‘Millennials’, or Generation Y, is a term used to refer to people born between 1981 and 1996. They are so-called because they were born just at the turn of the 21st century. Moreso a critical defining factor of people of this age is the internet and fast-paced technological innovations.
Indeed, the internet is important in how they approach healthcare too. Millennials, driven by technology are looking for faster and more efficient ways to get medical care. Therefore, a healthcare practice that wants to attract millennials must know how to harness those resources to provide better services.
Digital Influence
This is a digital age, and as much as 38.4% of your patients were probably influenced by your website. The figures must be higher if you narrow down to millennials and factor in their love for the internet. Here are three things you must do (at least) if you want to attract millennials to your website, and subsequently, your practice:
- Design: Use creative website designs. Your website must be visually appealing if you want to make visitors come back.
- Functionality: Make your website responsive, that is, optimized for mobile devices. Over 90% of millennials own smartphones and, depending on the statistics you rely on, they check their phones tens of times per day. A website that isn’t functional on mobile devices is set up for loss.
- Speed: Millennials have been described as a very impatient generation; there’s so much information overload that if a website lags by only a couple seconds, they simply close it and find an alternative. Use a tool such as Google PageSpeed Insights to see if your site does not lag.
In addition to this, invest in other search engine optimization techniques to make your site rank first on Google. The more visible you are; the more visitors you will attract.
Active Online Presence
This is about putting every mechanism in place to be prominently visible online. Millennials love to shop for virtually anything, including healthcare providers online through search engines, user reviews, social media, etc. Being inactive on those mediums would limit your visibility and reputation.
Contrary to certain beliefs, having a website is not enough. Having to appear more in searches, some of the least things you can do is entering your practice information on relevant local directories and also setting up a Google MyBusiness profile. Also, keep your information across all mediums consistent, especially contact information. Include relevant data that prove your dominance such as affiliations, awards, and recognitions, insurance provision, etc.
They do their research
Millennials make up a third of and are the largest generation in the American labor force. This has raised a ‘busy class’ of people who hardly have time to manage their health adequately, hence putting off preventive care. In fact, nine in ten young adults don’t schedule regular doctor visits because of work.
Despite that, millennial patients are not impossible to reach. Millennials read more than previous generations, though with the aim of finding specific information. Therefore, content marketing is a necessary approach. Maintaining a blog would be one of the best ways to reach them. Regularly posting useful keyword-optimized content about health would quickly establish your reputation as a healthcare practice.
They like to engage on social platforms
A whopping 90.4% of millennials are social media users. Social media has the advantage of engagement; you are able to reach (potential) patients easily. By regularly sharing helpful content and taking advantage of trends and hashtags, you can amass a significant following on social media and establish your outfit as a leading healthcare provider.
Social media marketing is also effective in gaining prominence. The ads features of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter ads, etc. make it possible to localize your marketing campaigns and target just the audience you intend to reach.
Also, a lot of entertainment happens on social media. So you should make your marketing copy as exciting and possible, yet without losing its tone of seriousness.
What is being said online matters
Online reputation goes a long way to determine the fate of businesses. 84% of millennials report that user-generated content on company websites at least somewhat influences what they buy. This is as much true for good reviews as it is for bad ones as well. Indeed, 69.9% of people consider a positive reputation online to be very important when choosing a healthcare provider.
While you can outsource this to a reputation management company, there are simple fixes to building a good online reputation.
One of those is encouraging patients to leave reviews after using your services. Thereafter, highlight the positive ones on your website to grab the attention of your website visitors. Negative ones? Address the grievances promptly. Each time you address negative feedback, you double the rate of patient satisfaction.
Easy Alternatives
Millennials are more tech-savvy than the generations before them. So if there is a digital alternative to some traditional process, you should embrace it. Apparently, millennials prioritize convenience, even in health.
Rather than manual processing of information, you may substitute with a practice growth platform, that offers online appointment booking, appointment reminders, and helpful tools to market and growth your practice. Video communication may also suffice for counseling. This form of telehealth is particularly booming and video consultations are expected to have increased to 5.4 million by 2020.
Conclusion
The bottom line of all these is that your healthcare practice must be willing to embrace the Internet and other technological innovations fully. Only in that way can millennials be won over.