When viewers read about success stories or about how people can be transformed, they think it can happen to them too! This is a very powerful tool in health marketing and is known as a case study. Imagine someone with broken, uneven teeth that after treatment walks away with a beautiful smile. That is a life changer. Picture an infant with a facial defect that is made normal. Again, this is a life changer.
Case studies are a goldmine for practices when it comes to persuasion and growing a practice.
According to the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs 2016 B2B content marketing report, 65% of B2B companies say case studies are even more effective than blog posts, videos, infographics and other forms of content.
There’s nothing more convincing than seeing someone’s life transformed after suffering from a problem that you have had to suffer with. The challenge is getting patients to share their stories or give permission to have pictures taken and shown.
4 Tips to Get Your Case Studies
1. Don’t take too much time or thought from your patient
Patients may hesitate to give an interview due to time constraints or not knowing what to say. Give them some choices as to what they can say and keep the time to a minimum.
2. Select your happiest patients
Reach out to your happiest patients, those who are eager to share the ways that using your services have made them transformed. Typically these clients who are happy to tweet, post on Facebook , or review you on various Doctor Rating sites like HealthGrades, Vitals.com, Yelp , etc. are also the ones who would be happy to get interviewed for your case study.
Not only are these clients good for case studies but also for testimonials.
3. Timing is everything
Reach out to your satisfied patients around the time they commended your offerings – which is when they’re still excited about your services. At this point, they are most likely to want to promote the services you provided that just solved their problem.
4. Ensure modesty
When it comes to images, patients may be uncomfortable showing before and after shots. With HIPAA and various restrictive regulations, having images may be difficult to display. However, if you can show an anatomical structure or body parts that cannot be traced back to a specific patient, consent may not be an issue.
Benefits
Patients see your case studies as a chance that both you and they will benefit from.
Benefits include:
1.Publicity –Prospective patients who are looking for your services will also get to know about you when they may not have been aware of you or the services that you provide prior to the case studies.
2.Increased Visibility– If you are looking to get more visitors to your medical practice website, case studies will drive more traffic to the site.
3.Boost in Rankings– The more visitors you have to your practice’s website, and the more viewers look on your site for specific health problems, the higher your ranking will be with search engines. This is an effective circuit because the higher the rankings, the more viewers searching for services will be referred to you which then increases the rankings further.
Dr. David Sirota conducted a survey on more than 4 million workers globally and found that people want to be proud of their work and they want their achievements to be acknowledged. They also want to feel proud of what the organization as a whole achieves.
The thing is, others want to be associated or affiliated with successful organizations or practices as well.
And?
Have you been using case studies yet? How has that worked for you? Share your experience in the comment box below.
