In this article, I’ll share a digital transformation experience during my work at the digital marketing agency, Hostswt. I’ll explain the importance of developing a comprehensive digital strategy to achieve the set objectives.
Initial situation
Dr. Alvaro Serna approached us because the healthcare provider (EPS) where he had worked for many years closed its doors, and he hadn’t felt the urgency to boost his private practice. At this point, he found himself needing to increase patient visits to his private consultation somehow to balance his income.
Situation analysis
- Dr. Serna’s (a gynecologist-obstetrician) digital presence was non-existent, with neither a website nor social media accounts.
- He had an assistant in his office whom we could train to support the strategy implementation.
- Dr. Serna was available and supportive in achieving the set objectives.
- Competition from other doctors at the digital level.
Set Objectives
- Urgently develop a simple yet visually appealing website that would generate trust. Develop an SEM and SEO strategy for this website.
- Create an Instagram account to develop digital campaigns.
- Position Dr. Serna in the top search results for gynecology in Bogotá, especially in the surroundings of his well-located office.
Strategy and results
- Upon finalizing the website, we proceeded to generate a keyword map based on collaborative work to define the services he wanted to promote in his practice. These were used to generate an SEO strategy in the articles created and on his website. Aggressive SEM campaigns were launched to start appearing in search engines. The aggressive investment lasted 6 months, and from this month onwards, it began to decrease until maintaining a stable budget.
- On Instagram, equally aggressive campaigns were developed to attract potential patients.
- The doctor’s reputation was leveraged to start requesting recommendations and comments on Google My Business (now managed by Google Maps), and patients visiting his office were asked for their support in leaving comments on this platform.
- After 7 months, the doctor was already appearing on the first page of search results for gynecologists in Bogotá, in addition to being ranked first according to Google My Business. By the 9th month, he was in the top 3 positions for the keywords we had defined.
- His consultations increased by 70%, with a type of patient that generated less stress for him. This was reflected in his income.
Conclusion
It’s important to have an SEO strategy so that when money is invested in internet advertising, this investment doesn’t disappear. Similarly, it’s necessary to have a budget for SEM to invest in social media or direct traffic to the website. In this case, it was crucial to generate a potential customer flow map to visualize Dr. Serna’s reputation, read comments from other patients, and lead them to write via WhatsApp or call his office to request a medical appointment. A similar comprehensive digital strategy was developed with Dr. Jennifer Hernandez (Pasto, Colombia), obtaining similar results.
Dr. Serna, unfortunately, passed away during the pandemic, being a great human being and leaving a legacy to all who knew him, patients, friends, and family.
