Many patients could benefit from stem cell therapy, but people often don’t know that legitimate treatment options exist, which clinics are trustworthy, and how to get started.

Your stem cell therapy marketing strategy should solve these problems by making patients aware of treatment options, building trust with your brand, and giving them the knowledge they need to take the next step.

Unfortunately, this is easier said than done because:

1. The industry has bad actors (and patients are aware of it).
2. Stem cell therapy is a relatively new treatment with limited research and data.
3. HIPAA compliance and other healthcare compliance laws make marketing more challenging

To solve these problems, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step marketing strategy you can use to get leads for your stem cell clinic.

The Challenges of Stem Cell Therapy Marketing

Here’s a more detailed look at some of the unique challenges of stem cell therapy marketing and then we’ll lay out a step by step guide to overcome each one.

#1. Earning Patient Confidence Amid Industry Skepticism

Stem cell therapy is a relatively new treatment and patients know that bad actors exist. This combination makes many prospective patients skeptical, and unlike routine healthcare treatments, converting a stem cell therapy patient requires a higher level of education and trust. 

To add to the challenge, incorporating patient testimonials is tricky due to patient privacy and HIPAA.

Instead, build trust by creating thought leadership content with doctors, earning brand mentions through local and nationally recognized organizations, and creating free resources that educate patients on stem cell therapy.

#2. Outperforming Trusted, Established Healthcare Institutions 

Search engines and LLMs (like ChatGPT) never want to spread misinformation or point users towards untrustworthy sources. 

This means it’s very difficult for specialized stem cell therapy clinics to outrank trusted medical institutions that have existed for decades. 

To build authority, build select links from high quality sources by providing expert quotes to industry publications, sending doctors on respected healthcare podcasts, and sponsoring credible conferences and local events. 

Another option is to create links to content specifically related to stem cell therapy to signal to patients and search engines that your clinic is an authority in that niche topic.

#3. Abiding by Compliance Laws and Platform Policies

Advertising platforms strictly regulate medical advertisements, and you must also consider federal regulations.

If you hire a generic local marketing agency or outsource marketing tasks to a junior team member, your account could be banned by platforms like Facebook and Google. 

Worse, you could incur heavy legal fines and damage your clinic’s reputation. 

Therefore, you must learn the laws of healthcare advertising before creating any campaigns or working with an agency specializing in healthcare marketing (like Quantum Leads).

#4. Long Buying Cycles 

Stem cell therapy patients spend months educating themselves on the treatment, so tracking which marketing efforts attract the right patients can be difficult. 

Additionally, longer buying cycles require more lead nurture (like email marketing, content marketing, etc.).

If you’re exclusively targeting bottom of funnel keywords, you’ll find that they convert poorly simply because most people won’t convert into patients if they’ve never heard of your clinic. 

Instead, create content that makes patients aware of your brand and builds trust before they’re ready to convert. 

This will make your brand their top choice when they’re ready to convert.

Our Stem Cell Therapy Lead Generation Process 

We’ve developed a lead generation process that accounts for the challenges mentioned above and still allows us to build an effective type of 

Step 1: Google Business Profile Optimization

SEO is the strategy that can help you rank at the top of Google’s organic (non-paid) results for a keyword like “Best stem cell therapy in (city name).”

The first step in our SEO strategy is always optimizing your Google Business Profile. The Google Business Profile is the small box on the side of Google Search when someone searches your clinic’s name. 

Here are Google’s instructions on how to set up your Google Business Profile. It’s important to fill it out thoroughly (e.g., adding high-quality photos, providing a thorough description, etc.), and they’ll send you a postcard to verify the address.

Also, ensure that your name, address, and phone number are correct, as Google will cross-check this information across other directories like Yelp. If there are any discrepancies, you could lose credibility (and therefore rankings).

Finally, encourage patients to leave reviews. If you earn more reviews, you’ll likely find that your clinic will rank higher in the map pack for local results. 

Rankings in the map pack depend on various factors, including your clinic’s location relative to the searcher and your website’s general authority, though reviews are also a significant factor.

While it’s against FTC laws to offer a monetary incentive for patients to leave reviews, you can ask them for reviews.

We’ve seen the best results from simply asking patients in person to leave a review and even handing them a QR code to the Google Reviews page as they’re about to leave. 

Step 2: Optimize The Website For Local and Condition Based Keywords

Even if you’ve filled out your Google Business Profile, that doesn’t mean your website will automatically show up for keywords potential patients are searching. You also need pages optimized for relevant keywords to help you discover your website.

The most critical keyword frameworks are:

• Local keywords: “Stem cell therapy in Atlanta”
• Condition-based keywords: “Stem cell therapy for knee pain”

First, create pages for location-based keywords.  

This will help you appear for searches like “stem cell therapy in (city name).”

You can create a location page for any city near your clinic – even if you don’t have a clinic in that city. 

While you’ll only show up in the map pack for searches in which you have a physical location nearby (e.g., “stem cell therapy in Atlanta”), you can still show up in the blue links for any location based keyword search. 

On each location page, include the main keyword for that city (e.g., “stem cell therapy in Atlanta”) and specific aspects of that location, like doctors who work there, treatment options, and the facility’s amenities.

 

In addition to location pages, create pages for each condition you treat. The keyword frameworks for conditions usually look like “stem cell therapy for X.”

You can use a tool like Ahrefs to see a list of the most commonly searched conditions, including:

• Stem cell therapy for knees
• Stem cell therapy for hair loss
• Stem cell therapy for back pain 
• Stem cell therapy for autism
• Stem cell therapy for arthritis
• Stem cell therapy for diabetes

For each page, create educational content outlining research on stem cell therapy for that particular condition (or at least related conditions).

Ideally, interview your doctor directly to get their input on how the procedure for that condition is executed, the cost involved, verified success rates, and a general overview of what to expect. 

These pages should be primarily educational and help patients feel more comfortable with the idea of stem cell therapy while also introducing them to the services offered by your clinic.

Step 3: Build Relevant Links

As mentioned earlier, outranking an established institution like UC Davis or Harvard is difficult because search engines and LLMs want to only lead potential patients to credible sources – especially regarding medical information.

While it’s unrealistic to earn as much credibility as these larger institutions, you can earn more credibility than them in your town and within the stem cell industry specifically. 

Here’s a three step process you can use to do this. 

1: Build Citations

Citations are essentially listings in directories like Yelp and ZocDoc. 

You can use a tool like BrightLocal to identify relevant citations:

However, your name, address, and phone number must be consistent across all directories, as any discrepancies can hurt your rankings. 

Again, tools like BrightLocal can find inconsistencies in your name, address, and phone number (NAP).

2: Build Local Links

Most legitimate businesses sponsor local organizations and generally contribute to the community. 

As a result, many of these local organizations link back to their websites. Google and LLMs consider these brand mentions and links when judging a website’s credibility and authority and reward them accordingly. 

So contact local events in your area and offer to sponsor them. 

To find local charities or events to sponsor, you can search your city and “our sponsors.”

For example, St Jude has a selection of sponsors for a local dinner. A link from St Jude would significantly increase your website’s credibility. 

You can also contact local colleges and universities and offer to sponsor a scholarship. 

3: Build Links in Leading Industry Publications

To further build credibility, earn links and brand mentions from nationally recognized publications with content related to stem cell therapy. 

For example, reach out to health related podcasts and ask if your doctors can come on their show and provide insights on stem cell research.

The best way to find these podcasts is to search for podcasts related to longevity and the various conditions stem cell therapy can relieve.

You can also reach out to health-related publications and ask if you can contribute an article on the latest stem cell research with your doctor’s expert commentary. 

SparkToro is another excellent resource for finding publications, podcasts, and YouTube channels related to topics like longevity. 

Here’s what it showed me when I typed in “longevity:”

Another option is to sponsor nationally recognized healthcare events and conferences. For example, you could enter a competitor’s URL into a tool like Ahrefs, click on the “Backlinks” report, and then type in “sponsor” as a keyword.

You’ll see that this stem cell clinic sponsored the Age Med conference. Therefore, you could also reach out and sponsor the same conference:

Sponsoring these events and promoting your doctors in industry publications and podcasts increases your website’s authority and your clinic’s credibility with patients. 

As a result, they’ll be more trusting and likely convert faster.

Step 4: Content Marketing

One of the challenges of stem cell therapy marketing is that it’s a long buying cycle. Most people don’t immediately schedule consultations the first day they hear about stem cell therapy.

Instead, they do some research on the topic and then reach out to a provider who seems credible to schedule a consultation. 

To ensure you’re the provider potential patients trust to reach out to when they’re ready, create content about stem cell therapy and research that a patient might want to know as they’re researching the topic. 

This helps your clinic build a trusting relationship with them during the research process.

In addition to the condition pages you already created, you can target keywords like:

• What is stem cell therapy?
• The cost of stem cell therapy
• Insurance coverage for stem cell therapy
• Where is stem cell therapy legal?

Create content for these topics and any relevant industry news and publish it on your blog and social media.

Step 5: Run Local Google Ads

Once you’ve started building authority and have a credible website to send users to, run Google ads for location based keywords.

Specifically, here are the keywords we usually target:   

• Stem cell therapy in [city]
• Stem cell therapy for [condition] [city name]
• [Condition] in [city name]
• Stem cell therapy cost [city name]

In practice, here’s what some of these keyword frameworks might look like:

• Stem cell therapy in Atlanta
• Stem cell therapy for knee pain in Atlanta 
• Knee pain in Atlanta
• Stem cell therapy cost Atlanta

Also, always target your own brand name, as your competitors might bid on your brand name and steal clicks if you don’t.

For example, UC Davis is bidding on this practice’s brand name:

As you create a campaign, you can use Exact Match, Phrase Match, and Broad Match terms. 

We generally recommend using phrase match keywords. Exact match tends to be too narrow as most searches are unique, whereas a broad match may generate irrelevant traffic and clicks, wasting your ad budget.

You can also add negative keywords to keep the search results relevant when using phrase match. 

For example, “stem cell therapy Mexico” would be a negative keyword if you exclusively practice in the United States.

Another tip is to use Google’s geotargeting feature to ensure your ads are only shown to people within a set radius of your clinic.

Alternatively, you can also exclude locations. For example, if you notice that certain areas tend to generate unqualified prospects, you can exclude those geographies from your searches. 

In addition to optimizing the ad targeting, you’ll also need to create the ads themselves. 

Google makes this relatively easy. You’ll arrive on a page where you can write out a variety of headlines:

You’ll also have the option to create longer headlines:

Google will mix and match your suggestions, but the most important thing is to keep the language professional. 

Here are some guidelines:

• Highlight professional credentials and experience
• Use terms like “Consultation,” “evaluation,” or “assessment” language
• Include location and contact information 
• Maintain an educational focus (“Learn about,” “Understand your options”)
• Highlight specific conditions you treat 

Avoid language or claims like:

• Guaranteed outcomes or “cure” 
• Experimental treatment claims 
• Patient testimonials in ads (keep it HIPAA compliant)
• Pricing without context

If you want more inspiration for your content, consider checking out the Google Ads Transparency Center, where you can look at competitors’ ads.  

As stem cell therapy is still a relatively new treatment option, you can also look at more competitive medical industries for inspiration, like plastic surgeons.

In addition to the ads themselves, you’ll also need to choose landing pages. 

Avoid driving leads to your generic homepage and instead either create dedicated landing pages or simply optimize your location or service pages to drive conversions.

Specifically, here are a few tips to optimize your landing pages for conversions:

1. Add Trust Signals: Mention any medical licenses, board certifications, and professional headshots of your doctors. Photos of that location itself can also help.
2. Include Clinic Photos: Adding photos of the clinic itself shows patients that it’s a real location, and it’s also excellent from an SEO standpoint.
3. Use Clear Call-to-Actions: Use action-oriented language like “Schedule Your Consultation,” “Get Your Questions Answered,” or “Book Your Evaluation.” 
4. Provide a Process Overview: Explain how the treatment process works and what they can expect in terms of preparation and recovery.
5. Provide Educational Content: Create content explaining how stem cell therapy, studies done, and other information that patients typically ask in a consultation.

Avoid any fear-based language and any language that would rush patients.

It’s also important to remain HIPAA compliant and avoid sharing any patient case studies.

Finally, make sure the landing page is well designed for mobile and easy for patients to immediately call.

You’ll also need to set up Google Tag Manager to ensure it’s accurately tracking conversions. 

From there, you can further optimize the landing pages, ads, and targeting based on what works.

Get More Help Generating Leads For Your Stem Cell Clinic 

This is the exact playbook we use to generate leads for stem cell clinics nationwide. 

However, there are plenty of nuances at each step of the process that can significantly impact the ROI of your marketing efforts.

For example, optimizing the landing page or copy of your Google ads based on historical data is a skill that requires years of experience to perfect.

If you’re interested in earning more leads for your stem cell clinic, reach out to us today.