A healthcare website redesign is a significant milestone for any healthcare organization. It’s the culmination of months of hard work from your first kickoff meeting with your digital agency to the moment your site finally launches.
A new website should also usher in a significant improvement to your user experience, whether you’ve reorganized the main navigation menu, enhanced accessibility, or streamlined the way patients request appointments online.
That’s why when you’re planning for your site launch, it’s important to include the people who will use it the most — your organization’s patients and employees. It’s not enough to simply publish the site and go about your workday, business as usual. You need to effectively promote your redesigned healthcare website to ensure patients, staff, and your community take full advantage of its improvements.
Here are some strategies you can use to spread the word about your new healthcare website and drive engagement.
Announce the redesign on social media
Your organization’s social media channels are a powerful tool to reach your patient and community audiences and generate buzz for your new website.
Your posts can include before-and-after screenshots of your site, lists or infographics highlighting notable features, and even a short video walkthrough to help familiarize users with the new features or navigation.
Send an announcement email to patients and staff
An email campaign that begins before your site actually launches is an effective way to inform patients, providers, and staff about the upcoming changes.
You can use these emails to highlight key improvements and even personalize them depending on the recipient group. For example, you may want to send a campaign just to staff members that includes answers to questions patients may ask them about the new site.
For patients, your emails can highlight how the new site will save them time looking for things like appointment scheduling, provider profiles, and emergency room wait times.
For added engagement, consider sending a follow-up email a few weeks later to gather feedback on the new experience.
Add a website pop-up announcement
When visitors land on your new site, you can have a pop-up explaining the site redesign and offering a quick tour showcasing the most significant changes.
You can link this pop-up to a short video tour or even a blog post laying out how to navigate the site, the location of your most-visited pages, and other updates that might impact the visitor experience.
For more tech-savvy users who want to figure things out on their own or don’t have the time to go through a tour, be sure this pop-up is easy to close and only shows up upon their first visit to your redesigned site.
Update your Google Business Profile and other listings
Your website isn’t the only place where patients interact with your organization online. Ensuring your digital listings are up to date helps improve search visibility and patient trust.
If your redesign included any changes to your URL structure, you’ll want to ensure these new addresses are reflected on your Google Business Profile and other listings on sites like Healthgrades and Yelp.
Engage your internal teams in promotion
Outside of your marketing department, your organization’s providers and staff members can also lend a hand in spreading the word about your new website.
Be sure your support and front-desk staff are familiar with the website layout before it launches so they can help answer patients’ questions about navigating the new layout.
For administrative roles, you can encourage people to add a note about the new website to their email signatures and even share pre-written (and marketing-approved) social media posts about the site with their online networks.
If your website underwent a major redesign, consider holding internal training sessions to familiarize your team with the new design and features and how they can best communicate them to patients.
Time to redesign your healthcare website?
A successful website redesign is only as effective as its promotion. By leveraging social media, email, on-site announcements, and staff engagement, you can ensure your audience knows and benefits from the improvements.
If your organization’s website is due for a refresh or a full-scale update, Geonetric is here to help. Check out some of our award-winning healthcare website redesign projects here, then reach out to our team for a demo of our website solutions!
