The primary objective of nearly every healthcare marketing team should be to build patient trust. Patient trust is essential for the success and longevity of your healthcare organization. Patients are literally putting their lives in your care, so your marketing needs to show that they can, in fact, trust you with their lives.
There are many ways to build patient trust using video, but one of the best ways to build patient trust is to tell the stories of past patients who trusted your organization. In healthcare video production, we call these patient testimonials or patient stories.
Examples of Patient Testimonials
Patient testimonials are short videos, usually under 5 minutes, that tell the story of how your care solved their problem. This could be something simple like a broken arm or an elective procedure, or something much bigger, like emergency life-saving procedures.
Patient testimonials should put the viewer in the shoes of that specific patient. An effective video will explain the pain points they experienced, which usually are how their life or activities they enjoy were limited by those pain points.
Great patient stories show the struggle they had and how they searched for solutions to their problem. This resonates well with people who are experiencing a similar situation. The story usually continues with how they chose your healthcare organization as a solution, and then they go on to explain the process they went through.
The end of a patient testimonial should be about how they were able to get back to all the activities they enjoy or how they are able to spend more time with their family.
Stories like this are one of the best ways to build patient trust because it speaks directly to others who are experiencing the same thing. They are able to imagine themselves going through that same process and the end result they will get choosing your healthcare organization.
If your organization is considering starting with healthcare video production, consider patient stories as one of the first projects to make a big impact.
How to use Patient Testimonials in your Marketing
Creating and capturing the video is just one part of effectively using patient testimonials in your marketing. So how exactly do you get people to watch it?
First, start with all your social media channels. Chances are, you already have a good presence on them, so try uploading the video directly to the platform or sharing a YouTube link. It's worth noting that uploading natively usually produces more views, but depending on your goals, it might be beneficial to share a YouTube link to build your YouTube channel.
Don't forget to put the patient testimonial on your website. If you have pages dedicated to individual service lines, place relevant patient testimonials on the website. This works best for elective procedures, where patients are doing their research before coming to you. Embedding videos onto pages not only creates a better experience for the reader, but it also can increase your SEO rankings when the video is closely related to the content.
Another great place to use patient testimonials is in digital ads and TV advertising. While a full patient story might be two to four minutes, you can ask your healthcare video production partner to cut a 15 or 30-second version of that story to run as an advertisement. A lot of the time, patient words are way more powerful than anything you can write.
A few other spots you can use these videos would be in office waiting rooms, the patient portal, email communications, and community events.
Your Healthcare Video Production Partner
If your healthcare organization is looking for a healthcare video production partner, we can help! We're a video agency that specializes in video for healthcare, hospitals, and medical providers.
Explore more of our healthcare video marketing content below or set up a free video strategy evaluation by filling out the form below. We’d love to talk video with your team and see if we’d be a great fit for your team.
