5 Holiday Marketing Ideas For Your Healthcare Practice

The holidays are a time of celebration and it can be a great opportunity for you to market your healthcare practice and increase engagement with your patients. Research has suggested that a healthy and effective patient-provider relationship can even have positive care outcomes for your practice.

The holidays are a perfect opportunity to boost your marketing so we’ve come up with these holiday marketing ideas that you can implement in your healthcare practice today. 

Send out a holiday postcard

Who doesn’t love getting letters in the mail? Sending a postcard to your patients shows them that you’re thinking about them during the holiday season. It also reminds those inactive patients of your practice and could encourage reactivation. For your loyal patients, this could be a great opportunity for potential referrals.

My mom used to always post our dentists’ holiday card on the fridge (which in marketing is equivalent to hitting the advertising jackpot). Any time visitors came over and noticed the card, she raved about how pleasant his office was. Don’t underestimate the power of traditional print advertising and consider sending out a holiday postcard this year.

Promote through a social media campaign

In today’s day and age, if you don’t have an online presence, you don’t exist at all! Beef up your online presence by running a social media campaign. You could encourage patients to post photos of their healthy habits with a corresponding custom hashtag.

Engage directly with patient’s posts and keep communication consistent throughout the month (lots of people like to do holiday countdowns until Christmas or New Year, for example). You could even set up a decorated wall within your practice and have patients take pictures with the backdrop.

Email out a year-end newsletter

Send out a newsletter to patients to recap the year. Make this as simple or extravagant as you want, but the more personal, the better. Include a picture of your office staff or even highlight key accomplishments your practice hit for the year.

You could even make suggestions for health-related gift ideas like a wearable device to track health information. This would also be a great opportunity to push last-minute appointments by reminding patients to take advantage of deductibles they’ve met before the year ends. For a dental practice, try to get patients to take advantage of any remaining dental benefits for the year.

Host a charity event

‘Tis the season for giving. Promote a giving campaign in honor of the holidays to a local charity. You could host a toy drive, winter coat drive, or collect canned foods.

This is a great way to give back and increase awareness about your healthcare practice within your community. Find creative ways to honor patients who participate like posting them on your social media page or publicly displaying a donor list (with their approval, of course).

Celebrate with a holiday giveaway

The holidays are a perfect time for giveaways. Want to increase those end of year appointments? Sponsor a holiday giveaway for patients that schedule appointments before the end of the year.

You can raffle off gift cards or services or put together a holiday-themed gift basket. Promote the giveaway in person and online through social media, newsletters, or blog posts. For added promotion, award two raffle tickets to patients who both make an appointment and post and tag your practice on social media. Win-win for everyone!

These ideas are great to implement during the holidays but the best part is that you can continue these throughout the year, too! Did your holiday postcard show positive returns on investment and drive up year-end appointments? Consider sending another one out during the year like personalized birthday cards for patients. Overall, engaging with patients through different forms of marketing is not only good for your healthcare practice, but it’s also good for their health.