7 tips to get your clinic team blog up and running

When my friend Maggie was pregnant, she suffered with debilitating back pain. Steve, a local chiropractor and owner of a wellness clinic, wrote an article about how he helps pregnant women relieve their back pain, along with self-care ideas to try on their own.

He posted the article on the blog of his clinic’s website and linked to it from their Facebook page. One of Maggie’s Facebook friends visits the clinic for massage therapy, so she often shares their blog posts. Maggie saw the post, recognized her own symptoms in the article, and called to book an appointment.

This short story shows how blogging can be a non-threatening way to attract new clients to your clinic. When Maggie saw Steve’s knowledgeable post about the exact thing she was struggling with, it created a sense of trust that he would be able to help her.

Continuing to blog consistently shows both people and search engines that your clinic is an active, thriving business with relevant information to share.

In an earlier post at Canadian Chiropractor, Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People explained exactly how blogging brings new clients to your clinic’s website. “Simply put,” he writes, “Google values and rewards high quality, unique content by making it easier to find – in other words, ranking it higher.”

There’s a saying that many hands make light work, and the same is true for a blog. Instead of one person being responsible to keep your clinic blog alive, let your whole team share the task.

Here are seven success tips for a wellness clinic team blog:

1. Put someone in charge – Have one person be responsible for keeping everyone on track with your publication schedule. This may be your clinic administrator or owner, a team member with good organizational skills, or someone you hire just for this task.

2. Commit to quality – Address the most pressing problems your ideal clients are looking to solve, and focus each post on just one of these topics. Edit, rewrite and polish until the posts are free of any errors or confusing language. After all, you want your blog to reflect the same high standards as your business.

3. Publish consistently – Decide how often is doable for your team, whether that’s monthly, twice a month, or weekly, and stick to that. Remember to leave extra time for editing so you’re not tempted to skip this important step and risk damaging your reputation.

4. Get the whole team involved – Encourage them to blog from their own perspective, tone of voice, and expertise. Potential bloggers are not just your wellness practitioners. Office staff can offer time management tips to help clients with their day-to-day productivity.

5. Lead blog readers back to your clinic – Suggest an action step for your reader in every post, e.g., to attend an upcoming event, get them to sign up for your mailing list, or inform them to call the office for more information.

6. Keep in touch with an email newsletter – Add a subscription form to every page of your website and blog. Then, in a monthly, twice-monthly or weekly email newsletter, share one of your blog posts (plus links to other recent posts), as well as announcements about upcoming events, featured services or new team members.

7. Promote the blog as a team – Add the blog address to your email signatures. Share links to each other’s blog posts on your social media networks. If someone mentions a question or problem that the team has covered on the blog, share a link to that post. This could be a prospective client’s first exposure to the clinic and the particular discipline mentioned in the article.

As a group, the team at your wellness clinic has a huge amount of expertise and experience in treating illness and enhancing wellness. Harness that wisdom in a blog to give added value to your clients and community, and show new clients how you can help them.

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Linda Dessau is the founder of Content Mastery Guide, where she helps wellness clinics and their practitioners attract new clients with a great clinic blog. She provides blog writing, blog editing, blog training, and blog management, so you get all the benefits of blogging with none of the headaches.