MedMarketLink

Search Engines, Public Relations & the Healthcare Revolution

In medicine, the Internet has ensured that nothing is the same anymore.

It's a habit that virtually every one of us does every day. And it's transforming the world.

It's only starting to upend healthcare. And the practice of medicine.

But soon it will determine the winners and losers in private medical practices. What is it? What is this unstoppable new force?

It's the Internet search. If it hasn't revolutionized the way your medical practice gets new patients, it will soon. Guaranteed.

More powerful than any other practice builder

Take a guess at how many people visit the medical Web site WebMD.com every month. The answer is 30 million. That's a million distinct visitors each day, 700 a minute, 11 every second.

It wouldn't take many of those people living near your practice to become patients and make a big difference in practice growth.

If you have any doubt that the Internet is king of consumer healthcare decisions, consider these findings from the Pew Research Center:

141 million American adults are regular Internet users.
In a national poll, 80 percent (113 million) said they use the web for health research.
Sixty-six percent of health-info seekers began their inquiry with a search engine.

For medical practices, effective Web sites attract prospective customers and convert them to patients. Attracting prospective patients online takes analysis, skilled design and constant monitoring and action.

A total of 56.6 percent of Internet users abandon their searches after the first two pages of search-engine rankings.
About 55 percent of searchers check one result only of search-engine rankings.

Really, only one question now matters in medical practice growth: How fast will people find your Web site?

That's where the marketing war is now fought – everywhere. Customers in the 21st century make many buying decisions online. And it usually all starts with an Internet search.

Beyond the Web

Yet Vanguard Comunications' MedMarketLink program is about more than just the Web. It also includes comprehensive components in healthcare public relations and B2B marketing to referral physicians.

We invite you to explore other pages on this Web site to learn more. And please don't hesitate to call us anytime at 877-382-2999.

Online Journalism Booming While newsrooms are shrinking alarmingly quickly, many major daily newspapers are seeing mushrooming growth in online readers, according to Editor and Publisher magazine and the Nielsen research company. As of 2008, some newspapers have seen a doubling in numbers of online readers in just a year. The Vanishing Newspaper Is the daily newspaper dying? Or just catching its breath for a new competitive sprint in a different format? The Pew Charitable Trust's annual report on American media says people appreciate journalism perhaps as much as ever. But mass communications is reaching a pivot point in accelerating changes. Moms Mad for the Web Parents are among the highest users of the Internet, significantly outpacing couples and singles without children, according to a variety of sources.