YouTube Videos are an Engaging Marketing Tool that Can Grow Your Practice and Position You as a Thought Leader

Your practice has likely spent a good amount of time discussing your marketing strategy. Google ads was probably pretty high up on your list since Google is the number one search engine in the world. But did you know their parent company also owns the number two search engine in the world? It’s YouTube. This constantly growing platform is a hub for information; users are constantly searching for how tos and informative educational content to answer their questions.

Despite the power of YouTube and how engaging video is, few private healthcare practices have a presence on it, or don’t have a consistent presence. But there are some great benefits to using YouTube that can help grow your practice. So let’s get into all the reasons why your practice needs to have a YouTube account.

1 | It Builds Trust, Credibility, and Thought Leadership

YouTube’s long form and Shorts videos are both an engaging format that allows you to share information with audiences. It can:

• Help to showcase your expertise and your professional personality in a way that a website alone cannot do. 
• Help you create a portfolio that stands as a library of educational videos on your specialty; this gives potential patients a deeper understanding of your expertise before they even book an appointment!
• Help you meet patients where they are as many people are already on YouTube looking for health information, making this a direct way to reach them.

2 | It Can Attract and Retain Patients

One of the most important, if not the most important, thing you can do to grow your practice is attract and retain patients. YouTube can help you do just that by:

• Increasing your visibility since it’s the second largest search engine. Don’t forget to follow SEO best practices when creating your video title and description box to help people find your video better. 
• Stretch your reach as you share your videos on your other channels, such as Facebook, Pinterest, and even embedding it on your own practice’s blog.
• Allows you to promote your services, giving you the opportunity to inform the public about new services, procedures, or technologies your practice offers. 
• Engage with your community; video is a highly-engaging format and you can share patient testimonials, tours of your practice, answer FAQs, and make your practice more approachable and friendly! 

3 | It Can Educate Patients and Provide Value

This has been touched on above, but we really want to stress just how powerful of an educational tool YouTube can be. You can use it to:

• Educate patients by explaining diagnoses, procedures, medications, and post-operative care, which can be a valuable tool for your patients.
• Improve patient outcomes by providing clear and accessible information, helping patients better understand and manage their health. 

4 | It’s a Long-Term Marketing Asset

Part of good marketing is getting ROI (return on investment) on your assets, and YouTube is just the place for that! It:

• Provides evergreen content as it is a long-term marketing asset; unlike other social media platforms, YouTube videos remain discoverable and continue to attract viewers for months or years after they are posted. 
• Is a cost-effective marketing tool; YouTube is a free platform. Combine that with its power and value, and it’s a low-cost way to market your practice. 

Don’t believe us that it’s low cost? You don’t need fancy equipment to film. You can film right on your phone. Worried about lighting? Film near a big window for natural lighting or pick up one of the many low-cost ring lights available these days. Sound worries? There are plenty of bluetooth microphones you can use with a phone that provide better audio that are also low cost. So don’t worry about spending exorbitant amounts of money on equipment; spend more time focusing on providing value in your videos and people will flock to you for important and accurate information they need! 

Final Thoughts

YouTube is a powerful tool for medical practices. It allows you to connect and engage with your audience, provide value and information, and is a cost-effective form of marketing. Remember, you don’t need super slick videos–a ring light, bluetooth microphone, and your phone are all you need to make informative and great videos that grow your practice and position you as a thought leader in your specialty.