Depending on your goals, you may consider using YouTube marketing as part of your hearing clinic’s marketing strategy.

One of the most notable audiologists on YouTube is Doctor Cliff, AuD. He is popular on YouTube for his content and is widely known in the audiology professional circuit.

Would it be worth showing up, like Dr. Cliff, with your pretty face and recording videos to market on YouTube?

It’s important to understand the buyer’s journey

Anybody who needs the services of an audiologist needs to be prompted or motivated to book an appointment.

What will push someone to decide to take action to resolve the issues or tasks at hand depends. The following are the key drivers of action and prompt people to make a call:

• Hearing issue
• Hearing aid issues
• Seeking to buy hearing aids
• Workplace health checkups
• Pressure from family or friends to get their hearing checked.

This is regardless of whether they have consumed your content or not. It’s rare with today’s educational content strategy that someone suddenly decides they need to book an appointment.

(Obviously, I am working to change this.)

YouTube marketing isn’t a match for driving sales

YouTube isn’t the best organic location-based marketing strategy. The goal of your marketing strategy is to generate traffic to your clinic.

The best candidates are often willing to buy (based on the prompts stated above) and can buy (can appear in person at your clinic). You need these candidates’ attention more than anybody else.

When you market to potential clients on YouTube, like Dr. Cliff, they are more knowledgeable about their situation, but they still need to speak with an audiologist.

This is why Dr. Cliff added a revenue stream to his business. His business is to capture all the eyeballs he gathered from YouTube and funnel them into a directory of audiologists under his brand, which can generate leads for hearing clinics.

It makes his time and effort on YouTube worthwhile; otherwise, he will continue entertaining the viewers and hoping one of them lives within the community.

We all know that hope isn’t a long-term sustainable business strategy.

Also, his life jacket relies on the YouTube algorithm to consistently attract more attention to him. That too isn’t sustainable either.

What about out-of-town visitors?

Hearing care is not conducive to having visitors who do not live in the area. Repeat visits are required to perform a hearing test, purchase the hearing aids, and adjust them.

Someone visiting a clinic from afar will not benefit from the full service. They will also need to pay more money to get things done. Their local clinic may not work for free.

Like cosmetic tourism, there is a hidden price when people return home with complications.

Your call to action will not bring a strong list of potential clients

When every marketing piece should have a call to action. Your call of action for a video could be collecting emails in exchange for information. Another call to action could be to book a call or make an appointment.

When someone isn’t in the area but is receptive to your engaging videos or the knowledge and insights gained from watching them, your return on time or investment needs to attract more qualified leads or clients.

Location-based marketing fails with YouTube unless paying ads

You need to be targeting people within your community to be most effective. When you are spending time and resources to build attention, it is best to concentrate your efforts on areas where your target market can easily identify you and respond to your offer.

YouTube ads service can provide localized ads.

While YouTube can show ads for your video to people in your community, ads may not be as effective.

You have five seconds to capture the attention.

On YouTube, people can skip ads after it runs for 4-5 seconds. Your video needs to capture attention quickly.

You need to create a hook and keep people watching longer, using curiosity to entice them to want to find out more.

YouTube has made a monetization strategy by removing ads

YouTube realizes that viewers do not like ads based on their behaviour while watching videos. They built a business model to allow people to pay monthly fees to remove the ads.

This is not only a signal that you should avoid ads but also a signal that you will reduce the number of people who can see your ads. YouTube knows that no one wants to be sold to and see ads.

When would YouTube marketing be effective for hearing clinics?

If you remove the purpose of driving traffic to your clinic, there are other ways YouTube can be useful.

Suitable for increasing your authority or credibility

Appearing on YouTube, not under your own channel, but on someone else’s channel, such as Dr. Cliff, can improve your credibility.

When you are seen in association with another influencer or popular figure, it signals to clients that you are in the same circle.

While they may not be able to attend Dr. Cliff’s clinic, they can attend yours.

In this case, you will repurpose your video with the influencer in your marketing materials, such as the website, newsletter, or social media channels.

You want to house videos of client testimonials and educational content

YouTube is a free hosting platform for videos. The effort you need to embed videos onto your website can take time, but uploading and sharing with YouTube is easy.

If you are conducting an intake form or questionnaire before an appointment, YouTube can be useful as part of the pre-appointment

When clients book an appointment with you, you can share a video explaining your service to help prepare the individual for what to expect at their first appointment.

You may want to share personalized testimonial videos. For example, say your client has been pressured to make an appointment because others experience difficulty communicating with them.

You can share client testimonial videos of people who experienced similar situations and highlight the transformation they received.

YouTube likes videos alongside SEO content

YouTube appears to favour and give higher preferences to companies that use their products.

The combination effect of YouTube and Google SEO and ads can give you more visibility.

Video can be a catalyst for content for other platforms

the beauty of recording video is that it can be repurposed into multiple formats.

• You can make small clips and shorts for other platforms.
• You can transcribe the video and create a blog from it.

You can cut your time in half, but production quality may take more money in some circumstances than other techniques.

Decide if YouTube is the best return for your time

You should look at the pros and cons of investing your time and resources in YouTube. It is determined by your available time budget and your strategy.

Book a free discovery call with me to help develop a strong marketing strategy for your hearing clinic.