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"Go Viral": Current Concepts and Strategies in the Marketing of a Radiology Practice Authors and Disclosures

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"Go Viral": Current Concepts and Strategies in the Marketing of a Radiology Practice Authors and Disclosures • Collin Edwards BA, Ross Myers MD, Michelle Larosa MD, Tariq Rashid MD, Jennifer Wu MD, Charles Lugo MD, William Gao MD, Ajay Patel MD, David Sadowsky MD, Sam McCabe MD, Perry Gerard MD MBA FACR • The authors have no disclosures. Table of Contents • General Marketing Strategies • Advertising Resources • Costs of Website Building • Search Engine Optimization • Comparison of Two Advertising Platforms • Advertising in Radiology • Radiology and Social Media General Marketing Strategies • The best marketing tools of any practice are the physicians themselves • In both private and academic practices, it is very common for a small percentage of physicians or staff to do the bulk of the marketing work The 90/10 rule: 90% of after-hours practice building is performed by 10% of the members (Muroff) • The most successful practices recognize the importance of marketing to the overall success and utilize all members in this work Advertising Resources • Arguably the most important advertising source for any practice is an up-to date, professional website (Levin) This requires a large time commitment, likely from a non-physician Important components: All Practices: Location/Contact, Scheduling, Billing, Patient Portal for Report Access Academic Depts: Research, Physician/Resident Lists, Education Program Information • Customer Satisfaction Surveys Important to demonstrate interest in patient experience as well as provide a place for complaints outside of publicly available reviews • Newsletters Made available both as hard-copy in waiting rooms and through email Cost Estimates of Website Building • Small Business Website < 20 pages, no unique functionality Estimated Development Cost: $2,000-$8,000 • Medium-Sized Business Website < 75 pages, custom design, some unique functionality Estimated Development Cost: $10,000-$25,000 • Large Business Website Several hundred pages, custom design, content management system, supplementary features Estimated Development Cost: $25,000-$40,000 • Maintenance Fees Domain name ($10-20/year), SSL Certificate ($10- 1000/month), website hosting ($10-99/month) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • Factors within and outside of the website that determine the site’s ranking on search engine results for a particular keyword (Ledford) • Has become increasingly important to the success of website traffic • Generally outsourced to an established company familiar with the complex algorithms used to determine search engine rankings • Pricing estimates of $3,000-9,000 upfront with $200-500/month • Most popular companies include: Ignite Visibility, Straight North, Boostability and WebFX • Google AdWords is the largest online advertising platform • Include both search ads and display network ads Search ads: appear at the top of search results page based on query words Display ads: appear within pages • Pricing is based on a pay-per-click model, allowing businesses to set a budget cap • Geotargeting could be helpful for practices to reach local patients • Overall average cost per click is $2.32 for search ads and $0.58 for display ads • Similar capabilities to Google for setting budgets- lifetime or daily • Allows targeting for users with common interests based on past activity, liked pages, etc • Also utilizes Facebook’s access to user information to target desired demographics • Average cost per click across all industries is $1.72 Involving Department Members in Advertising • As demonstrated, digital advertising is an increasingly complex landscape with an abundance of resources While some smaller departments or practices may succeed with physician control, most looking to dive into this arena will likely need a capable staff member or outsourced company • However, other aspects of advertising rely heavily on physician contribution, including: Relationship building with referring physicians Representation of the practice with local media Marketing at specialty conferences Importance of Social Media for Radiology • Social media presence for a practice or department is an important free tool to spread awareness • Glover et al 2015 investigated the prevalence of social media accounts for radiology groups and departments as well as the disparate use of these resources between private groups and academic departments 76% of private groups maintained at least one social media page compared to just 28% of academic departments Overview of Social Media Resources • facebook Most popular; arguably the easiest to establish and maintain Important for public reviews as well as practice information and updates • Twitter Increasingly prevalent in the medical community Can be more time-consuming to maintain Best equipped for practice/department updates • Linkedin • Google+ • Others that could be utilized include YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest Adopting Departmental Social Media • While digital advertising is complex, social media utilization is already familiar to many department members Maintenance can be shared responsibility among residents/partners/staff • Social media presence can have both pros and cons Important to check hospital/practice policies early and regularly maintain sites once established • Important to remember that social media works both way Must be ready and willing to respond to both public and private comments Reflection and improvement using social media feedback is crucial Take Home Points • Focused marketing is an important business strategy for any radiology group • Participation in some form from all members within a group is necessary for maximization of this strategy • A strong online presence can greatly benefit a private or academic radiology practice • Digital marketing is an important advertising resource however, it can be expensive and complex • Social media is a free, easy to utilize resource that can be adopted by any group type (with some caution!) Resources • “Best SEO Companies and Services, 2019 Reviews” Clutch , 17 Apr. 2019, clutch.co/seo-firms. • Glover, Mckinley, et al. “Radiology and Social Media: Are Private Practice Radiology Groups More Social Than Academic Radiology Departments?” Journal of the American College of Radiology, vol. 12, no. 5, 2015, pp. 513–518., doi:10.1016/j.jacr.2014.11.005. • Goske, Marilyn J., et al. “Image GentlySM: A National Education and Communication Campaign in Radiology Using the Science of Social Marketing.” Journal of the American College of Radiology, vol. 5, no. 12, 2008, pp. 1200–1205., doi:10.1016/j.jacr.2008.06.007. • Johnson, Tara. “What Is the Google Display Network?” CPC Strategy, 13 June 2017, www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2017/06/google-display-network/. • Kershaw, Richard. “How Much Money Might a Business Website Cost Today?” Digital.com, 17 Dec. 2017, digital.com/blog/how-much-does-website-cost/. • Ledford, Jerri L. SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible. Wiley, 2008. • Levin, David C., et al. “Marketing a Radiology Practice.” Journal of the American College of Radiology, vol. 13, no. 10, 2016, pp. 1260–1266., doi:10.1016/j.jacr.2016.04.011. • Muroff, Lawrence R. “Taking Your Radiology Practice to the Next Level.” Journal of the American College of Radiology, vol. 5, no. 9, 2008, pp. 986–992., doi:10.1016/j.jacr.2008.02.008. • Muroff, Lawrence R., and Charles D. Williams. “Apathy in Private Practice: ‘We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.’” Journal of the American College of Radiology, vol. 4, no. 8, 2007, pp. 512–513., doi:10.1016/j.jacr.2007.02.007. • Shewan, Dan. “Social Media Advertising for Small Businesses.” Wordstream, 29 Jan. 2019, www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/09/24/social-media- advertising. • Shewan, Dan. “The Comprehensive Guide to Online Advertising Costs.” Wordstream, 25 Mar. 2019, www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/07/05/online- advertising-costs..
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