How to produce a healthcare marketing report to find and engage patients

If you don’t see the results from your current advertising strategy, it’s time to take a look at your healthcare marketing report. The importance of marketing in the healthcare industry is evident, and the best way to do it is to track and analyze your marketing data.

The truth is, there’s no universal approach to medical marketing. The most successful communications strategies are built on highly-defined targets—that’s the power of market reporting. This article explains why you need a healthcare marketing report and how to create one.

Healthcare marketing reports are powerful and easy

No matter what medical audience you serve, your healthcare marketing report will include metrics like patient acquisition, patient retention, and patient satisfaction rates. These analytics are nuanced, but we have fantastic news: collecting the data is surprisingly easy.

Numerous software programs are available, including free marketing analysis tools that collect data automatically. The secret to unlocking the power of a healthcare marketing report is understanding what all of that data means (and how to use it to create profitable healthcare marketing strategies).

Customizable reports

Today’s healthcare industry is patient-driven. Healthcare consumers want convenience, personalization, and specialized care. To meet these demands, your practice will need a microscopic understanding of the patient journey. Such a targeted approach to healthcare marketing begins with a customized healthcare marketing report.

Effective healthcare marketing report templates

If you’re wondering what your healthcare marketing report should include, we have several templates to get you started.

Your healthcare marketing report should cover the following metrics:

• Cost per patient acquisition
• Patient retention rate
• Patient satisfaction score
• Patient engagement rate
• Number of clicks
• Number of healthcare website views
• New appointment requests per month
• Number of new patients

While we recommend healthcare practices monitor all of these metrics, the timing of your reporting depends on the KPIs you’re tracking and your healthcare marketing campaign’s overall goal.

For example, a quarterly report is enough to get a clearer picture of your SEO strategy. In contrast, a more frequent monthly analysis of your social media lead rate might be necessary to keep up engagement.

Remember, your brand and target audience are unique. You’ll probably need more than what our suggestions below cover.

Monthly healthcare marketing report template

A good monthly healthcare marketing report will answer the following questions:

1. Which channels created the most and least inbound traffic this month?
2. What do we need to change to improve each channel’s performance?
3. What progress did we make this month to meet our KPIs and SMART goals?
4. What gaps can we work on closing?
5. What stopped us from reaching our goals or progressing at the rate we expected?

To answer these questions, create a spreadsheet that tracks the following sources of website traffic monthly:

• Direct traffic: when a lead types your website into the browser
• Organic traffic: when a lead uses a search engine or a social media post (AKA referral traffic) to find you
• Paid traffic: when a lead clicks an ad you paid to place on a search engine or social media platform
• Other traffic: when a lead clicks a link found in an email, push notification, native ad, blog comment, review page, etc.

Use the data you gather for your monthly report to inform the direction of your next healthcare marketing sprint. Making continuous, small refinements will yield a better marketing ROI than making occasional sweeping changes to your marketing campaigns.

Quarterly healthcare marketing report template

Effective quarterly healthcare marketing reports guide the long-term impact of your healthcare marketing campaigns. The essential metrics your quarterly healthcare marketing report should measure include:

• Revenue changes: Has your revenue improved, plateaued, or declined?
• New patients acquired: How many new patients did you acquire this quarter, and what is your monthly rate?
• Updated lead and conversion rates: How many people visit your website, and how often do those visitors request appointments?
• Paid advertising spend and ROI: How much are you spending on your PPC campaigns, and are those campaigns improving patient acquisition enough to justify that spend?
• Email performance and conversions: Has your contact list grown? How many people are clicking the links you send in emails? How often are your contacts unsubscribing?
• Search and keyword rankings: What keywords is your practice winning, and how are you ranking based on top keyword searches?
• Website traffic and sources: What are your most effective channels, and which channels need to improve?
• Social media performance: Have you gained followers or seen changes in your engagement rates?

You will discover your next highly-targeted strategy in the insights of your monthly and quarterly healthcare marketing reports. Ongoing marketing analysis will help you unearth the gold.

Other templates for healthcare marketers

If you want to improve your marketing campaign one arm at a time, you can create an even narrower healthcare marketing report. We recommend focusing on the most powerful healthcare marketing tools: social media, digital marketing, and SEO.

Social media marketing report template

If you want to get in front of your audience, the best place to do so social media. Your healthcare marketing report should contain the following social media metrics:

• Reach: The number of people who come in contact with your different social media accounts
• Impressions: The number of times your social media profile appeared on someone’s timeline or feed
• Followers: The number of people who subscribe to or follow your account
• Follower growth rate: The percent change of your audience’s growth over time
• Comments: the number of times people engaged with your post by commenting on it (both positive and negative comments contribute to this metric)
• Likes: The number of people who interact with your post by clicking a like, heart, or another reaction button
• Conversions: The number of people who click on your CTA (click the link in your profile, share your post, comment, etc.)

Your healthcare marketing campaign should have specific goals for your social media channels. Track the metrics that help you monitor your progress toward those goals.

Email marketing report template

Digital marketing by email is one of the top-performing tactics your healthcare organization can use to reach consumers. Create a healthcare marketing report tracking the following metrics measuring email performance:

• Subscribers: The number of people who have signed up to receive emails from your organization
• Emails sent: The number of emails you pushed to your contacts
• Open rate: The percentage of recipients who opened your emails
• Click rate: The percentage of recipients who clicked your email’s CTA

Email reporting gives you a clear direction for improving your overall digital healthcare marketing strategy.

Search engine optimization report template

SEO is the most effective way to help patients find you, and when done well, the marketing ROI makes it worth the investment. Include the following metrics in your healthcare marketing report to monitor your SEO strategy’s performance:

• Organic traffic: How many visitors are new, and how many are returning? Which devices deliver you the most organic traffic? Which landing pages get the most organic traffic?
• SEO performance: What queries get the most clicks? Which pages get the most impressions? What is the average position of your top landing pages in the SERP?
• Referrals and backlinks: What are your top referral sources? What are those sources’ conversion rates?

Interpreting the data and forming a customized campaign will take time and digital expertise. If you lack those resources, outsource this vital work to a healthcare marketing agency.

The scientific approach to healthcare marketing

If you want to see your healthcare organization thrive in today’s evolving, consumer-centric industry, developing a targeted healthcare marketing campaign is essential. But there’s no reason to approach this nuanced work without a data-tested methodology.

A healthcare marketing report will guide your marketing efforts to the results you need to win patient attention, appointments, and loyalty. You don’t have to take the leap alone if you’re ready to start but lack adequate reporting expertise.

Discover winning strategies in your healthcare marketing report

Our award-winning marketing team is adept at unearthing patient personas, brand stories, and consumer behaviors hidden in the data. We’ll create customized healthcare marketing reports to help you execute strategies that win your practice conversions.