5 fool-proof (and fast!) ways to market your evidence-based medicine practice in 2023
As the owner of an evidence-based medicine practice, you’ve probably put a ton of energy into making sure your patient recommendations and website content are accurate.
But have you considered that your marketing needs some love, too?
It’s hard to balance 1:1 work, research, and promoting your business.
Not to mention spending time with your family or eking out a night or two per month for a hot bath and catching up on just a couple episodes of the Great British Baking Show (am I alone here?).
Thankfully, there are some fool-proof and fast ways to market your evidence-based medicine practice. And yes, we’re going there…AI is first on the list.
1. Marketing your evidence-based medicine practice in 2023 means cozying up to AI
Our AI overlords are quickly gaining a powerful foothold.
LOL, j/k.
From the perspective of transparency and authenticity, AI is a little scary, I’ll admit.
From the perspective of accuracy, AI is…also terrifying.
????????????
So, why should you use it?
Remember, AI (and when I refer to AI, I mean ChatGPT) is trained with information provided by us. It regurgitates human-created content gathered from the web up to the year 2021.
And while it’s not even close to free from bias, my experience of using the tool is that it doesn’t display nearly the amount of bias in most evidence-based medicine content.
This is exciting because we now have a tool to use as a backup source for our research.
What do I mean by that?
I mean exactly this: You should under no circumstances rely on ChatGPT for content creation. ESPECIALLY content that is heavy on science.
But you should rely on it as a jack-of-all-trades idea generator and crowd-source-style fact checker.
For example, we’ve been helping a clinician research and write content on the use of iron supplementation in pregnancy.
It’s a deep topic, with considerations ranging from the adjustment of ferritin ranges to how hepcidin responds to iron supplementation…all within the context of what’s best for the mom and baby.
We did what we do to get going on the topic—we dove head-first into the primary literature to see what we could find.
But the biochemistry of iron supplementation in pregnancy is freaking complicated. Were we missing anything?
That’s where ChatGPT came in. After we did our due diligence, we put AI to work.
We had a firm knowledge base to call bullshit if it returned bunk results, but we wanted to explore every possible aspect of the topic.
Let AI scour the internet after you’ve put your time in and use it to generate novel but worthwhile suggestions. When used appropriately, it’s a game changer.
2. Create evidence-based medicine resources your patients can use right now
Infographics, action lists, short e-books, quick video tutorials…all are great ways to connect with your patients and answer their questions.
And these resources don’t have to take hours to create. Sites like Canva and Visme allow you to create visual content in less than an hour.
But what should your resource include?
Great question.
90+% of the content you create should answer your clients’ most pressing questions.
If you spend all your time educating them on why their problem is happening versus what they can do about it, they won’t stick around.
People are out to get help, not go to school.
So…help! Use an ideal client avatar worksheet to dial in your niche’s major issues and offer as many solutions as possible.
3. Ask for (and share) testimonials
Asking for testimonials can feel scary and intimidating.
But you gotta do it anyway, and do it in a personable and confident way.
You studied your ass off, you’re good at what you do, and you give your clients the best experience possible.
So ask them to help you reach others who will benefit from your work…through a testimonial.
Some testimonial tips:
- Ask your favorite patients for testimonials. You want to attract more of those same people into your practice, right?
- Ask them to share specifics—how did they feel before they worked with you versus now? What did they get from your class that they never expected? How likely is it that they’ll recommend you to their friends?
- Publish those testimonials! They do you no good sitting in your inbox gathering dust. Put one on your homepage, share them intermittently on social media, and perhaps include one on your Services page, as well.
If you have a local-to-one-area practice, create a Google My Business profile, a free service offered by Google to help people in your area find your business.
This is one of the most accessible SEO steps you can take as a local small business owner. And the more reviews you get, the easier it will be for community members to find you.
4. Write an evidence-based medicine blog
I know I said “fast” marketing, but I’ve got an excellent blogging strategy: Blog for five minutes per day.
Wake up, do your thing, then get to your desk and set your timer.
Every day.
EVERY. DAY.
Once you realize the extreme importance of blogging…
- best way to steer potential patients to your site
- easy to share on social and in newsletters
- exciting for colleagues who work in your field to read and share
- great way to boost SEO
- fantastic for increasing your credibility
- more chances to solve your niche’s problems
- did I mention how much blogs boost SEO?
…you start to realize that blogs are not optional.
They are marketing POWERHOUSES.
So chunk them down and make them a daily part of your checklist—a very fast, doable part of your checklist with the five-minute rule.
Five minutes of blogging per day equals almost two and a half HOURS of blogging in FEBRUARY…that’s only 28 days, guys.
In that amount of time, you can get one blog completed, possibly two.
“But Vic, how could I ever write an evidence-based medicine blog in just two and a half hours?!”
Here’s how:
- First, focus on solutions. Yes, you need to know your stuff. Make sure your blog is backed by a balance of solid science and trustworthy clinical experience. But the science-y, nerdy part should be brief compared to the part your patients actually care about…the solutions.
- Second, you get faster as you niche down and become a master of said niche. This is one of the gems of niching: You get really, really good at working with one population. This doesn’t mean you stop learning about other topics. It means you learn a LOT about your audience and their diagnoses, and you update your knowledge base rather than learning a whole new subject for each blog.
- You get faster as you write. Ask me how I know this.
Bottom line: 5 minutes per day. Solutions-focused. In your niche. And keep doing it. You can thank me when your website skyrockets to page 1 of Google.
5. Show up on social
Ok, I know this is a tough one for many of you.
You hate social media.
And I don’t blame you. It can be a hole.
But.
BUT!
It’s also one of the top ways to build your practice directly and support off-site SEO at the same time.
What does that mean?
Every time you go on social media and share a candid, authentic post about your work—maybe a link to your newest blog, your most valuable client-centered infographic, or a snippet of your latest newsletter with a call-to-action for people to join your list—you give potential clients a chance to find you and colleagues to share your badass content.
The more people navigate to your site or share your posts, the higher your chances of getting hired, AND the more likely your website is to rank at the top of Google.
Off-site SEO simply refers to any action not on your website that gets people to your website.
Actions like social media posting and shares, links from other websites, appearing on podcasts, or guest blogging all constitute off-site SEO. And it’s a very good thing as the more people who navigate to and love your site, the better.
Social media just happens to be the fastest way to make this happen.
If you hate social, or perhaps more importantly, if you don’t hate it and tend to get sucked in for hours, set a timer for this task, too.
Choose the top two social platforms your ideal client will likely use, and only post there.
But do it consistently. And make it valuable to those potential clients. Then watch your evidence-based medicine practice grow.
Questions?
We’re here to help! If blogging keeps getting pushed down your to-do list, use this link and let’s talk.