What is Your Company’s Social Proof?

Methods to Get and Retain Patients for your Healthcare Practice | Proof-Based Marketing

As a health professional, the marketing and selling of your services can often be ignored. Maybe you’re so focused on the patient that you think of in hindsight. Or perhaps your calendar is so full that you feel as though you don’t have the time.

One simple strategy that we love is using social proof. Social proof is any sort of social-based confirmation that shows you as an expert. It also helps give others a sense of reassurance that what you are selling is valid and effective.

In the healthcare space, social proof becomes exceedingly powerful. When a prospective patient hears directly from a former patient or sees a recommendation from a well-known expert on your website, their sense of confidence in you increases and they are way more likely to pay for your services.

There are many forms of social proof out there, so we’ve compiled a Top 10, on what we believe is most relevant to a healthcare professional:

• Reviews & Testimonials

93% of consumers take reviews and testimonials into consideration before taking action or making a purchasing decision. Leveraging the voice of your customers, clients, or patients, because your business is not what you say it is, but rather what your clients, customers or patients are saying.

• Data & Numbers

We live in a day of age where data is king. We want data everywhere. We have data in our sports, investments, dating — we have data everywhere.  So, you should have data all over your website, page or post as well. What is the mission-critical data? What data is necessary to know for people to feel good about moving forward? That is social proof as well, while also establishing transparency. This is how many people we serve – the success that they generate. Put this type of data on your website, and make sure you are leading in a transparent manner.

• Awards

What awards have you received? What accreditations do you have?  What about awards from local chambers, or business associations? What about the technology you are utilizing? For us it’s HubSpot, Google certified, Facebook certified – anything we can do to establish credibility, that is going to go a long way for people to feel good about moving forward. It also lets them know that they are working with an expert, someone who has done the work, and most importantly it’s been done the work for people for which it’s been successful.

• Real-Time Notifications

This is something that capitalized on FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) — and that’s real-time notifications. We’ve all been on sites before where you see a counter of how many people served or a pop-up that says, “Check out Billy, another satisfied customer.”

McDonald’s did this on their sign, where they stated they had served over billions of people. Giving people real-time notifications on a website or social platform is imperative. You’ll see a lot of this on Amazon where they have a rolling account of people’s comments, the total count of customers served, or time left on this limited-time offer. These real-time notifications can serve as social proof by letting people know that there are people currently engaged with your brand.

• Trophy Customers

You see this a lot on websites of companies who are serving large corporations – like Coca Cola, NBC — stating: “I’ve appeared on CNN,” or even serving large local brands. These are called trophy customers. These are the logos of the greatest clients, the clients you are most proud of. You want to put those on your content, social media, and on the company’s website as well.

• Case Studies

These are data-driven long form studies, where you go in-depth with a client. Starting with where they were when you started with them, what the experience was like while you were working together – most importantly, what happened because of your working together. How many more customers, clients, or patients, did you get during that term? How much more revenue did they earn? These in-depth case studies can be delivered through email, they can appear on the case study portion of your website, talk about them on podcasts; but ultimately those case studies are very helpful.

• User Generated Content

User-generated content is something I am sure that you have seen when scrolling through social, where a company is doing a #(hashtag) content. This is where they aren’t prompted to say something nice about a product or a service, but because of an incentive to perhaps gain a discount, coupon, or some other perk, you’re encouraging them to create their own content. Then they put it out on social platforms so that people can see that brand has a lot of clients; these clients speak very fondly of their experience – because they enjoy the results that they are seeing.

• Endorsements

Endorsements from influencers don’t always have to be celebrities, they can be people of influence; for which their endorsements matter. Maybe this is a trophy-style customer, they have a large practice, they are well known in the community, or they have a large following. This could be a target of your demographic targeting, where you want influencers or endorsements from mothers if you are a pediatrician, and you want to attract more patients.

• Popular Choices

Highlight popular choices – help people by letting them know which tier customers typically start at, or which one most of our customers like. Helping people along the line, showing them based on the data and all the business we’ve done – all that social proof; we know that people like you, select this tier. So, popular choices go very far in establishing social proof.

• Press

Finally, and probably my favorite and most underutilized of all social proof (in my opinion) earned media. What have you done within your community to attract the attention of your local paper, or regional paper?  Have you appeared as an expert, commentating on an issue of the day on a morning or afternoon show? Are you a guest on someone’s podcast? What about writing articles that appear on Forbes, INC or the paper? Is there someone out there of influence, like journalists – credible people citing your information and efforts for making their case for whatever story or impact they are trying to create?  

Press, earned media (in my opinion) , this is so much further we can go to make that a real difference maker in your business or practice. An extra tip — if you can find a way to align your philanthropic efforts, your corporate responsibility, community activism — any of the overarching public service efforts, that really matter to younger consumers. They feel like when they cast a vote for the company, they want to do business with, they are casting a vote with their dollars but what they are really saying is, “I’m inclined to do business with this company and what it represents.” There’s no better way to exemplify that and attract a lot of action than through earned media, or press.

Are YOU Ready Start Generating More Reviews TODAY?

We here at Reputation Sensei use a highly specialized proof-based marketing strategy that focuses on building trust with online reviews and marketing your positive patient experiences to increase your practice revenues.

Remember that a successful Proof-Based Marketing strategy contains (3) key steps >>>

• Feedback
• Follow-Up
• Proof

Have questions? Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists today!