Facebook marketing is a lot different in healthcare in terms of reaching the audience and content strategy, but it still holds immense significance if done right.
As a specialized marketer for different medical practices including spinal decompression, I will walk you through some of my learned and experiential tips and tactics that will guide you about the effective ways of using Facebook for your spinal decompression marketing.
Let’s dive in!
Understand Facebook and Its Policies
Before you begin to implement your spinal decompression marketing plan, take some time to understand that Facebook has certain rules and regulations when it comes to advertising, especially for healthcare practitioners.
Facebook does not allow ads that instigate negative self-perception and image. This implies that you need to be very cautious and thoughtful while creating ads and devising spinal decompression marketing strategies.
Many practitioners think that these policies are just guidelines and that nothing would happen. However, that’s not true. Facebook is quite stringent with its policies, if your ad does not comply with the rules, it doesn’t let you run the ad and in the worse case, they can even block your account.
Not All Leads Are Quality Leads! Be Creative About How You Get Them!
Focus on getting a better cost per new patient. Remember that you are going to get a lot of leads through your ad campaign but not all might be quality ones. So be very mindful about your ad audience.
You can use Facebook Lead Ads to target people who have indicated an interest in spinal decompression treatments, or who may be looking for more information about what you do after they’ve gotten treatment. You can also use these ads to target people with similar interests who live near you so that you can provide them with a convenient way to come in for an appointment on their schedule.
Let’s say your target audience is women between the ages of 40 and 55 who live in a specific city and going through a chronic condition. Once you know that, you can begin finding ways to reach them on social media. Also, share content from other people’s pages that mention spinal decompression in some way (for example articles about how spinal decompression has helped people who have chronic pain from injuries like car accidents).
Your followers will be more likely to click through if they see other people talking about how great spinal decompression is for healing after injuries like car crashes and sports injuries because this gives them hope that their condition can be treated.
Spend Your Ad Budget More On Patients Who Have Chronic Conditions
You want to avoid focusing your campaign on people that aren’t chronic enough. Those who face severe conditions like herniated disk bulging discs, sciatica, degenerative disc disease, peripheral neuropathy, etc are more likely to reach out to you. They are also willing to pay a large sum for the treatment because their condition is chronic. So it makes sense that the results of your Facebook ad campaign will be way better if you target this audience.
This means that you need to spend on both lead generation ads as well as on promoting your content (posts and videos) to attract the right audience. This also calls for splitting your spinal decompression marketing budget into these two aspects. Let’s suppose your marketing budget is $2000, then you must split it up and distribute between paid lead ads and content boost. Of course, considering the monetary and strategic benefits that ads render, the ratio of marketing spend on these ads should naturally be more than boosting posts.
Create a Separate Funnel for Each Chronic Condition
Instead of using Facebook lead forms, a better way is to create funnel pages for each condition that patients mostly face.
There are a few different ways to go about setting up your funnel, but I recommend the “lead capture” method to all my clients.
The first step is to create a landing page for your ad. This is the page that people will be taken to when they click on your ad.
Each landing page should have a form that people can fill out so that your office can reach out to them.
Once you have your landing page set up, the next step is to create your thank-you page. This is the page that people will be taken to after they fill out your form.
The final step is to create your Facebook ad. When creating your ad, be sure to include a link to your landing page.
You can use the same image and copy that you used on your landing page. However, it’s important to test different images and copies to see what works best.
Once your ad is created, you’re ready to start driving traffic to your landing page and capturing leads!
Do you have any questions about setting up a funnel for your Facebook ad campaign? Schedule a call with my team here to help you get started.
Focus on Differentiation
If you want to stand out from the competition, you need to use a differentiation strategy for your spinal decompression marketing on Facebook. This means finding a unique selling proposition (USP) that sets your practice apart.
First, take a look at your competition. What are they doing that’s working well? What could they be doing better? Identifying the gaps in your competition’s strategy is a great way to start thinking about how you can set yourself apart.
To do this, start by brainstorming what makes your practice special. Maybe you offer longer appointment times or have a state-of-the-art facility. Perhaps you have a specialized team or use the latest technology. Whatever it is, make sure it’s something that your target market will find valuable.
Once you’ve identified your USP, start promoting it on your Facebook page. Use eye-catching visuals and benefit-driven copy to tell potential patients what makes you different. You can also create targeted ads that highlight your unique selling proposition.
Facebook Retargeting
In an ideal scenario, all your prospect patients opt for your spinal decompression services as soon as they get to know about you. But of course, that’s not the case. Today, people spend more time making this decision because they have a lot of options.
That is why running a paid ad campaign is not enough for your spinal decompression marketing. To continue to get patients at your doorstep, you also need to consider retargeting or remarketing.
As the name suggests, running a retargeting campaign means getting interested patients to engage on your Facebook page once again. Let’s say, a potential patient visits your page, but doesn’t get enrolled in care; through the retargeting campaign, you can bring yourself right in front of such prospects and prompt them to convert into actual patients.
It’s all about being in front of those who already know about you and your office.
Drive More Engagement -Strategically
You should know that there are two types of content on Facebook: one is engagement – posts, videos, and images you upload on your timeline and another is conversion-based content that includes ads and video ads, which you usually manage through Facebook Ad Manager.
Regardless of the type of content you post for your spinal decompression marketing, you must spend some amount on it to maximize reach.
Through my years of marketing experience, I have learned that you can drive impressive results by driving good engagement. In your spinal decompression marketing plan, driving engagement and working on timeline content can be an avenue to nurture and strengthen connections with existing patients as well as to gain new ones.
You can use your engagement content to carve out an impressive perception for your clinic, trigger the need to opt for your services, and to guide patients while they make their decision. This is what I call strategic engagement because it allows you to anticipate potential patients’ needs and engage them before they consider your competitors.
Run Video Ads and Go Live
Among social media video viewers in the USA, 42.6% of Facebook users prefer the platform to watch videos. So, why not make the most of this trend and promote your services through video ads and by going live on your Facebook?
Having videos in your spinal decompression marketing plan is a great way to engage new patients and educate them about the incredible benefits of your decompression services. Through educational videos on varied topics, you can engage visitors on your page, make them request more information, and ultimately turn them into actual patients.
I notice that many practitioners tend to ignore videos because they are overwhelmed by thinking about the whole video production and editing process. Let me tell you that you don’t need to be worried about it.
You can simply pick up your phone camera, sit nicely in a quiet corner of your office, and record your message. Even if that’s a lot for you, there are many agencies that provide video production and editing services. You can get their services to stay on top of your spinal decompression marketing game.
Be Ready for the Trial and Error
It takes some trials and errors to learn the ropes. Here are a few guidelines, to begin with:
- Running ads on Facebook involves three levels – ad campaigns, ad sets, and ads. In each ad campaign, you can have many ad sets and in each ad set, you can have multiple ads.
- Define the campaign objective clearly. Mention whether you want to raise awareness, generate leads, drive conversions (get appointments), or any other relevant objectives.
- Set up a realistic budget and keep on tweaking it on the basis of results.
- Select automatic ad placement.
- Know your audience completely and target them accordingly. Many practitioners think that the wider the audience the better it is. But, that’s not true. You won’t get anything by advertising your spinal decompression services to patients in Chicago while you are based in Florida.
- Design a captivating creative ad.
Wrapping Up
These are some of the strategies that have worked amazingly well for my clients. Just make sure you are up to date about the Facebook content algorithm and be creative about the way you reach out to your potential patients.
Good luck with your Facebook marketing!
If you are looking for an agency to look after and manage your Facebook marketing, Think Bullish has a wide experience in helping many practitioners like you. To know what we can do for you, schedule a call with my team here.
Zack Siegel
Founder/CEO
Zack is a conversion rate lover and PPC ad man spending most of his time optimizing.
He’s an avid bookworm, Chipotle’s most valued customer, and pursuant stand-up comedian…
We give him reality checks every day.