Download the eBook today and learn insights, such as:

• Median annual digital marketing investments are between $50,000 and $300,000, while a few outliers pull the average annual investments much higher.
• Leaders outspend their counterparts, with 13% of leaders spending more than $1 million on digital marketing annually.
• Overall, 59% of respondents expect their digital marketing budgets to increase in the next 12 months, with only 5% expecting a decrease in digital budgets.
• More than half (54%) of digital budgets are growing in organizations where overall budgets are remaining the same, continuing the trend from previous years of investments shifting from traditional to digital.

Watch this webinar and learn how to strike the right balance between system-wide content and content unique to certain services, locations, and providers. You’ll learn the latest in health consumer search trends – particularly around location-oriented queries – and why user behavior should drive your content decisions.

After viewing the presentation, you’ll be able to:

• Understand your users and match your content to their needs
• Develop a user-focused content strategy that still works within your unique organizational framework
• Integrate an all-important location strategy into your overarching content strategy
• Use content strategy guidelines for long-term maintenance and governance

Why Location Strategy Matters

According to the Local Search Association, 63% of local searches are made by people who are undecided about a provider or retailer.

Meanwhile, Google has found that nearly two-thirds of smartphone users are more likely to purchase from companies whose mobile sites or apps customize to their location. This is especially telling as local searches – without the qualifier “near me” – have grown by over 150%.

While search engines and smartphones get better about pinpointing where users are so they can deliver the most relevant, local results, you can do your part to help both end users and search engines by adding thoughtful, location-based content.

When You Need a Location Strategy

Where are you putting content like this today?

• What parking lot visitors should use when visiting someone at Hospital A
• Which door to enter if a patient is visiting for a lab draw
• The hours for ICU, maternity, and general surgery visitors at Hospital B

Should this information live in the location profile? Maybe it should live in the service line? Maybe it lives in visitor information?

If your health system – like many growing health systems – has many locations, different types of facilities (hospitals, doctor offices, service-specific clinics, etc.), as well as unique services and amenities across locations, you need a location strategy.

Some Content Belongs, and Some Content Doesn’t

Location strategy is meant to answer questions about what information to include in a location profile, and how to structure that content in a user-friends (and search engine friendly) way.

Google Analytics data, keyword research, and your internal stakeholders can help guide the conversation about what content location profiles really need.

While the must-have information always includes address, hours, phone number, and a map for directions, unique services or patient experiences offered at that location are equally valuable to a user. This could include amenities, visiting hours, wayfinding, and other helpful, location-specific information.

Search Trends and User Behavior Drive Location Strategy

User-focused keyword research and user behavior are paramount in location strategy. User research may indicate that website visitors in one region search for localized information a certain way. Those locations in that region, then, need to emulate that behavior with optimized content.

How someone finds information regarding a location where they are having surgery next week (parking options, which door to enter, etc.) is a much different experience than someone seeking an urgent care closest to home (directions and after hours).

Similarly, keyword research can be used to help you differentiate one location from one region to another based on the types of keywords used in search. For example, if patients know your downtown neighborhood as “the Village,” this may dictate how you describe your “village” clinic location compared to other terms, like your city name or “downtown.” Not only will this improve your SEO, but it also provides a more accurate and seamless experience for site visitors who are looking for you.

What Do You Want Users to Know?

Cone Health Medical Group recently worked with us on a location strategy project which included content development and a custom design from their location profiles.

Our expert content strategists and writers helped the medical group with everything from the impactful welcome statement to the eye-catching call-to-action to the location-specific content, creating an experience that helps patients seeking care at each location.

The location profiles list the specific providers patients can expect to meet there, along with biographies of each provider – beyond their education and professional background. Patients can learn about their communication style, personal interests, and family life to gain a deeper knowledge of their potential doctor.

Each location, too, lists the specific services available at that location, from chronic health conditions treated, to preventive care and immunizations. Many of the services link back to service-level content that talks, in depth, how Cone Health Medical Group will manage your care or condition.

Meanwhile, the Patient Resources section on the Cone Health Medical Group location profiles provides specific information for each clinic, such as appointment guidelines, business hours (as they vary from clinic to clinic), and anything else that’s specific for visiting patients. Users can also access system-wide patient information through crosslinks.

The result? Cone Health Medical Groups location profiles have seen a 274% increase in page views and a nearly 40% decrease in bounce rate.

Start Planning Your Next Move

If you’re juggling multiple locations, patient questions, and location-specific needs let Geonetric help structure a location strategy that meets the needs of your organization, stakeholders, and most importantly, your site visitors and patients.

How to get internal buy-in for physician ratings & reviews

Even though you’re armed with the latest data and all the right talking points – like the fact health consumers are using ratings and reviews today to make decisions – you’re either worried it might not be enough or your pitch is already falling flat. In our experience, you’re right to be concerned. This type of initiative – one in which your own organization opens the door to a transparent view of a doctor’s practice and bedside manner for all to see – is bound to elicit an emotional response.

Knowing that emotions can often play a role in how doctors and other key stakeholders react will help you adjust your sales pitch in a way that can increase your likelihood of success.

Tip #1: Start with empathy

Physicians are apt to be concerned about their own health system or hospital posting potentially negative reviews about them on organization-owned digital properties. It does seem counter-intuitive …. “Why in the world would marketing put negative information about our own doctors on our organization’s website? Are you out of your mind?” …. is an actual question I’ve heard. It’s a valid concern, and one that requires not just data but a serious dose of empathy to overcome. After all, no one likes to have negative information shared about them, especially in a public forum.

When you talk with doctors, acknowledge all of the stress they’re already under and just how thinly stretched they are (EMRs, patient satisfaction goals, RVUs, spend reduction plans, and on and on). They may see ratings and reviews as just one more thing on an already long list of stressors that are taking the joy out of medicine for many. Start by acknowledging this reality, and show how what you’re proposing will help improve their business, not detract from it. Proactively showing empathy can help to temper initial negative knee-jerk reactions, and set the stage to share critical data that will have a better chance of being well-received.

Tip #2: Use data to your advantage

Being a late adopter does have its benefits – and one of them is that there’s a lot more data at your fingertips! Use it to your advantage.

Once you’ve shown empathy for your doctor’s overflowing plates and acknowledged their concerns, proactively highlight data that proves that despite initial internal concerns, and even while posting negative reviews, other organizations have had success. Reach out to a few colleagues whose health systems already have a ratings and reviews program in place, and ask them for insight and advice – as well as their approval to use a testimonial or two that will help your case.

Point to as many success examples as you can. Show how this initiative is resulting in more new patients, improved satisfaction, and/or in more repeat patient visits at other organizations.

You can also share how critical it is to own your own story. Provider reviews are out there and they’re not going away. Instead of letting the conversation happen around you, you can take control by publishing this information on your own site. Most third-party review sites have a relatively low numbers of reviews, but your organization already has thousands of patient satisfaction surveys from real patients that, when combined, are statistically significant. Publishing that data will help you own and manage the story by presenting an accurate picture.

You’ll also want to underscore and clearly articulate the tie-in with Patient Experience initiatives, which leads to tip number three.

Tip #3: Partner with patient experience

In many organizations, pitching your ratings and reviews program as a marketing-only initiative can doom you to failure before you take your first step – especially if marketing isn’t getting the respect it deserves. Get your Patient Experience team on board first, and then sell the ratings and reviews initiative together, in partnership. If doctors see ratings and reviews as a marketing “ploy,” (and some will, however far from the truth that is) they will be far less likely to buy in.

Tying ratings and reviews to patient experience goals and initiatives is a natural fit – it’s something they’re already being held accountable for and may even hit them directly in their pocketbooks.

Go into your internal sales efforts as partners, focused on helping your doctors and organization achieve goals they’re already being held accountable to, and you’re already on the path to success.

Tip #4: Find a physician ally

While some doctors aren’t going to get in the ratings and reviews boat with you no matter how hard you try, there’s likely to be several who are excited about the initiative. Identify a few – especially those who are already official leaders or key influencers – who’ve been supportive of marketing and who respect the Patient Experience team, and meet with them first to get their input and try out your pitch.

Getting even just one influential physician ally on your side will be incredibly helpful as you sell the initiative to the larger organization, particularly in clinical or division meetings when tough questions are raised, emotions are raw, and you’re on the spot. A physician ally is always likely to jump in and help answer questions from their peers. And having a peer who’s already on board can go a long way to quell other doctors’ fears and objections.

The same is true for executives. If there’s an executive you can get on board early, you’ll benefit from that alliance.

Tip #5: Go in with logistics figured out

One thing leaders and doctors will surely ask you right away is how you will determine which patient comments get posted and which ones won’t. Make sure you know what criteria you’re going to use and be prepared to share it.

Additionally, it’s important to know what your plan is if a doctor disagrees with a comment that’s been posted. What recourse do they have? Make sure you’ve worked with your Patient Experience, Legal, and/or Compliance teams to draft an initial escalation plan. Who is the final decision maker? How do physicians submit a complaint? Bring the plan with you to your meetings and ask your leaders and doctors for their feedback.

You may also hear concerns about not knowing what the data looks like before it goes live. To help quell fears, you can test the addition of ratings and reviews first on your staging site, letting doctors and staff have the opportunity for review and testing first before it rolls out to the public.

Doing all of this up-front work will show that you’ve thought through potential concerns proactively, you’re respecting their time, and it may also save you from having another round of meetings.

Expect some resistance!

As a former healthcare marketer who sold this exact project to a system with more than 300 employed providers, here’s my biggest tip: Don’t expect immediate buy-in. In fact, anticipating a negative response and acknowledging the validity of it will help set you up for the greatest chance of success. While prep work will take a lot of time and up-front effort, planning and anticipating effectively will be well worth it. And don’t underestimate the value of physician and executive allies. After all, the best defense is a great offense.

At Geonetric, we’re all about helping our clients develop and execute on their digital strategies. If you need help selling the value of online physician ratings and reviews at your organization contact us today!

What are UTM parameters?

Also known as UTM codes, UTM parameters are snippets of code that are appended to URLs in order to track different sources of traffic to your website from various advertising and marketing channels and tactics. They are extremely useful for tracking the success of campaigns and the various elements that comprise them.

When should I use UTMs?

Google Analytics automatically categorizes different types of traffic to your site into broad categories such as organic, paid, social, email, direct, referral and others. This is helpful information overall.

But often you need to get a granular understanding of which mediums and sources are driving traffic to your campaign landing pages or other pages on your site to understand your campaign’s success. UTM parameters can help!

Using UTMs for each of your various campaign components lets you see how much traffic each one of them is generating, and how valuable that traffic is.

This means that if you have Google Analytics Goals set up on your site, using UTM codes lets you see what rate traffic from different campaign sources is converting on your site. For example, you can see how much traffic your radio ad is generating vs. a display ad for the same campaign, and of those two, which one is generating the most conversions (i.e., a specific campaign goal, or high-level site goals such as online appointment requests).

What else can UTM codes do for you?

For purposes of example, the fictional Benefit Health heart care team wants to track the various traffic they’re sending to their heart campaign landing page (www.benefithealth.org/heart). Our campaign elements include:

• Facebook ads
• Display ads
• Direct mail
• Radio

Creating a UTM code for each ad type allows us to understand which ones are generating traffic for the website, as well as the most conversions. How? We’ll need to add UTM code to the end of each landing page URL.

For things like direct mail or on-air radio ads, a vanity URL will redirect to a specific UTM code so they can be appropriately tracked. Vanity URLs are simiple, easy-to-remember, and brand-friendly URLs that redirect to a specific page, like a campaign landing page, of your website.

Here’s how it breaks down using our heart campaign example:

Facebook

benefithealth.org/heart?utm_source=Facebook%20Ad%20&utm_medium=Social%20Media

Display ads (local newspaper)

benefithealth.org/heart?utm_source=Gazette%20Daily%20News&utm_medium=Display%20Ad

Direct mail Vanity: benefithealth.org/beatinghearts

benefithealth.org/beatinghearts?utm_source=Beating%20Hearts%20Mailer&utm_medium=Direct%20Mail

Radio (local station) Vanity: benefithealth.org/hearts

www.benefithealth.org/beatinghearts?utm_source=KZIA&utm_medium=Radio&utm_campaign=Beating%20Hearts

How do I create a UTM code?

It’s easy! Google offers a free UTM code generator, which they call a Campaign URL Builder. Here’s an example we built with our fictional Benefit Health heart campaign:

Where do I find UTM code data in Google Analytics?

In Google Analytics, you’ll find traffic that’s tracked with UTM codes under the Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns section. You can track UTM codes with social, emails, advertisements, and more.

Learn more about how to view UTM code data in Google Analytics.

Tips for using UTM codes

When establishing UTM codes for your campaign tracking, it’s a good idea to keep the following tips in mind:

• Always use a consistent naming convention for your campaign mediums, ie, “radio,” “display,” etc. This allows you to view all traffic from those mediums in totality, instead of just by campaign.
• Capitalization matters. If you have one campaign medium of ‘PPC’ and another one of ‘ppc’, that data will not aggregate but instead will be two separate data sets.
• When generating your UTM code, make sure you’re using the URL (or the vanity URL for offline traffic) of the landing page your traffic will be directed to.
• Make sure to give your UTM codes to agencies, media companies and others who are placing display advertising on your behalf, producing and sending email, etc. so they can attach the UTM link to your ad(s) or email campaigns.
• Avoid using UTM parameters as a way to track clicks on links on your website. This is because clicking on the UTM parameter will start a new session in analytics, resulting in inaccurate data, such as inflated sessions, increased bounce rate, etc. Instead, use event tracking in Google Analytics to track clicks on links.
• Don’t add UTM parameters to URLs that redirect, such as a 301 redirect. Redirects will strip out UTM parameters.
• Keep in mind the purpose of your campaign when evaluating shifts in spending based on UTM data. If your campaign goal is to drive awareness, then focusing less on conversions, and more on the amount of traffic generated by different campaign elements may be better metrics to help you evaluate effectiveness.

Need help? We’ve got your back

If you have questions about tracking and reporting on campaign results, Geonetric’s expert team of digital marketers is here to help. Contact Geonetric today to learn more about our digital services, including website redesigns, content strategy and development, SEO services, and more.

In this helpful whitepaper, you’ll learn easy-to-fix, mid-level, and advanced technical SEO elements that you can tackle to improve your site’s performance in search, including:

• Page titles and meta descriptions
• Page headers or H1s
• Duplicate content
• Schema.org markup
• Image optimization
• Canonical tags
• Redirects, and more