It’s More Than Designing a Website — It’s About Helping People in Pain
Overview
Let us introduce you to Donald Berry: father of six, a former competitive weight trainer, and a patient of DISC Sports & Spine Center who had suffered with back pain for many years. He is just one of the five patients that we interviewed during the discovery process to identify buyer personas for the practice’s website redesign project. His story was, unfortunately, all too common among those that we spoke to throughout this project. Patients like Donald had been suffering with pain and been misdiagnosed or given incorrect and ineffective information to relieve their pain.
"I've suffered with my back for over 15 years, steadily over the years it grew worse. By the time I got to Dr. Bray (at DISC Sports & Spine Center) I couldn't walk more than a couple hundred feet without pain or numbness. A couple hours after surgery they had me stand up and it was such an amazing difference I actually don't have words for it. The best experience I've ever had medically. Even to this day, I celebrate when I stand up. I use a personal trainer and he is absolutely amazed where I am now. My only regret is not getting to DISC sooner." - Donald Berry
Dr. Robert Bray of DISC Sport & Spine Center is a world-renowned spinal surgeon who came to SmartBug Media to redesign the company’s website on the HubSpot platform, start an inbound marketing program, and help the organization connect with patients like Donald Berry and share those success stories on a new website.
Increase in Visits from Organic Traffic
15%
Increase in Contacts from Organic Traffic
900%
Increase in Visits from Social Media
1193%
DISC Sports & Spine Center was established and founded in 2006 by Dr. Robert Bray Jr., a board certified neurological spine surgeon, who has performed more than 13,000 surgeries, holds more than 27 patents, and has trained more than 25 fellows throughout his career. DISC Sports & Spine Center has two state-of-the-art facilities located in Southern California — one in Marina del Rey and the other in Newport Beach. There are about 40 physicians who focus on these main areas of service:
- Spine care
- Sports medicine
- Orthopedics
- Pain management
The old DISC Sports & Spine Center website was built on the WordPress platform and hadn’t been updated for many years prior to hiring SmartBug Media in the fall of 2017. The website looked outdated and was performing poorly when it came to lead generation. There were limited opportunities for visitors to convert on the website because there was only one form to request an appointment as shown below.
Delivering the Works
- Inbound Marketing
- HubSpot Implementation
- Paid Media Strategy
- Website Design
Based on interviews of several patients, we identified that the ideal buyer persona profile consisted of the following traits:
- An individual in need of spine surgery
- One that has the ability to pay for the surgery/treatment/procedure through insurance and/or out of pocket
- Is a resident of Southern California or has the ability to travel to Southern California to one of the two DISC Sports & Spine Center locations
These individuals also wanted to be able to connect with and trust their physician to provide the best care possible. It was important for us to communicate DISC Sports & Spine Center’s meaningful value proposition on the website throughout the website copy as outlined in their mission statement:
“DISC Sports & Spine Center is committed to providing personalized, top-quality diagnosis and treatment to patients suffering from sports injuries, orthopedic issues, and spine disorders. To accomplish this mission, DISC has developed a highly integrated approach that customizes care across DISCiplines while embracing minimally and non-invasive techniques.”
To appeal to its target audience, we needed to create a new sitemap that outlined the most important information based on the personas’ buyer’s journey. We created new resources for contacts to download and read about spine care and to assist with lead generation. While designing the new website, DISC Sports & Spine Center developed several new videos to share their patients’ stories and to help visitors connect with the physicians. We needed to write and create new support pages and allow the website visitor to tour the facilities while online, too.
We added additional CTAs in bright orange throughout the website to make it easier for visitors to research information about treatment options, learn about the physicians, and request an appointment or speak with DISC Sports & Spine Center. Throughout the website, we included photos of individuals horseback riding, running, weight lifting, riding bikes, and hiking to appeal to the target audience that is living a more active lifestyle in Southern California.