well, I hate to say it…

BORING!

I understand that practices are bound by regulations. Medical brands are in a tricky position here. They want to be creative, yet they have to play by the rules… 

False or exaggerated claims get punished in the health industry.

You should, however, consider how you’re getting information across to your audience.

Medical content risks being too dry, clinical, and complex for the general public to understand.

Infographics are a great way around that…

They’re free to create, using design sites like Canva.  

In my experience, learning the art of making infographics is well-worth the time investment.

What you’ll be do is take medical data or advice, and essentially, make it prettier!

A site visitor will MUCH prefer a visually appealing infographic over a long block of text…

I know I do. You probably do too, right?

Infographics like the one in the example below are less taxing for the brain to process.

They’re also more shareable than text, which could lead to a boost in website traffic.

4. Get your practice live on digital directories 🔖

Online directories offer two main advantages:

• More discoverability for your business

• Backlinks to your site

Let’s examine them one by one.

First, discoverability.

By registering your medical practice online with different directories, you’ll get free promotion.

Directory providers will ask you to submit your business name, address, and service summary. 

When health consumers browse for a service, the chances are that your practice will be easier to find if it’s registered with multiple directories than with none at all.

Approved business directories will vary by region, so you’ll need to do your research.

For instance, here is a list of the UK’s 32 top directories.

A few of the most famous business directories include Yelp, Google My Business, and Bing.

Directories also offer another benefit for medical practices.

The directories can provide a “backlink’’ to your website.

Backlinks are an important cog in the SEO wheel…

Receive backlinks from reputable sources like Yelp and Bing and you’ll get a boost in search visibility.

Also, if you get listed on Google My Business, patients can leave online reviews if they have a positive experience with your practice.

Positive reviews give you social proof, which will generate more leads over time.

5. Tell stories in your healthcare email marketing 📖

Storytelling has been around far longer than you or I have. Stories are the basis of how human connections form. 

Medical marketing is a busy sector, so brands that tell good stories in their emails and other content will stand out from the crowd. 

See below for a story-based email from Parsley Health.

And here is an article with brand stories from Airbnb and Dove, if you want to view more examples of great storytelling.

So, let’s say our task is to create effective marketing content for physicians…

We could commit the error of thinking that patients just want to turn up, get treatment, leave.

While this may be true for a minority, many patients want to feel included and appreciated.

They want to feel like they can get to know their medical practitioners on a personal level, too.

If your medical practice doesn’t have an email list, I’d recommend building one.

This will allow visitors on your site to sign up and receive newsletters from you.

Healthcare email marketing can be more creative through the power of storytelling.

Ask yourself questions like: 

• How did you/your team get into the medical field?

• Do you have any heartwarming patient stories?

• What are your goals moving forward?

• What challenges have you overcome?

Story opportunities are possible with all the above.

As long as the story relates to a benefit for the patient, then the more personal and detailed the story, the better.

6. Use lead magnets to attract patients 🧲

Lead magnets are a useful tool to receive health consumers’ contact details with their permission.

Think of lead magnets like a value trade-off between you and the consumer.

You offer them a free resource that they’ll get after they give you their email address.

Medical marketing strategies for lead magnets include options like PDF heath guides and diet plans.

Optinmonster’s list of 69 lead magnet ideas is a fantastic resource to get inspired.

Indeed, Optinmonster have their own lead magnet on that page:

Three principal factors to pay attention to when creating a lead magnet are:

1. Will the consumer get an instant benefit?

2. Can the lead magnet be used more than once?

3. Is the lead magnet updated for the current market?

If you need a medical copywriter to help you produce a lead magnet, click the button below to book a call.

7. Be brave with video marketing 📹

Video content has a BIG role to play in the medical marketing sector...

But why?

Here are a few statistics about video marketing that may surprise you:

• 92% of marketers say video is a vital part of their marketing strategy (Wyzowl)

• People watch 1 billion hours of YouTube videos every day (Tech Crunch)

• 75 million Americans watch online videos daily (Impact)

• More than 50% of consumers desire video content from brands (HubSpot)

Half of the time, people use mobile devices to watch online video content, so make your content is well-optimized for mobile viewing.

Barriers to entry are higher for video content due to the time and money needed to write video scripts, produce the video, and edit footage.

Yes, the commitment required is a little intimidating…

But this can be to your advantage too.

Higher barriers to entry means less competition!

For example, there’ll be less medical practices releasing video content than blog content.

If your marketing budget cann’t cover lavish video productions with professional editing, choose a simpler solution...

Why not get a member of your team on YouTube for quick Q&A’s?

Most smartphones have good video quality these days…

And starting somewhere is better than not starting at all.

If you’d like video scripts written by a freelance medical copywriter, I offer monthly bundles on this page.

8. Convert blogs into e-books to build authority 📚

Marketing for medical practices doesn’t always need to be complicated. 

In many cases, content can be repurposed across several different platforms.

Yet medical marketing agencies often won’t tell you this.

Why?

Because more new content orders = more revenue for the agency!

Healthcare brands can save time and money by taking online content in one form and simply turning it into another.

The image below shows gives you a simple step-by-step process of how this can work for E-books.

Let’s say you have a 2000-word blog article, full of valuable information that your patients will love.

Why not package this content into a PDF E-book with a cover page and attractive images? 

Your patients will then be able to download this file onto their computer or mobile phone.

This way, there’s more chance they’ll read your content multiple times.

A mobile download is easier for the patient to find than having to sift through your blog to return to the article.

You could also bring together related blog articles in one e-book and share this file with your email list. Your patients will appreciate the bonus content.

Research summaries, detailed lists, and how-tos all do well when repurposed as mini e-books. 

Really, this strategy is medical marketing at its most practical!

What are some other examples of repurposing content?

• Transcribe videos and convert the transcriptions into blog posts

• Share blog highlights on your social media 

• Split podcasts into short audio snippets for your website

9. Marketing for a medical device? Benefits > features 👍

Marketing strategies for medical devices differ slightly from service promotions.

This is because devices are more technical and feature-based.

Let me tell you my number one rule as a medical copywriter for health devices:

‘‘Focus on the human benefits of the device, not product features.’’

By benefits, I mean how your device will benefit the lives of people in your target audience.

This could be patients or other medical businesses.

Too many medical brands list the features, such as how the device uses the latest technology or boasts excellent connectivity.

This is a sure way to fail at marketing.

Why?

Because the technology is secondary…

People care more about how the technology will improve their lives.

Remember to emphasize the most significant benefits of the device in clear terms for your target audience.

Don’t presume that they’ll hear the product feature and make the link… 

For a feature like excellent connectivity, let’s think about what the real benefit is here…

Perhaps reliable connectivity means that the patient doesn’t need to worry about their device not working in an emergency? 

What does this translate to?

Reduced fear.

Or maybe the stable connectivity means that they can still use the device when they’re away from home, or traveling abroad? 

What does this translate to?

Increased freedom.

Emotional drives are what lead people to buy products and technology.

Always keep your audience’s main emotional motives in mind when marketing medical devices.

If you don’t, you’ll most likely get fewer sales conversions.

Don’t get me wrong, medical copywriters and businesses should be able to appeal to the logical part of consumers’ brains too. 

You want the consumer to think ‘‘okay, this makes sense,’’ AS WELL as feel emotionally drawn to your product.

But remember, emotion is the dominant decision-maker.

It’s proven that people make emotion-based purchasing decisions rather than logical ones.

If a sales page doesn’t provide positive emotion to the consumer, the device will have a hard time selling.

10. Don’t forget voice search 🎤

Voice search is seeing exponential growth!

Internet users can now search online by speaking into their computer or smartphone.

This option is quicker and easier than typing, so it’s no wonder voice search and dictation are gaining popularity year-on-year. 

Digital assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft Cortana are all on the market…

And they’re showing up in more households around the world.

Curious to see some statistics on voice search?

Let’s take a look:

• 94% of users say voice search is easy and saves time (Adobe Blog)

• 55% of households are forecast to own a smart speaker by 2022 (99 Firms)

• It is x3 more likely for mobile voice searches to be local-based than text searches (Wordstream)

• Searching for a business (47%), researching a product/service (44%), and searching for a quick fact (68%) are three of the most popular types of voice search (Microsoft)

Health businesses should keep these stats in mind. 

Also, it’s worth noting that people perform voice searches differently from typed searches.

One of the most important differences is search length.

The average text search is one to three words.

But the average voice search? 

7+ words.

What this means is that users perform more “long-tailed” voice searches.

Often, this is in the form of questions.

Voice search also prompts people to use natural language. 

Make sure you create content that aligns with the kind of health-based questions that patients in your niche may ask.

Example?

Perhaps you’re an ophthalmology clinic…

I would ask your team to list the questions that patients frequently ask before/during appointments.

We’d then gather these questions in a master ‘‘FAQ’’ list. 

One by one, we can write an article or site page that provide a detailed, thorough answer to each question.

If we write a blog post that specifically answers a frequent question like ‘‘what are the risks of laser eye surgery?’’ then this will attract other people who perform similar voice searches.

11. Social media marketing for doctors? Consistency pays 📱

Most people have a love-hate relationship with social media — businesses are no different!

Although the 0.7% conversion rate on social media isn’t as high as email (3.19%) or search (1.95%), it’s still a key medical marketing strategy.

But what’s so good about social media?

Well, there are more than 3.5 billion social media users. 

Even if social media channels won’t drive instant sales most of the time, posting regularly on the likes of Facebook and Instagram helps with brand visibility.

Posting will build familiarity with your audience…

In turn, familiarity builds trust and leads to sales down the line.

Pretty simple when you look at things like that, right?!

If you’re marketing a medical device, Instagram could be the perfect place to share images of this device. 

See below for an example from AccuVein. They position themselves as the global leader in vein visualization.

I’ve noticed that doctors who post the most consistently will grow their online brand.

A good example comes from Dr. Dave’s 411, who’s been posting educational and entertaining content on his Facebook page for several years.

This content includes cardiology tips, heart-healthy recipes, and behind-the-scenes posts.

With over 151,000 followers, he’s built a community.

I’ve written video scripts for Dr. Dave to expand his content onto YouTube. 

He isn’t afraid to show his personality.

As a result, what the viewer gets isn’t just new knowledge, but a humorous and engaging video too.

There’s a pretty long list of social media options for you to choose from. These include:

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Instagram

• Snapchat

… and more! 

Some medical marketing companies may advise you to be active on ALL social media channels.

I understand their point. However, I think this is unsustainable for most practices. 

Regular posts on six or seven different social channels is a lot of content to keep up with.

My recommendation?

Go where most of your patients are. 

Don’t be afraid to ask your patients which social media platforms they prefer. 

You could even set up a short survey on your website.

All you'd need to say is that you want to post more online, but you want to choose the right place to do so. 

Do you tend to treat a lot of adults aged 50 and over? 

Facebook and Twitter may be your best bet. 

What about if you treat young adults or teens?

You may be wise to focus on the likes of YouTube and Snapchat, instead.

It’s always best to run your digital marketing plan according to where the traffic will be.

12. Hire freelancers for content creation ✍️

Whew, we’ve made it this far! 

So, how can you bring together the medical marketing strategies listed above?

You’ll need a team, that’s for sure. 

But before you worry about limited budgets, let me tell you this doesn’t need to be a big team…

To deliver a comprehensive digital marketing plan, here are a few freelance professionals I’d recommend you reach out to:

• Medical copywriter

• Web designer / developer 

• Video editor (if your plan includes video content)

Each of these professionals should have a baseline understanding of SEO.

Feel free to research medical marketing agencies, too.

Agencies can be convenient, but they’re often more expensive and less personal than reaching out to a team of freelancers.

By outsourcing your content plan to, say, a medical copywriter and a web designer, they’ll be able to work closely together. 

Software such as Zoom (video conferencing) and Slack (project communication) make virtual teamwork easy nowadays.

Working with a few people rather than 10 or 20 — like you might in a medical marketing agency — can result in more focused content… 

‘‘Less is more’’ as the old saying goes. 

A medical copywriter will help you write content for your blog, emails, social media, and videos. 

The web designer, meanwhile, will give your site visual appeal and make the content user-friendly to navigate.

If you’d like to view my monthly packages or full list of medical copywriting services, click here.

Conclusion

Marketing for medical practices is a complex task with many layers.

In this guide, we’ve discussed how to create modern content and follow smart strategies in the 2020s.

Increasingly, health consumers are moving online.

Doctors and practices can follow in the steps of their patients and commit to a digital marketing plan. 

To finish up, let’s review the 12 marketing priorities discussed above:

1. Boost search rankings with SEO for medical practices

2. Make Google happy with 2000+ word blog articles

3. Turn boring data into infographics

4. Get your practice live on digital directories

5. Tell stories in your healthcare email marketing 

6. Use lead magnets to attract patients

7. Be brave with video marketing

8. Convert blogs into e-books to build authority

9. Marketing a medical device? Benefits > features

10. Don’t forget voice search

11. Social media marketing for doctors? Consistency pays

12. Hire freelancers for content creation

Got a specific project in mind? 

Feel free to get in touch using the form at the bottom of this page, where you can also read testimonials of my work as a medical copywriter.

Thanks for reading — I wish you all the best with your marketing plan!

Declan Davey

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