Digital Marketing for Nurse Entrepreneurs

Digital marketing. You keep seeing those two words. They’re becoming pesky – a thorn in your content marketing side. One of the biggest mistakes nurse entrepreneurs make when planning their digital marketing strategy is relying exclusively on one marketing channel. They’ve been taught that consistently putting out blog posts or articles is enough. Although your blog should be a part of your digital marketing strategy – and in some cases, it’s your bread and butter – it shouldn’t be your only strategy.

Any marketing plan should include a strategy. Digital marketing is no different. Whether you’re doing your own digital marketing or you’ve outsourced this aspect of your business, always factor in HOW you’re going to gain visibility. Is your content being managed in a way that enables your clients, customers, or patients to find you? Are you utilizing the proper platforms? Have you learned to repurpose your content? These are some fundamental questions that need answers. Do you have a scarcity mindset? Are you afraid that if you give away what you know, your customers are going to leave you? That’s the wrong mindset. If you present valuable information and are regularly teaching, people will trust you. They’ll keep coming back for more.

So, how do you stay consistent with your marketing when you’re so busy? Find what works for you. If scheduling your content is your problem, utilize a scheduling tool. A scheduler is a tool that lets you craft and schedule content for specific platforms. The content can be blog posts, videos, graphics, or a combination of these. These tools can streamline your content, save time by automatically reposting your evergreen posts, and ensure your content reaches the right audience at optimal times. There are hundreds of scheduling tools. The answer to finding one that works best for you is deciding which platform offers a comprehensive list of beneficial features for your business. Things to remember are:

• Which social networks can you link
• How many accounts can you add
• Can your team members be added
• Does the tool provide analytics
• Cost
• Support
• Ease of use
  

I’ve narrowed it down to eight:

1. Oneup
2. Meetedgar
3. SEMRush
4. Hootsuite
5. Buffer
6. Later App
7. Social Report
8. Social Pilot
   

It’s important to remember that schedulers only work when you do. Decide on a day to sit and schedule your posts for the week or month.

Discipline is what it takes to be consistent. Your digital marketing is just another extension of your content marketing strategy. It’s only going to be useful if you are efficient in creating it. If this is a weakness of yours, it’s completely okay to outsource this part of your business. You have to decide what works best for you and be consistent in that. BE CONSISTENT IN WHAT WORKS FOR YOU!

Is email marketing effective?

The answer is simple…YES! There’s power in your email list. Social media platforms are great. They allow you to be engaged and visible, but you don’t own those platforms, and you can’t control the algorithms. You control your list. You can build and nurture that relationship. When people sign up for your list, they’re seeking the information you provide. The key to email marketing is consistently providing your list with relevant content. Email marketing allows you to attract and retain customers with personalization that promotes your content, brand, product, or service. You can automate posts and tag and segment contacts to deliver messages to your subscribers.

What does multichannel marketing mean?

Multichannel marketing is utilizing multiple platforms to reach your client or customer. This can look like

1. Targeting your ideal client on Facebook, organically
2. Sending out an email blast the next day
3. The day after you post on LinkedIn, and finally
4. You follow up with a sponsored Instagram post
   
   

Because the online marketing world is crowded, it’s not enough to only post on social media or to send three or four emails. Multichannel marketing is getting the chance to communicate with people on the platforms where they spend the most time. Everyone’s psychology is different. We all visit platforms for various reasons. That’s the multichannel approach.

What is a pixel?

In one sentence, a pixel lets you track your people. If you don’t have your pixel set up, then you shouldn’t spend money on social media. A pixel is a piece of code installed on your website. When someone visits your site and takes action, the pixel is triggered. Whenever you run an ad, pixels let you know the activity from the ad that sent someone to your site. For example, if you put a pixel on your website, you’ll know what social media post someone clicked on, which resulted in a website visit for you.

What’s the best way to assess your digital marketing strategy?

Social media insights and email open rates and click rates are measurable, but systems such as the entrepreneur operating system (EOS) are useful. EOS teaches small companies anywhere from two to 500 employees how to run a business. Implement a weekly scorecard and track the critical key performance indicators (KPIs) in your business. You should never need more than five to 15 KPIs. Determine which KPI is essential for your business. If you run an online business and want to track leads, are you generating more of your leads on Facebook? Is it on Instagram? Is it on YouTube? Have a system (such as a spreadsheet) to segment between paid, organic, and search leads. Track where your leads are coming from and then track how many of those leads convert. Not every lead is created equally. So, for example, the cost of a lead for NPHub is the same on Facebook and Google, but Google leads convert better. Thus, NPHub optimizes around Google.

If you’re building an email list and want to track the number of new email subscribers, what brings you more subscribers? Is it a Facebook post? It’s an Instagram post? Is it paid ads on either? Spend more money on that, and then you can dig into optimizing each platform. Improvely is a platform that helps you optimize your digital marketing. It identifies the source of every signup and sale.

When you’re planning your digital marketing strategy set clear deliverables, what are your next steps?

Portia Wofford is a nurse, content strategist, healthcare writer, entrepreneur, and nano-influencer. Chosen as a brand ambassador or collaborative partner for various organizations, Wofford assists healthcare organizations and entrepreneurs in creating engaging content. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter for her latest.