Marketing Agency for Clinics: What to Look For and What to Avoid

Hire a marketing agency for clinics on one number: patients booked, and what each one cost. Choose well and the agency reports patients booked and the cost of each, the diary changes by day ninety, and no second year is paid for a report nobody reads. Choose badly and the year ends with twelve invoices, a folder of dashboards, and a diary that looks the way it did in January. Both outcomes show in the diary.

Your last agency probably went like this. The deck was polished, the case studies came from retail or property, and the monthly report arrived on time with sessions up by a third and bookings unchanged. Effort was never the problem. The agency measured what it could produce. This guide gives you seven things to check in a marketing agency for clinics before you sign. Our pillar on health and wellness marketing covers the plan an agency should be working to. This article covers how to tell whether the agency in front of you can deliver it.

Google’s own page on how Search works says Google never accepts payment to rank a site higher, and that ranking is done programmatically. Google’s help page on improving local ranking says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Those two sentences rule out the guaranteed page-one position on the first slide of the deck. Stop paying for guarantees. Any marketing agency for clinics that guarantees a position is promising something Google says cannot be bought. What a good agency sells instead is work: pages patients find and trust, a profile that earns the call, ads that land on a page that books, and a report that counts the result.

This guide is written for the owner of a private clinic, dental practice, med spa or physiotherapy clinic who has paid for marketing before and wants the next contract to show in the diary. The seven checks take one meeting and three phone calls. Four of them can be run on the proposal alone, before anyone signs. If you run a health software company, our guide to choosing a HealthTech marketing agency covers that buyer’s version of the decision. This one is for the clinic.

1. Does it specialise in health, and can it show a clinic it grew?

The first check takes one question: which clinic did you grow, and what changed? A specialist in health answers with a clinic, a treatment and the number that moved: bookings, enquiries that became appointments, or cost per new patient. A generalist answers with a logo wall and a case study from a property developer. Stop accepting the logo wall as proof. A patient reads a clinic’s page as someone choosing who to trust with their body, so a specialist checks every claim and image before it goes live. A marketing agency for clinics that has done this before knows what the clinician will sign off. Our case studies show that proof.

A clinic, a treatment and a number that moved

The right answer names one clinic and one number. Picture a dental practice, a physiotherapy clinic or a med spa, and what its diary did: bookings per month before and after, cost per new patient falling, enquiries that became appointments. The owner of that clinic takes your call. Then the next conversation changes. An agency that can show one clinic it grew can say what it would do with yours in patient numbers, and you can hold it to those numbers at day ninety. An agency without that one example is asking your clinic to be it. One exception: a new agency run by someone who grew a clinic in-house. Ask for that clinic instead.

The portfolio test

The agency’s own case studies page tells you whether clinics are the business or the sideline. Read each study as a patient reads a clinic’s page: who is the client, what changed, and can I check it? Count the clinics and health brands. One in twelve is a sideline. Eight in twelve means the marketing agency for clinics has met the patient’s doubts before: the reviews, the clinician’s page, the price question. At Healthora, we have seen a specialist’s first work go straight onto the treatment page and the profile, with no time lost explaining what a consultation is or why the price belongs on the page. A generalist learns your clinic at your expense.

2. What it reports: patients and cost per patient, or traffic and likes

The second check is the report, and a good one fits on a page. Five numbers. New patients booked, by source. Cost per new patient. Revenue per new patient over the year. Enquiries that became bookings. And the share of patients from each channel. Every one of those is a patient or a sum of money. A poor report leads with traffic, impressions, reach, followers and keyword positions, which are the agency’s activity. Refuse a report that leads with them. A marketing agency for clinics should send a page an owner can read in two minutes and act on in five.

The five numbers on one page

Five numbers tell the owner whether the fee bought patients. Patients booked by source says which channel filled the diary. Cost per new patient says what each one cost and whether that figure is falling. Revenue per new patient over the year says what a patient is worth, including the second visit, and what you can afford to pay for the next one. Enquiries that became bookings says whether the page and the phone work. Share by channel says where the next dollar goes. Our guide to Google Ads for clinics covers the free conversion tracking behind the first number. A marketing agency for clinics that reports these five has nothing to hide.

A report of traffic and likes hides the empty diary

Traffic can rise every month while bookings stay flat. Say the report shows sessions up by a third. Ask what the third did. If the visitors came from a post about a treatment the clinic never offers, or from a city it never serves, the diary saw none of them. Likes and followers hide a wider gap: people who enjoyed a video and live three hours away. Keyword positions hide another: a page ranking first for a phrase no patient types. Stop paying for a report that reads well in a bad month. A marketing agency for clinics should send one that would embarrass it in a bad month, because the bad month would show.

3. Who does the work: the senior person on the call or a junior after the sale

The third check decides the year, and the proposal never answers it. The person who runs the sales call is senior. Then the contract is signed, the account passes to a junior, and the senior person reappears at the quarterly review. Ask plainly: who will write my pages, who will run my ads, and have they done this for a clinic before? Then ask to meet them. A marketing agency for clinics that is proud of its team will put them on the call. One that cannot name them has not decided. You are buying judgement, and judgement does not travel in a handover document.

The person on the call stays on the account

The senior marketer who ran the first meeting writes the plan and stays on the account. A small team may sit behind that person for pages, ads and reporting, and the proposal names each of them. The owner has one number to ring. Decisions are made the week they are needed, by email, and never held back for the quarterly review. At Healthora, we have seen this with a telemedicine brand we support on retainer. The shape of the work is the same for a clinic with one address. One senior person reads the patient’s doubts, writes the page that answers them, and reads the five numbers every month.

The handover question

One more question shows whether the account survives a busy month. When the person on this call is busy, who takes over, and what do they know about clinics? A good answer names a second senior person and says how the two share the account. A poor answer says the team is experienced and the process is documented, which means a junior with a checklist. The checklist cannot read a patient’s review and know what to answer. A marketing agency for clinics is its people, and an unnamed team is a team not yet chosen. If the proposal does not name them, write their names into it before you sign.

4. What the first ninety days contain

The fourth check is what the agency says will have changed by day ninety. A good answer gives three outcomes the owner can see. By the end of the first month, the clinic knows its five numbers and the landing page has been rewritten to earn the booking. At the end of the second, the channel that fills the diary soonest is running, with bookings counted by source. When the third closes, the report shows which channel booked which patients at what cost. A marketing agency for clinics that answers in that shape has done it before. A list of deliverables with no outcome beside each is a list of invoices.

The owner sees a page, a source and a report by day ninety

Day thirty is a treatment page you would be happy for a patient to read, and a number you did not have before: how many enquiries became appointments last month. By day sixty there are patients whose source you can name, with a cost beside each. Day ninety is a one-page report with the five numbers filled in and a recommendation the owner can agree or refuse. The method inside each month belongs to the specialist. The owner sees the diary. Ask what day ninety looks like, in those terms, and whether the agency will put it in writing; a refusal to write it down is an answer.

A first quarter without a visible change costs sixty patients

A first quarter with no visible change costs more than the fee. For illustration, a clinic earns $1,200 (about £940) per new patient in the first year and has room for twenty more a month. A quarter that fills none of those slots has cost the fees plus sixty patients’ worth of revenue, $72,000 (about £56,000) in that arithmetic. The second quarter doubles it. Foundations are what the first month is for, and by day ninety a patient should be bookable from the work done, or the agency should say why in writing. Judge a marketing agency for clinics on that quarter; the second is the one that quietly becomes a second year.

5. The questions to ask and the answers that end the meeting

The fifth check is the meeting. Six questions cover it. Which clinic did you grow, and may I ring the owner? What will my monthly report show, and may I see a sample? Who will do the work, and will I meet them before I sign? What will have changed in the diary by day ninety? What is included in the fee, what costs extra, and what happens in month four? And what did you see on my website before you wrote this proposal? Pricing lives inside those questions rather than in a number. Ask the fee question fifth, never first. A marketing agency for clinics that welcomes the six has answered them before.

The answers that earn a second meeting

Six good answers fit in one call. The first earns a clinic name and a phone number. The report question earns a sample page with patients booked at the top. For the work, two names and a meeting this week. Day ninety earns a picture of the diary. On the fee, what is included, what costs extra, and month four as the point to continue or stop, keeping the website and the data. For the website, two things the marketing agency for clinics saw that are losing bookings. At Healthora, we have seen what the exit question does to a proposal: a twelve-month term becomes a quarter with notice, and the sample report arrives with patients booked on top.

The answers that end the meeting

Five answers end the meeting early. We work with businesses of every kind, and marketing is marketing. We cannot share client names, but the results speak for themselves. The team will be assigned once we are on board. The first quarter is about foundations, and results take time. Our minimum term is twelve months. Each is reasonable on its own. Together they describe an agency that has not done this for a clinic, will not show you a patient number, has not decided who will do the work, and wants a year before it is judged. Thank the person, keep the deck, and ring the next one.

6. The red flags that rule out a marketing agency for clinics

The sixth check is a short list of red flags, and any one of them ends the conversation. A guaranteed ranking. Results promised before anyone has searched for your clinic. Lock-in beyond a quarter. Proposals written without a look at your website. And a fee nobody can explain in a sentence. Google’s page on how Search works says Google never accepts payment to rank a site higher, and the local ranking help page says there is no way to pay for a better local ranking. A marketing agency for clinics guaranteeing either is promising what Google says it cannot sell. The other three flags tell you the agency sells one contract to everyone.

Guarantees and rankings promised

A ranking guarantee is a promise about something the agency does not control. What an agency controls is the work: the page that answers the patient’s question, the profile that earns the call, the ad that lands on a page that books. A specialist promises the work and reports the result. A generalist promises the result and reports the work. The second is how a year passes with a position rising and a diary standing still. Ask what happens if the guaranteed ranking does not arrive, and listen for your money in the answer. A marketing agency for clinics that guarantees page one has told you how your first quarter will be spent.

The lock-in and the brief without a site search

The lock-in is the quieter flag. A twelve-month minimum means the agency is judged once, when the money is gone. Refuse it, or cut it to a quarter with notice. The last flag is the proposal that arrives before anyone has looked. A specialist searches for your clinic before the first meeting: the treatment and the town, your name with the word reviews, the profile on a phone. Pew Research Center’s 2016 report on online reviews found that 82% of American adults at least sometimes read online reviews before buying something for the first time. Our guide to patient reviews for clinics covers what the agency should find. If the proposal does not say what it found, nobody searched.

7. Agency, in-house or one senior marketer

The seventh check is whether an agency is the right shape at all. Three choices. An agency, with the handover risk above. An in-house hire, the wrong shape for one address: one set of skills and a salary whatever the diary does. Four sites with a full diary can justify that hire. Or one senior marketer who understands health, with a lean team, as a project or a retainer. The third is the model Healthora runs; the next article explains when one senior marketer beats a marketing agency for clinics. In short, it suits the clinic too big to guess and too small for a head of marketing. Our HealthTech marketing consultant guide covers that choice for the software founder.

One senior marketer with a lean team

The third shape puts one accountable person on the account from the first call. That person has grown clinics before, runs the first meeting, writes the plan and reads the five numbers every month. A writer, an ads specialist and a reporting person sit behind them, and the owner knows their names. The fee is for a defined project, such as positioning and pages, or a monthly retainer covering search, content and the paid channel. There is no handover. Our services page describes the shape in plain words. The owner gets one conversation a month with someone who can say what the diary did, and that is the whole point.

A free consultation runs five of the seven checks

A free consultation with a specialist is the fastest way to run five of the seven checks on your own clinic. In forty minutes a specialist can read your website and profile as a patient would, name the two or three things losing bookings today, and say which channel would change the diary soonest. You leave with that written down, whether or not you work with us. The consultation also shows what a good first meeting sounds like, so the next marketing agency for clinics pitch is judged against it. Healthora specialises in health marketing. This article is marketing guidance and never medical advice.

Marketing agency for clinics in practice: the seven checks

Marketing agency for clinics in practice begins before the first meeting, with the report test and a search for the agency’s clinic work. Then the meeting runs the six questions, and the answers either name a clinic, a report, a team and a day ninety, or they do not. The red flags are checked against the proposal: no guarantee, no promised ranking, no lock-in beyond a quarter, and evidence that someone looked at your website. The last check is whether an agency is the right shape, or whether one senior marketer with a lean team fits better. A dental practice, a med spa and a physiotherapy clinic run all seven, in this order.

The seven checks, in order

Why a specialist gets there faster

Any owner with a pen and an afternoon can run the seven checks. The difference a specialist makes is knowing the answers before the meeting. A specialist in health has read enough clinic reports to know which five numbers belong on the page, has watched the handover happen, and knows what day ninety looks like from delivering it. Twenty minutes with a proposal is enough to say which checks it fails. Our services and case studies show what the work looks like in engagements we have run. Ask any marketing agency for clinics you are considering for the equivalent, and stop the conversation if none comes.

A specialist in health marketing understands that the owner choosing an agency has been burned before, and that the next contract is judged on the diary. The owner wants the patient booked, the cost known, and a report that reads in two minutes. Seven checks, one meeting and three phone calls. Then the marketing agency for clinics decision is made on proof instead of a deck, and the first ninety days show in the diary.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

The seven marketing agency for clinics checks above apply whatever the agency proposes to sell you. Private healthcare marketing covers the trust a clinic competes on once a patient has found it. How patients choose a clinic shows what the patient checks before ringing, which is the list any good agency works from. Clinic directory listings covers the listings an agency may offer to manage, and which of them send a patient.