Choosing A Healthcare Marketing Organization? Consider This!
If you own a medical practice or you’re on a marketing team at a medical practice, you’re going to want to read this:
How do you choose the right marketing agency for your business? Do you go with an agency with experience in serving a wide variety of industries? Or do you choose one that is focused on a specific sector?
As is the case with a lot of decisions you make for your business, the answer is, “It depends.”
Niche agencies, like those that focus specifically on medical marketing, can be great. They offer a skilled team that specializes in your industry, and that built-in experience can be super valuable.
Formada was originally founded on a more generalist concept before soon realizing that out sweet spot was in the realm of medical, health, and wellness. We’re happy (and lucky) to serve other industries, but we have considerable experience in helping medical organizations grow, so that’s where we’re investing resources.
And of course, there are agencies out there that are what I would call hyper niche, serving certain specialties, like dental, chiropractic, podiatry — you name it. Their entire infrastructure is built to support a very specific customer with a very specific service offering.
These hyper-nihce agencies can often be great options, but sometimes these models can have traps baked into their agreements that you need to watch out for.
So how do you know when you’re stepping right into the snare? Let’s get into it!
Healthcare Marketing Agency Red Flags: What To Watch For
“If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.”
There’s a good reason this saying has been kicking around since the 1500s. I think that we have an innate desire to feel assured that we’re making the right choices, getting the best deals, and therefore will achieve all of our desired outcomes.
Once upon a time, our choices were much more limited, but today they feel unlimited, and if we just read a few more reviews and dig a few pages deeper, then surely we’re going to find a better deal. And the shipping will be free.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, and when it comes to many hyper-niche agencies, the reason you’re able to get a cheap product so quickly is because it’s probably not an original work.
For example:
🚩When a brand-new website with 30+ pages costs less than $10k and can be stood up in a couple of weeks, it’s smart to start asking questions about customization and ownership.
🚩When a paid campaign can be deployed immediately, but it’s built in “a proprietary platform” and you’re unable to gain access to this platform, it’s a good idea to inquire further about what you’re actually investing in.
🚩These fast, cheap, and proprietary situations usually mean that you’re licensing content or a campaign is being lent to you.
Why is licensing or renting content a problem? Because your website, the central online destination for your business, your brand, and your ability to sell products and services, isn’t really yours at all — and that’s a big problem!
Why You Should Never License Content For Your Website
It’s our belief that your website, and everything it contains, should belong to you. You paid for it. It’s a representation of your business. However, many niche and hyper-niche agencies build websites and other products without giving you the ownership of your business’s assets.
Here’s the deal:
✔️Websites and paid campaigns gain traction over time. They become increasingly valuable as they collect more data. It’s important to maintain control and ownership of these assets.
✔️Licensed content and rented campaigns are also being sold to hundreds, if not thousands, of your competitors.
✔️These types of agency relationships can be challenging to leave. You can’t take your website. You can’t leave with your lead gen campaign.
I don’t like this practice. I think it’s important to build custom websites and custom campaigns and ensure our clients have full ownership, access, and transparency. It can, in a sense, create more risk on our end, but we believe deeply in the quality of our work.
We’re also confident that our ability to achieve your goals while developing a strong relationship with your organization is enough to continue our working relationship thriving.
And what are the results of this approach to your content and campaigns? Let’s get into it.
The Formada Approach vs. Templated Agency Approach
Our goal is to help your business grow, not just give you the quickest, cheapest product. We’re a partner, one that gets under the hood, learns everything that we can about your organization, and creates personalized campaigns and solutions that are designed specifically to achieve your version of success.
✔️Does this mean that our client’s websites outrank sites that contain duplicate content?
👉Yes, Usually that’s the case.
✔️Does this mean that our custom-built paid campaigns outperform the shell campaigns that some of these agencies can deploy immediately?
👉Yes, it does.
✔️Does this mean that we cost a little more than the competition?
👉Yes, we sometimes do. A custom, original work is more expensive than a print.
✔️Does this also mean that our clients can easily leave us if they no longer feel that we’re the right fit?
👉Absolutely. Because that’s the way it should be.
✔️Will we package up a custom site and deliver it to a departing client? Will we remove our access to a paid campaign so it can be reassigned to someone else?
👉Again, yes. Our goal is to keep you as a client through doing great work, not because you’re tangled up in red tape.
Digital Marketing for Healthcare that Works for You
We believe that we should retain clients because we’re good at what we do, not because we’re hard to break up with.
You deserve an agency that provides it all — proven strategy, clear communication, and incredible results. If you’d like to learn more about how we can support your goals, then contact us today. In fact, contact us right now! We’d love to meet you and learn more about what you’d like your business to achieve. We’re confident that we can help get you there. Don’t delay!