A few months ago, Google separated Google Places for Business and Google+ pages. Google replaced Google Places for Business with Google My Business, helping businesses get found regardless of whether consumers are using Google Search, Google Maps or Google+.
Here’s answers to some of the most common questions we’ve heard from healthcare marketers about the change and what it means for their hospitals.
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Imagine that you’re on a business trip in a different state. After arriving in this foreign town, you begin to feel under the weather. What do you do? Most likely, you take out your smartphone and begin searching for “urgent cares.”
Immediately Google displays results of local urgent cares. The closest urgent care that appears in the search results is half an hour away. You think that seems pretty far away, but end up biting the bullet and head to what you hope is relief.
Now what if you, as a healthcare marketer, know that in reality the closest urgent care to that person is only 10 minutes away – but you just haven’t had time to create a listing yet.
As both a provider of healthcare and a marketer of healthcare, it’s frustrating to miss that opportunity.
Now, maybe you’re thinking: “But the locals, the ones who actually live in my community and are the main consumers of our health services, know where our facilities are.” But what if those locals do a Google search for your urgent care and you appear, but your phone number is wrong? Now you have a local health consumer that is frustrated with your service and might go to a competitor.
