About twice a month we get a phone call from a doctor wondering how to advertise her practice or hospital in her local area. She usually has a preconception -- radio! cable TV! -- and as our first step, if the medical practice has a small marketing budget, we recommend Google search engine ads. These Adword campaigns can be targeted locally (and agencies such as Mediassociates can run the campaigns using thousands of keyword search terms to drive down costs).
Alas, we usually get a skeptical response: Nope. Listen, I've been a doctor for 30 years, and I don't believe that consumers will find me on the web. Or, Look, I already have a web site. Isn't that enough?
Unfortunately, both answers are wrong. So we're sharing, again, the Pew Internet & American Life Project's study on how U.S. consumers are flocking to search engines for health care information. Last fall Pew found that 8 out of 10 consumers with internet access use the web to research health care information, and of them, 66% of health seekers started at a search engine vs. only 27% at a specific health-related site. On a typical single day, about 8 million Americans are searching for health-care information online.
And then the data got really interesting. The table below shows what these consumers are looking for. Note the top category -- specialty services, which are usually the highest-contribution practices within hospitals.
Some health pros recognized the trend early. Big pharma has gone DTC for years, with ad spending up from $700 million in 1997 to $4 billion in 2004. 2007 estimates are as high as $12 billion. Bariatrics programs in particular are very aggressive on Google. But we know that inside the board rooms of hospitals, skeptics still think physician referrals drive 99% of patient volume.
So we tested it. Back in February of this year, we ran a Google search campaign for terms related to radiology in a 15-mile driving radius of Ridgefield, Conn. Radiology is one of the health-care specialties that has supposed low consumer interest, and many hospital marketing execs will argue vehemently that only physician referrals drive volume. Guess how many times consumers searched for radiology in one month on Google in a 20-minute drive around one radiology facility? 18,000.
We invite physicians and hospitals to think beyond their walls, their web site, and their physician feeder networks. Yes, physicians give specialists referrals. Yes, your hospital probably just spent $200,000 to relaunch a fancy web site.
But many consumers of health care aren't researching your specialty from a doctor's office, and they are not typing in your hospital URL. They are sitting in their bedroom in front of a computer, thinking, Oh my God, I may have cancer, and they are punching obscure medical phrases in to Google to try to find help. It's happening all around you, doc. Please get on Google and let these patients find you.
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