Healthcare Marketing
More patients,not more traffic
Most clinics asking me for more traffic have a conversion problem instead. The enquiries are arriving and leaking out between the form and the appointment. I measure that first, fix it, and only then spend money bringing more people in.
- Intake measured first
- Compliance-aware
- Per-location reporting
Sound familiar
What practice managers tell me
We get enquiries on Friday and answer them on Monday.
Nobody can tell me what a new patient actually costs us.
The agency will not touch anything clinical in case we get in trouble.
Our front desk is retyping every online form into the practice system.
The approach
Fix the leak before filling the bucket
Take last month. Count enquiries received, enquiries answered within an hour, and appointments booked. Most practices cannot produce the middle number, and that gap is itself the finding.
If your median response time is over an hour, more advertising makes the leak bigger. You pay for enquiries that go to whoever picked up first. Fixing response time costs nothing and improves every channel at once, which is why it comes first.
Only when intake is measured and working does spending on acquisition make sense, because then you know what an enquiry is worth and can decide what it is worth paying for one.
What you get
Every healthcare engagement includes
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Intake measurement
Enquiries by channel, median and worst-case response time, and conversion to booked appointment. Almost nobody has these numbers before we start.
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A shorter form and a faster reply
Fewer fields, replies on the channel the patient used, and online booking for the substantial share of people who will not phone.
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Search work that respects the category
Symptom and treatment content written carefully, location pages with real specifics, and profile and review systems that keep running.
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Paid campaigns with real conversion tracking
Tracked numbers per campaign, form source captured at submission, and reporting on booked appointments rather than clicks.
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Compliance-aware handling
I build so that patient data is not sent where it should not go, and I flag anything that needs your counsel rather than guessing at it.
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Per-location reporting
Every number split by location, so you can see which sites underperform for reasons you can fix.
The process
Measure, fix, then grow
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Measure the funnel
Enquiries in, response times, bookings out, split by channel and location. Two weeks, and it usually reframes the whole brief.
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Fix intake
Shorter forms, faster routing, online booking, replies on the right channel. Cheapest improvement available and it lifts every channel.
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Then acquire
Search and paid work, measured against booked appointments, now that you know what an enquiry is worth.
Booked appointments, not clicks
Impressions and clicks are not outcomes. I report on enquiries, on response time, and on appointments booked, split by location, because those are the numbers a practice runs on.
Receipts
Healthcare work with the numbers attached
Who you work with
Someone who will read your compliance policy
Healthcare marketing has a specific failure mode: agencies either ignore the rules entirely, or are so frightened of them that they refuse to do anything useful. Both cost you patients.
I take the third path. I build so that patient information does not end up in analytics or ad platforms where it should not be, I keep tracking on the parts of the journey where that is appropriate, and when something genuinely needs a legal opinion I say so rather than guessing. I am not your compliance counsel and I will never pretend to be.
What I bring is an engineer who has read the policy, understands why the constraint exists, and can build something that works inside it.
Questions
Healthcare marketing questions
Do you understand healthcare privacy requirements?
Well enough to build responsibly and to know when to stop and ask. I keep patient-identifying information out of analytics and advertising platforms, I use tooling that supports the necessary agreements where one is needed, and I flag anything ambiguous to your counsel rather than making a judgement call. I am not a lawyer and your compliance officer should review anything that touches patient data.
Can we still track conversions?
Yes, with care. You can measure that a booking happened, which campaign it came from and what it cost, without sending anything identifying to an ad platform. It takes a more deliberate setup than the default install, which is exactly why most practices either have no tracking or have tracking they should not have.
We already have an agency. Can you work alongside them?
Often that is the most useful arrangement. I frequently take the technical, intake and tracking work while an existing agency handles creative and campaign management. What I need is a clear split so nobody is undoing anyone else’s work.
How quickly does this show up in the schedule?
Intake fixes show up almost immediately, because you are converting enquiries you were already receiving. Search work takes months. Paid can start producing within weeks but should not start until intake is fixed, or you are paying to lose faster.
Do you work with single-site practices?
Yes. Single sites are often the best return, because the intake fixes are quick and there is no coordination overhead. Multi-location work is more involved mainly because the reporting and routing have to be built per location.
Next step
How long does a Friday enquiry wait?
If you do not know, that is the first thing to fix and it costs nothing. Tell me about the practice and I will tell you where the leak most likely is.
- Reply within 24h
- Intake first
- No long retainers