{"id":14643,"date":"2023-07-02T21:08:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T02:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"\/about\/blog\/for-doctors\/inbound-marketing-for-doctors\/"},"modified":"2023-11-10T11:35:37","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T16:35:37","slug":"inbound-marketing-for-doctors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zocdoc.com\/resources\/blog\/article\/inbound-marketing-for-doctors\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Your Practice Advertising Dollars Are (Probably) Losing Value"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’ve likely seen<\/a> the statistics – increasingly, patients are looking for and choosing doctors online – so chances are, making sure you and your practice are searchable is something you’ve thought about.<\/p>\n

Most people start search marketing by dipping their toes into Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Google AdWords has been around for years and is still<\/em> one of the best converting online marketing channels.\u00a0The beauty of AdWords is that you can track exactly how much you’re making versus how much you’re spending. If you’re good, then you can figure out how your Cost Per Click (CPC) translates into a Cost Per Lead (CPL) and a Cost to Acquire each Customer (CAC) – or patient, in this case.\u00a0Once you have that, you have everything. You know exactly how much you are able to spend (or invest) to consistently acquire patients and continue to grow your practice.<\/p>\n

It works so perfectly, it’s almost too good to be true.\u00a0And that’s because it is…<\/p>\n

Why the Downside of AdWords is a Product of its Success<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ad dollars are going from opaque offline sources – like print – to the Internet, and while on the one hand that’s good because we know more about the return on investment, it’s also bad because things keep getting more expensive. When more new companies start using AdWords, and existing companies start increasing their budget and spending in that area, the cost to compete rises dramatically.<\/p>\n

As your effective Cost Per Click (CPC) rises steadily, the cost to eventually acquire each patient also continues to grow.\u00a0This means your profit – or the amount of money you make after advertising – shrinks on a per patient basis.\u00a0The ROI is actually getting worse. And you hit the point of diminishing returns faster.\u00a0So what should you do?\u00a0Start investing in other “inbound” marketing channels.<\/p>\n

Why Digital, “Inbound” Marketing Provides the Best ROI<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over a decade ago, Seth Godin published Permission Marketing<\/a><\/em>, based on a simple insight: the future of advertising and marketing will be more about earning attention, and less about trying to get noticed by interrupting people. The founder of software company HubSpot coined the term inbound marketing, which is basically the process of using content and media to bring customers in. Different title, same premise. Instead of \u201cpushing\u201d messages out, the idea is that we should focus more on \u201cpulling\u201d people in. Not only do customers prefer this approach, but it also makes more business sense.<\/p>\n

Reason #1: Inbound marketing ROI increases over time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a very basic level, here’s how advertising works:\u00a0You invest $100 to make $120 in revenue (and $20 profit). Then you continue to reinvest the $100 to grow. You can optimize individual pieces of the ad and improve a little over time.\u00a0But you’re largely stuck in a fixed ratio<\/strong> of spend-to-return. Want more profit? Then spend more on advertising.<\/p>\n

Inbound marketing is a little different. Organic search traffic is one of the best performing online marketing channels because, as with AdWords, people show intent by typing in exactly what they\u2019re looking for. However, it’s more profitable than spending money on advertising because your investment scales indefinitely.\u00a0For example, you invest a fixed amount each month (depicted by the red line below) and your results get better over time. So even though you spend the same time and money in month 12 as month one, your ROI compounds.\u00a0Why does this happen? Because inbound tactics and channels are optimized when integrated — not in isolation like advertising channels.<\/p>\n

Reason #2: Inbound marketing channels and tactics work together.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the primary reasons inbound marketing scales more effectively than advertising is because the channels and tactics work together. You start by creating high-quality, excellent content on your website – posts and pages that will help answer your patients’ common questions and pain points. Your content is educational, instructional, and entertaining. And it positions you as a thought leader in your area of expertise.<\/span><\/p>\n

New readers like what they’re reading so much that they subscribe to receive more updates. Now, they’re eagerly awaiting more content and begin checking in on your site on a regular basis.\u00a0As you publish more, these readers “like,” share and link to your pages. They want to recommend it to their friends, family and readers because they think others can benefit as well.\u00a0And all of these things help improve SEO because besides links, Google’s algorithm now also takes into account things like your:<\/span><\/p>\n