1. Reputation Management
When it comes to Healthcare, first impressions are everything and it all begins online. Research shows 77% of all patients conduct research before making an appointment with a physician. This data illustrates the importance of building and maintaining a positive reputation online. Facilities should be utilizing tools to optimize reputation and bring positive and clear communication about the facility to prospective patients. It’s no secret FQHC’s marketing management team is often spread thin on time and resources. Finding automated solutions
through Reputation management tools are often the best approach to ensure all online presence is managed, maintained and optimize regularly and with minimal effort. These include

FACILITY LOCATION AND HOURS
Don’t miss out on new patients from outdated information that often gets overlooked or forgotten. Sending patients to the right place during clinic hours is imperative to building credibility and trust with the patient. If the patient is to miss an appointment due to incorrect information on any platform including Facebook, Google or the Clinic Website, it will take much more time and effort to retain them as an advocate for your facility.

GOOGLE/FACBOOK REVIEWS
In a highly competitive market, it is important to stay on top of your reviews. If something is published with no response from your facility, you lose the opportunity to correct any concerns that are published for the community to see

SOCIAL PRESENCE
With the variety of social platforms your patients are on, it is a key tool to get in front of them while browsing through their feeds. FQHC’s are able to run ads, get reviews and create traffic to their website like never before by Facebook, LinkedIn and even Instagram.

2. Retargeting Tools
What better way to connect with already engaged patients and prospect patients than through retargeted marketing. There are many benefits to retargeting like staying connected to your audience, increasing brand awareness and getting more conversions.

Let’s break down what retargeting is and how this pertains to an FQHC. Retargeting is a form of online advertising that uses data to re-engage potential leads of patients/prospect patients who leave your site without converting. These ads are specifically created to reach this engaged audience and encourage them to convert using highly relevant ads.
So how exactly does retargeting work?

      1. Patient Visits Clinic’s Site                              2. Retargeting in Action                              3. Getting Patient/Prospect To Take Action

1. Patient Visits Website
A patient or potential patient visits your website to learn more about your services but they leave and do not take any sort of measurable action. The patients IP address is recorded and tracked
2. Retargeting in Action
After visiting the site, they begin to see ads for your company on other websites they visit
3. Getting Patient/Prospect Patient to Take Action
You’ve got their attention and they go back to your site to take action

Remarketing ads allow for highly targeted ad text and ultimately leads to higher conversions and returns. By including remarketing ads into your marketing campaigns you are engaging patients and prospects.

3. Geofencing Tools
Geofencing is a location based marketing solution that lets you connect with smartphone users based on their location. Geofencing allows for an organization to set up virtual barriers to create targeted ads for people who enter or exit a designated region. When a person is within a
“fenced” area, the facility can send PPC ads. As an FQHC it is important to reach prospective patients living within your area, making it an important feature in an FQHC’s marketing campaign.

Here’s how Geofencing Works

STEP 1 – TARGET ZONE
You can digitally set up target zone throughout a geofencing map. This can include finding and marking locations By drawing a digital fence around their building you will be able to target mobile devices that enter that designated area

STEP 2 – AUDIENCE COLLECTION
Anyone with a mobile device with locations turned on that walks into the geofenced area, will be pinged and eligible to be served an ad. This helps you reach customers of competitors and new clients who are looking for a product like yours.

STEP 3 – SERVE ADS
The audience collected will be served display ads while in the geo-fenced area and for up to 30 days after leaving the geofenced area. You no longer have to go searching for your new customers, they come to you. Agility can also serve ads to users who have been in a target zone within a lookback window of up to a year.

STEP 4 – CONVERSION ZONE
A foot traffic conversion is anyone who entered the target zone, was served an ad, then cited you location. Geofencing advertising, like geofence retargeting, is here to help you see the results and quickly make changes for continued success.

4. HIPPA Compliant Ads
When advertising for any healthcare organization, Patient privacy is imperative. In the digital world we live in today, where seemingly less and less information is kept private, it can become more difficult to uphold the integrity of HIPPA’s guidelines, particularly in advertising. Google has restrictions on what can be used in any healthcare ads. If the PHI is ever exposed, the CE is held liable. Google Ads are not HIPPA compliant. It gets particularly difficult when the facility is running retargeting ads. This is where a professional healthcare marketer might be helpful to ensure that all guidelines are being met. Under the Privacy Rule it is unlawful to share any information about the patient that could be used to identify them, known as Protected Health Information (PHI) unless permission is given by the patient. There are 18 categories that cannot be included in data. Identifiers include name, address, zip codes, healthplan numbers, pictures, and more. Although this might appear as a roadblock to many, there are great solutions to reaching your audience while protecting their data which includes, geofencing and advertising to HCP’s.

5. Google Ad Grants
A lesser known fact to many nonprofit organizations is the availability for free advertising in courtesy of Google. One major benefit to an FQHC is the additional help and resources available to them from HRSA and companies like Google. As part of the FQHC’s 501 nonprofit
status, they are eligible for a grant from Google to fund their advertising efforts. Google has provided up to $10,000 a month for nonprofit organizations to run ads through Google’s advertising platform, AdWords, to get their cause in front of an audience. With this grant,
facilities are able to get their cause in front of an audience at no cost. There are several stipulations to maintaining the grant, however. The facility must stay within the parameters Google sets for the program. This means maintaining a high click through and engagement
rate.