I have been reading the content published by Cleveland Clinic online and it’s pretty bad. A good percentage of the stuff they publish is wrong likely because they are spending a ton of money on large marketing agencies without enough of a budget to oversee them.
“Why you need Vitamin D” & “6 Steps to Better Sleep”
That’s the stuff they publish. It’s 2022 and you can’t get away with that stuff. Sure, they’ll continue to have lots of money because they are a large group with PBM partnerships and an endless funnel of patients. But that’s not at all the kind of patients I would want in my practice.
I am drained by patients with low health literacy. It’s not their fault – it’s that I’m burnt out and I need my patients to care as much as I do. Or at least they need to put in the same effort as me.
Competing with Cleveland Clinic
You can compete with large medical groups because they can’t afford to write avantgarde content. They can’t afford to pay a good copywriter money to write the kind of article that savvy patients would actually read.
And you would want to compete with CC if you’re trying to find your own patients online. You want to create content which grabs your customer’s attention and turns them into potential patients for you.
If you write about “Soda is bad for you”, well, you are behind the eightball. People know that. What they don’t know is how to quite soda or how to help their kids quit soda. Those tips and tricks that stem from years of experience with real patients is content you can’t have someone else write.
Why You Can Compete
The simple reason why you can compete is because of the direction the web has been going. We are getting away from a centralized source of information and this decentralization is helping the average entrepreneur compete with mega-companies.
I have web pages on here which come up first when you search for certain words. I am sure there are companies which would love to sell you something by having their own page rank first.
If you write good content and create the right keyword links for the pages (SEO) you will be able to put your information before the faces of anyone you like.
Creating Your Unique Content
I have a certain style with my patients. I’m told that my style isn’t good by some of my physician friends. That’s I’m too fast or that I miss stuff because I’m so fast.
Perhaps that’s true but it seems to work for my patients. I have my own virtual private practice patients and people who keep coming back to me. That’s my voice and I need to develop that voice.
You should work on your style and your voice. Writing or creating digital content which reflects your style will help patients find you who gravitate to your style.
I refer to this as finding your voice online. It’s not comfortable to be vulnerable and open but it is how we can compete with the big companies and get the eyeballs turned on to our content.