Engaging Hearing Healthcare Website Viewers
In a post on my business blog recently “Website Elements That Drive Engagement” I discussed website elements that we use in our website design to drive engagement with viewers. They are not used just to drive engagement but to emotionally touch the viewer, to reach out to them where they live. The elements are designed based on the understanding that we have reached in relation to prospective Patients.
Let me explain, I think constantly about prospective hearing healthcare Patients, what they are thinking, what they know, what they don’t know, what they are feeling, who they are, the topics are endless. I research constantly across healthcare disciplines and look for truisms or patterns that can be generalised across all prospective healthcare consumers. I do this so I can understand the demographic in a better way and also keep abreast of changes in habits and beliefs within the demographic.
I don’t claim to be an expert by any means when it comes to profiling but there are some things that are glaringly obvious when you read the available literature. Our business is like no other, it is a hybrid mix of medical and sales that doesn’t really exist in any other business. However, our prospects are similar to any other healthcare consumer. If you can attempt to understand the psychology of the purchase process you can deliver an experience that suits.
Psychological Understanding
I think in this business we have a very good understanding of the psychological processes that a prospective Patient undergoes. We also in my experience have a clear idea about what we need to do to turn a prospect into a Patient. What we don’t do is use that understanding in the deployment of our websites, or at least generally we don’t do it well.
All of the things that we take so much care of in our Practices almost go out the window when it comes to a Practice website. What we do at Audiology Engine is bring all of those strategies to play in website design. We also do it in such a manner that it has more than a cats chance in hell to actually engage and encourage a prospect along the road to an enquiry.
What They Are Looking For
When prospects reach your site they are looking for information, the information that they are interested in covers a gamut of topics. When they are on your site they are immediately making judgements about you and your Practice. Those judgements are based on the presentation of your site and the elements that exist on it. So whilst the information they are looking for is at one level an important element, of equal importance is the other elements of your website.
We use clean modern design on all of our sites, because it looks nice, we also use value propositions and social proof everywhere on our site builds. We believe though that just using them isn’t enough, you need to present them in such a way to draw the eye. Because their psychological impact hinges on them actually being viewed. The design of those elements is based on the psychological understanding we have garnered from studies and our experience of purchase decisions.
You Know Your Prospects Well
You know your prospects equally well, you understand what drives them and what converts them to Patients. Treat your website as an extremely important facet of your brand. Using the understanding that I know you have, make sure your website appeals to your prospects, make sure your website answers the needs of their underlying psychology.
Because your website is playing an ever-growing part in the success or failure of your business and business is tough enough without the added complication of you sabotaging yourself with bad website design.