As a long-time blogger (wow – 9 years already!) and physician business owner, I am obviously a huge fan of blogging as a tool to connect with my people.
Confession time
My original motivation for starting a blog was to be noticed by healthcare magazine and journal writers. I was hoping to be interviewed by such writers and then written about, as a way to market my freshly updated physician coaching business. I certainly didn’t believe that physicians or other healthcare folks were surfing the web in search of information and insights.
What a lovely surprise …
… it was when physicians like yourselves starting reaching out — they commented on my posts, they wrote to me, they even picked up the phone and called me. And a healthy number became clients – I say healthy, because my business started to thrive.
As I look back, I can affirm that blogging has been my Number One way to build my physician coaching business.
So how about you? Is blogging the right activity for your physician business or practice?
Top 5 reasons to add blogging to your mix of marketing activities:
- The search engines still favor sites with fresh, relevant content. Regularly writing an article in the form of a blog post (the regularity is what makes it fresh, and being pertinent to your topic makes it relevant – hopefully!), you get more traffic to your website (for some backstory and self-flagellation, check here). It has been a boon to my physician business anytime I have made the effort to sit down and write for 30 to 40 minutes!
- You can position yourself as a helpful authority. By giving your readers a glimpse into your accumulated experience and wisdom, through the quality of what you write about, you become a familiar figure in your area of expertise, with your own distinctive voice. This authority is reassuring to “prospects” (be they patients or buyers of any kind).
- Your articles provide content for your social media efforts. Every time I post an article, I make sure it’s distributed to my Twitter buddies, my Facebook page pals, and LinkedIn contacts. This is called leverage – having a multiplier effect on how your words get spread aroud.
- Your content lasts forever. I still get contacted by web-surfers who came across something I wrote about 9 or 10 years ago.
- You make cool friends. Bloggers, by nature of their sharing, tend to be helpful and generous sorts, and look out for ways to quote you to their readers (in the hopes that you will quote them back – a scratch each other’s back thing, I think).
- Bonus: movies get made and book deals get signed – some of the great results! Hasn’t happened to me yet, but I can indulge in a few flights of fantasy, can’t I?
And you are asking “How do I get started?”
For those you of who are contemplating blogging, as your next great physician business marketing tool, here is a useful free guide from a site that has all kinds of helpful information for getting started (or updated) on the web!
Update January 10, 2017: Here is one more useful resource guide if you’re setting up your own physician business website and blog.
