How a Limited Budget Can Go a Long Way for Your Healthcare Marketing
When you have a limited marketing budget, it may seem like you can’t do anything. But if you come up with a strategic healthcare marketing plan, you can do more with less!
In this post, we highlight some of the ways you can repurpose a limited marketing budget for your practice.
The Lowdown on Budget Limits
At the end of the day, remember to do what’s best for your medical practice or healthcare system. Obviously, some marketing avenues are just not right for your business. For instance, you won’t see anyone Snapchatting about a surgery they are performing.
Find marketing platforms that speak to your audience or feel like a natural fit for your company. Our agency has several healthcare clients that find success from a variety of channels to spread the word about their work.
Keep your expectations real as well. Buying a TV commercial during a major sporting event might not be the best way to spend your budget. But what about video ads on social media during that time? Think big, and strategize just right.
Optimize Your Healthcare Marketing
Let’s look for opportunities to optimize what you are currently doing and to reinvest what you’ve been spending on tactics that may not be working.
I’m going to go on a tangent for a minute to help paint a picture of your limited marketing budget.
When I was growing up, my grandma was a repurpose-r. She was a whiz behind the sewing machine and would create the most beautiful quilts, prom tuxes for my dad and uncles, and dresses for my aunts. She sewed pillows, curtains, you name it.
The really cool thing is that she rarely bought new fabric. Being a farm wife, she’d repurpose old sheets, curtains, or clothes. The fabric had already been made into something else, but she used every single part of it, along with its buttons, zippers, and trim.
I have quilts whose fabric matches dresses my aunts wore as well as the inside of my dad’s junior prom tux. My grandma found something to do with every inch of the fabric she had.
So how does this apply to your limited marketing budget? Use and reuse any piece of content you make!
Use All Parts of Your Marketing Quilt
If you are making a piece of content for one application, you should use it elsewhere. Healthcare content marketing should be found on multiple platforms because you never know whose eye you will catch in each marketing channel.
Let’s use an example of a video testimonial, a high-quality piece of content for any healthcare company to have.
Instead of just using the video on a testimonials page, consider using it for a blog post. You can use the script from the video as your content, linking to the services talked about in the testimonial as well as to your directions page or “About Us” page. Using the script means you don’t have to come up with brand-new content; you can simply repurpose what you have already made.
Once the blog is posted, share the link on your social media channels.
If writing each social post becomes tedious, consider finding a social media management platform to use. These (often free) services allow you to post and schedule on multiple platforms all from one location, at one time. This is a huge time saver for any person who posts to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
Your original video can also be used for small digital media spends. Consider creating a 15- to 30-second version of your video for YouTube Pre-Roll, Instagram Stories, or Facebook advertising.
You don’t have to put a large budget behind these short videos. Spending a little on digital advertising will allow you to hit much bigger audiences than your page followers alone.
Still want more ways to reuse your awesome video?
Does your healthcare organization send out newsletters? If you send them digitally, you can link to either the blog post or the video on your site.
If you send your newsletter in paper form, consider a digital option instead. Not only is email more eco-friendly, but it also frees up your marketing budget from printing and postage costs. Include an easy form on your website for people to sign up for your digital newsletter, offering another touchpoint for the video to be seen.
Finally, consider pamphlets that are already optimized for digital use. Having the pamphlet content on your site allows you to point patients, caregivers, and the community to learn more about what you do without needing to print out the information. If you send emails to remind patients of appointments, you can include a link to the appropriate information about the service they are using.
Giving patients and caregivers the information they need to feel comfortable about a medical diagnosis, upcoming surgery, or offering of your clinic will make for a better customer service experience.
To help you use all parts of your marketing quilt for a more cohesive marketing plan, we recommend setting up a content marketing calendar. When you have content planned out consistently, you won’t be scratching your head trying to come up with ideas, as you can spread the content piece (and its repurposed parts) over a few weeks.
Share Your Marketing Quilt
As a healthcare organization, you work with other groups and nonprofits. When cosponsoring an event, partnership, or project, consider divvying up the marketing collateral.
Because both of your organizations are working toward a united message, you can divide the work and cost associated with the project or event. Plus, since your two groups are working together, you are also hitting a larger audience of both groups’ followers.
Just make sure to give courtesy or credit to the organization that provided the material. (Bonus: linking to their site actually helps your SEO!)
Showcase Your Healthcare Marketing
At the end of the day, healthcare content that is rich with information and that offers a long shelf life will allow you to expand what your practice is able to do. This also will help you rearrange your limited budget or even free it up for other projects.
If you still feel overwhelmed because you may not be repurposing your content as well as you’d like, don’t fret! Our marketing agency specializes in healthcare and medical digital marketing content and helps small marketing teams get the most out of their marketing dollars.
Talk to us about a free digital assessment, and we’ll see how we can take your limited budget and make from it a beautiful marketing quilt.
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Betsy Sprenkle
As Chief Technical Officer, Betsy loves breaking down barriers and finding creative solutions to problems. An out-of-the-box thinker, Betsy enjoys the opportunities marketing brings because it’s an ever-changing career. When she’s not at the office, you’ll find her in the garden. Learn more about Betsy.
