Lilydale Doctors
Increasing new patient bookings for a GP Clinic in Victoria.
BOOKINGS
BOOKING
of voice
CONVERSION RATE
*MONTH ON MONTH GROWTH
Background
Lilydale Doctors is a family-oriented medical practice in Lilydale, Victoria that mainly focuses on general practice services and GP-led cosmetic and skin treatments. It offers a range of medical services including men’s and women’s health checks, family medicine, immunisations and vaccinations, anti-wrinkle injections, laser hair removal treatments, and many more.
Lilydale Doctors approached SearchMax to grow its new patient bookings within the local area at a lower cost-per-booking. Having many years of experience in the medical centre and GP marketing, SearchMax partnered with Lilydale Doctors to create a performance- driven healthcare digital marketing strategy for their medical centre.
The Challenge
While Lilydale Doctors has been a very successful practice within the local area since its founding, however, attracting new patients from its marketing channels had proven difficult. Their main aim was to increase GP bookings through new patients while actively encouraging repeat bookings.
Lilydale Doctors was also keen to promote their newly introduced laser hair removal, cosmetic and skin treatments to the surrounding suburbs. Given the practice was known as a GP practice, diversifying and introducing laser hair removal, cosmetic, and skin treatments was a challenge. With the aggressive competition in the cosmetic and skin treatments market, the cost-per-click was generally high. Therefore, it was essential to create performance-driven campaigns to keep up with the competition while reducing overall costs.
With the global pandemic, one of the most recent challenges was to create an effective strategy to promote COVID vaccination ads on Google. Given Google has a very strict policy on promoting ads related to COVID, a large part of the challenge was to get Lilydale Doctors to be whitelisted and to be able to promote the vaccination campaign successfully.
Our Approach
With a clear understanding of the goals, SearchMax was able to create a performance-based healthcare digital marketing campaign to connect more new patients to the practice. Our aim was to be seen on Google for the highly targeted keywords within the local area and surrounding suburbs. Therefore, we created hyperlocal and geo-targeted campaigns for GP services, laser hair removal, cosmetic and skin treatments. As one of the key elements of all our healthcare digital marketing campaigns, we ensure that we comply with AHPRA guidelines. All of the website content, ad copy and any creatives will be monitored by our GP marketing specialists to follow AHPRA guidelines.
Furthermore, our strategy was to show targeted ads to the potential patients in the moments they realise they wanted to make a booking online. As Lilydale Doctors have integrated the AutoMed booking platform into their practice, it was easier for new patients to click on Google ads and connect with the practice to make a booking 24/7 at their convenience.
As the pandemic hit hard in many parts of Australia, the government encouraged all individuals to get vaccinated and the TGA regulations were relaxed. SearchMax was able to help Lilydale Doctors get whitelisted to promote COVID vaccination ads on Google. As an eligible advertiser to promote ads related to the COVID vaccination, we continue to follow the policies and ensure the privacy and safety of all user information.
Results
We began seeing the desired results for the Lilydale Doctors campaigns within a two-month timeframe. Our effective medical centre digital marketing strategy increased overall patient bookings by 170%, with a major portion generated by new patients. The practice saw more new patients from surrounding suburbs that were previously difficult to target. Optimisation over time also helped to bring down the average cost-per-booking by 33%.
During the period, a 70% Google share of voice was secured, keeping the Lilydale Doctors brand in front of the local community consistently. With ongoing support and face-to-face meetings with our Google ads specialists, Lilydale Doctors are determined to keep growing, and we at SearchMax are excited to help them!