It’s no secret that digital marketing is now the go-to approach for reaching a wider span of people and potential clients. Social media has made it easier than ever to affordably market your products and services to whomever your target audience may be, and, in many cases, being able to do so instantly. There are, however, certain caveats to utilizing digital marketing, and most of them pertain to strategy.

In other words, while the tools for digital marketing are easily accessible and available for new and seasoned marketers alike, how you market and what you are marketing will still heavily influence your turnout, regardless of these conveniences.

This simple guide over functional medicine marketing goes over one avenue of digital marketing and how strategically incorporating functional medicine marketing to attract the right target audience is the key to functional medicine marketing success.

If you are looking for effective functional medicine marketing, reach out to us today. At Functional Medicine Marketing, we tailor our services to match what works in your industry. Our goal is simple – bring more clients through your functional medicine practice door, so you can help more people. 

We love to see other businesses succeed. But even more than that, we love to see people succeed in life with optimal health. Because we’ve experienced the benefits of healing our bodies from the inside out, we are excited to help support you in providing that benefit to others! We would be honored to help you grow your patient bookings, so you can help more people.

With that, here is all you need to know on how to attract patients to functional medicine using digital marketing.  

Understand Your Functional Medicine Marketing Strategy and Product/Service  

The first step in successful marketing is understanding what you’re selling and what your customer profile generally looks like. In this case, we are attempting to attract patients to functional medicine.

So, what is functional medicine, and what kind of people are intrigued by it? Functional medicine is an unconventional approach to modern medicine, as it combines holistic and western techniques for the most effective total body healing a patient can receive. Functional medicine strives to look at the root causes of issues, and how western medicine successfully manages symptoms.

You can consider functional medicine to be the middle road between all-natural and all-pharmaceutical medicine.  

We are clear on what it is and then we break it down into the specific treatments you provide. Our marketing strategies will focus on what you provide, why it matters, and who it matters to over the long run.

We focus on your functional medicine practices, your story, and how your story ties into that of your new patients and functional medicine clients.

Understand Your Target Audience  

Now that we know that functional medicine incorporates both holistic and western medicine into treatment, we can take this fact and brainstorm a list of the kinds of people who would feel drawn to this approach for tending to their health. In the US, most people go to their primary care doctor to ease symptoms of whatever ailments they are facing.

They may be encouraged to engage in healthy lifestyle changes, but more pressing is the prescribed medication as part of the regime for healing. Sometimes, patients find that their relief is short-lived with these medications, that the medicines stop working, or that the medications never worked at all. Others want to heal their body entirely rather than address symptoms.

As we can see, situations and personal preferences impact the kind of customers who may gravitate towards functional medicine. 

Define Your Overall Medical Marketing Strategy  

We have recognized that failure with traditional medicine and an interest in holistic wellness can cause people to gravitate towards alternatives like functional medicine. Strategies for your marketing can be fine-tuned using this information.

You can ask: Who has been failed by traditional medicine? Who is interested in holistic wellness? Compile a list of general personality traits and demographics that resonate with one or both factors to learn more about your audience. Perhaps you discover that younger generations gravitate towards functional medicine more often. Now you know to make your marketing youthful and appealing to younger viewers. From here, you conduct branding research to ensure that the colors, slogans, themes, and general advertising are consistent with the audience you are attempting to reach.  

Post in Promising Places  

You might think that getting a website up and running or incorporating a hashtag or two is enough to engage the right people in your functional medicine campaign. Unfortunately, it is a bit more complicated than that (unless you get lucky). In all likelihood, you’ll need to do additional research and complete a deep dive into the many different places that your target audience regularly engages. In doing so, you’ll discover the platforms and websites that your customer base utilizes most often. It makes sense; if your customers cannot actually see your ads or attempt to engage, they will not have a way to gravitate to you. Post in promising places for the best results.  

Think Like A Patient  or A Group of New Patients

As the old saying goes, put yourself in their shoes. Think like your customers and post your ads accordingly. Ask yourself: Where do people go to seek advice when they’ve tried everything? The answer? People usually go to Q&A platforms like Quora, Redditt, or Twitter to find answers to questions they can’t find answers to anywhere else. Ask yourself if patients follow this approach too, or if there are specific platforms or sub-threads for health that are more commonly utilized. You might end up discovering a social media platform you were entirely unaware of that is critical to your digital marketing. Remember that you are focused on finding customers engaged in health communities, so your general social community (like Instagram or Facebook) may not be ideal despite being an obvious starting point. Use this approach of stepping into the customer’s shoes to find places your ads would be best received.  

 

The Bottom Line on Medical Marketing

Advertising for functional medicine is no different than advertising for anything else in the business world. Study your products and services and understand what you are offering. Then, find the right customers and online users who are interested in your ideas, and engage with them in their natural communities. If you’re ready to successfully market functional medicine, take a breath and follow these steps carefully. In doing so you will be well on your way to successfully attracting patients to your functional medicine practice or related campaign.  

Reach Out to Us For Your Medical Marketing Needs

Whether you are looking for a content marketing strategy, reputation management, search engine optimization, social media marketing, or types of digital marketing, remember that we are here for you.

We understand the value of functional medicine practitioners and what they can bring to the table. That is why we have devoted a portion of our lives to making sure that more people have exposure to this form of medical practice and can benefit from it as well.

We want to be there for you when it comes to search engine optimization, social media marketing, marketing resources, and more.

Reach out at Functional Med Marketing today to obtain more effective medical marketing.