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Self-Care Is Transforming the Way Health Institutions Advertise

Consumers Search for Doctors Who Are “Near Me”

The desire to live a life more at home is becoming a reality for more and more people every year. Services like Instacart and AmazonFresh give consumers a way to do their grocery shopping on the couch. Tech companies like DigitalOcean and LivingSocial offer employees flexible hours and the ability to spend a huge portion of their work week at home. In fact, DigitalOcean claims 40 percent of their employees work from home.

Health apps have now entered the playing field and amplified the concept of “self-care” spawning a new way for consumers to engage with their health. This growing trend has medical institutions rethinking how they market to consumers who now prioritize services available at home or, most importantly, close to home.

Doctor “Near Me”

With all the perks self-care technology offers today, consumers are less willing to drive to a doctor to receive similar treatment. For a non-serious issue, more than 42 percent of patients said they weren’t willing to drive over 10 miles to visit a physician. Other attributes like the healthcare practice’s reputation and length of time to book an appointment were less important than distance to consumers.

This means that healthcare institutions should focus on marketing to consumers who live within roughly ten miles of their location, as those that live farther are unlikely to visit. Less than four percent of all patients said they would be willing to visit a doctor that is over 50 miles away.

Define the Target Market Area

Healthcare institutions have all the information they need to analyze their patient population. By looking at their current patients’ zip codes and addresses, they can map out how far their patients travel and if they are concentrated in a certain area. Examining these patterns will generate insights into who they are.

For example, a healthcare practice might find that their young, professional, single patients live within a few miles of their location and work around the block. Tailoring messages to target these consumers is called geo-marketing. Using this strategy with the help of patients’ data will assist healthcare institutions in fine tuning their marketing efforts.

Match Their Preferences

After analyzing the data, think of keywords consumers search for when seeking medical services. What illness is searched for the most? What types of products does the surrounding area buy? What are the patients’ lifestyles and are there common traits among them? Being able to answer questions like these will help a medical institution create an effective marketing strategy and rank in top search results.

Today’s tech lets us do more from home than ever before. We can grocery shop, refinance our home and even order an electric car. The ability to order products and services from home is growing in availability and popularity. A cultural shift is on the rise, and consumers want to do more from home. And what they can’t do, they want close by, including doctor’s offices.

Patients still visit their doctors, but they don’t want to drive as far as one might assume. With the rise of “self-care,” patients use their wearables and the Internet first to find answers.

Reviewing where patients live lets healthcare professionals unpack information that improves their marketing efforts and how they can use geo-marketing to tailor their messages to common concerns and desires of patients within the optimal ten-mile radius.