Leading Digital Marketing Strategies for Physician Recruitment
At Rhythm, we have worked with many well-known healthcare systems and brands including Hoag Hospital, Kaiser, AllCare Health, Vituity (formerly CEP America), FirstHealth of the Carolinas, Western Dental and many more. While these brands have come to us facing different challenges and having different organizational goals, one essential initiative that they seem to have in common is attracting, securing and retaining quality talent -- specifically top physicians.
Healthcare systems with a strong and reputable brand presence and a solid understanding of the journey a prospective physician takes when researching and determining career opportunities have an upper hand when it comes to securing talented doctors. How should health systems engage during fellowship and residency programs? When are physicians considering opening a private practice and within what specialty care area? What professional associations and communities are physicians connected to? What are physicians looking for in terms of the culture of a health system, the benefits, salary? And, what social channels, websites, and forums are physicians using to connect, engage and learn about career opportunities?
At Rhythm, we invest the time to truly understand the journey of future physicians, the channels they frequent, the ways in which they prefer to access and receive information, and much more. This insight is what helps us to design, implement and manage successful physician recruitment campaigns. And over time, working with many healthcare brands on physician recruitment strategies, here are some tactics that are working.
Physician Based Content Marketing Strategy
Central to all effective marketing strategies is content. Without valuable, relevant content any and all marketing efforts fall flat. Take time to really understand what physicians are looking for when it comes to selecting a health system. What factors help to determine where they decide to practice? Develop content around these key areas. Highlight the benefits of your health system, your culture, your history. Showcase your health system's renowned specialty care areas. Consider profiling physicians and leadership within your organization to have your message come across in a more authentic, transparent manner. Use social listening tools and dig through discussion topics on channels like Quora, Doximity, Sermo, etc. to gather ideas for content. 
Dedicated Specialty Care Landing Pages
How are prospective physicians searching for their next career opportunity? Most likely by their specialty area. Some specialty and subspecialty positions are hard to fill with many health systems competing to find top talent. Whether it be recruiting for a podiatrist, ophthalmologist, nephrologist or transplant hepatologist, health systems that dedicate time to build out niche, highly-optimized content speaking to these specialty areas and the many benefits of working for their organization can attract more qualified talent. 
Physician Brand Ambassador Programs
You've heard the saying before - 'birds of a feather flock together'. Well, this too applies to physicians. Pursuing a career in medicine is not for the faint of heart. Med students and seasoned physicians alike must surround themselves with others on the same journey to bounce ideas off one another, share resources, etc. Therefore, by basis of common reasoning and deduction, med students are friends with med students and physicians are friends with physicians. Establishing a physician ambassador program where a group of physicians within your health system share content via social channels (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Doximity, Sermo, etc.) on behalf of your health system is an effective way to leverage greater reach, get your content and message in front of more likeminded audiences and have that message come across in a more meaningful and personal way. 
Guidelines and best practices need to be in place to ensure the success of physician brand ambassador programs, but Rhythm can help with this. Tools are also available to help brands manage these programs and make it easier for physician ambassadors to share content. Tools include Bambu by Sprout Social, GaggleAMP, Firmplay and more.
Establish Presence On Niche Healthcare Community Networks
Healthcare brands need to be present and active within communities where physicians are actively trying to connect with other physicians and healthcare brands. These healthcare communities continue to expand, but the top physician-focused community sites include Doximity and Sermo among others. Check out a list of these sites. 
Dig to understand what your brand can do to have a strong presence within these channels including setting up a brand page (like that of a Facebook Business Page) and implementing paid advertising efforts as well to get in front of audiences.
Dedicate Budget To Paid Media Efforts
Organic content efforts and owned media can go a long way, but putting dollars behind paid media can really move the needle in terms of securing more applicants and generating greater visibility among physician candidates. Consider how your brand can drive prospective physicians to your dedicated landing pages via social advertising (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and physician-based social networks), AdWords, retargeting efforts, in-app and in-email opportunities, programmatic and more. Think again of how you can use content shared by your physician ambassadors or how you can use your physician ambassadors directly to be the face of your ad campaigns.
Rhythm has designed, implemented and managed the paid media efforts of many healthcare brands and we can do the same for you. These are just a few of the physician recruitment strategies we have worked on for our healthcare clients. If you are looking for a healthcare marketing partner with a successful track record in moving the needle for healthcare brands, reach out to Rhythm today.