MEDICAL MARKETING CASE STUDIES
Reproductive Sciences Center (RSC)
West Valley Fertility Center (WVFC)
Southern California Center for Reproductive Medicine (SCCRM)
University of Southern California Fertility (USC IVF)
Fertility Center of California (FCC)
Male Fertility Specialists (MFS)
Elite Fertility Solutions (EFS)
San Diego Fertility Center (SDFC)
Changes Plastic Surgery San Diego
Craniosacral Therapy San Diego
Fertility Marketing Showcase
San Diego Fertility Center (SDFC), Dr. William Hummel & Dr. Michael Kettel
This one of nine major fertility clinics in San Diego had previously been working with a local marketing agency in San Diego, which mainly provided PR services. When taking over the marketing activities in 2001, the immediate need was to design a new website that allowed easy expansion for new content to attract repeat visitors to the site. Since launch of the website www.sdfertility.com in November 2001, San Diego Fertility Center started out with 62 pages and increased content to 178 pages over a 3 year period. The fertility center's website was ranked No.1 on over 100 major keyphrases in San Diego on all important search engines. Website visitor numbers increased by 550% and the average time each visitor spent on the site increased by 350% in a three year period.
In 2005, it was time to redesign and restructure the site to adhere to current web standards to serve the community even better. Besides new and unique content, the new site launched in November 2005 includes a site-wide search feature, easy to find free multi-media patient education tools, and a Site Center. It complies with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s "Guidelines for advertising by ART programs" and folows the advertising regulations of the California Medical Board. It also follows the American Medical Association’s ‘Guidelines for medical and health information sites on the Internet and is HON Code certified. The site is written in the most advanced HTML code. The contact forms are transferred via Secure Socket Layer (SSL). Using validating cascading style sheet (CSS) design and XHTML valid code, the site is Section 508 compliant, which is helpful for physically disabled visitors and for visitors accessing the site via a handheld device. After the first two months on the web, we ran a search engine position report on on 27 important keyphrases. On Google alone there was an aggregate increase of 133 positions with 5 new top 10 rankings (Site launch November 2005, search engine postition report January 2006). In May 2006, 50% of fertility patients report that they have visited the site before making an appointment for a consultation. The total number of unique visitors increased by more than 100% over a 4 month period (February to May 2006).
After the main website took over the No.1 spot in search engine rankings for fertility on the local market, the marketing efforts were concentrating on reaching competitive rankings nationwide and overseas. In June 2004, a new website, www.eggdonor4u.com, was launched to increase national and international promotion of the specialized services of egg donation for the Center. The new, search engine optimized site was immediately promoted in national and international pay-per-click campaigns to increase the number of referring sites and quality traffic. International patients from over 35 countries visit the site every month. Within a nine-month period, site marketing caused to multiply the number of egg donor candidate applications and doubled the number of egg donor cycles at the center. With the increasing demand of egg donor applications and recipients alike, we implemented a convenient and secure online application tool for egg donor candidates in December 2005, which quadrupled the number of donor applications within weeks and reducing administration and paperwork of the program significantly. In May 2006, a searchable and sortable online donor database was launched, making donor matching process more efficient for recipient couples and SDFC staff.
San Diego Fertility Center also used our services to monitor patient satisfaction over time, expand the physician referral network and expand patient educational materials such as a monthly electronic newsletter, patient manual on mini CD ROM, brochure redesign, and online patient education videos.
Live patient seminars were initially held at the San Diego Fertility Center. With increasing patient volume from outside San Diego county, we added a virtual tour of the facility as it is used in real estate and decided to use the Internet to broadcast seminars. For convenience for physicians and patients, two seminars were recorded and have been made permanently available on the main website. Attendance can be monitored and marketing data is recorded via a password protected login portal. Instead of a simple video, latest technology is used for the seminar displaying the speaker and the presentation slide, allowing attendees to download handouts and asking the presenter a question via email.
With the help of our marketing efforts, San Diego Fertility Center was able to constantly increase overall patient volume and double patient volume of their preferred cases.
Comments about our work from the physicians:
“You fill a special place at the San Diego Fertility Center – we love having you here! Your expertise in marketing, computers and multiple means of communication keep us on the cutting edge of a highly successful fertility center! Thank you!” William P. Hummel, MD
“Thank you for all the things you do for us! Sometimes they go un-noticed, but their count all the same and we appreciate it greatly.” L. Michael Kettel, MD