Mobile IV therapy marketing: what changes when you go to the client

Draw your map before you market anything

A lounge has one address to promote. A mobile business has to decide where it will drive first, because every profile, ad and page you build depends on that list.

Pull your bookings from the last few months and sort them by town. Next to each town, write the driving time from where your nurse starts the day. Then put every town you might serve into one of these groups:

• Home area: no travel fee, and same-day visits are fine.
• Outer area: a stated travel fee or a booking minimum, such as a visit for two people.
• Not yet: you say no kindly and offer the nearest town you do serve.

Then work out what a far visit really earns. Take the visit price, subtract supplies, and divide by the hours from leaving to getting back. Do the same for a visit close to home. A far town that earns much less per hour needs a travel fee or a minimum before it gets a single ad dollar.

Tell Google you travel to clients

Google has a name for what you are. A service-area business is one that "visits or delivers to customers directly" and does not serve people at its own address. These are the rules that matter for a mobile IV business:

• "If you don't serve customers at your business address, remove your address" from the profile. That also keeps a home address off the internet.
• You get one profile. Google allows more only when locations have "separate service areas and separate staff at each location", so a second nurse in the same metro does not earn a second one.
• List towns or ZIP codes. Google allows up to 20 service areas, will not take a radius, and says your overall area should stay within about 2 hours of driving from your base. Fill those slots from your home and outer groups.
• A borrowed room does not make you a storefront. Google says that "If your business doesn't have permanent on-site signage, it's not eligible as a storefront". A Saturday chair at a gym stays out of your profile address.

A service area shows people where you go. It does not put you on the map in every town you list. Google says local results are "mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity", and it describes distance as how far each business is from the person searching. Plan on the map doing more for you close to your base. Ads and town pages have to carry the far towns. Our Business Profile guide covers the rest of the setup.

Point your ads at the towns you drive to

A mobile account can waste money fast here, because a nurse has to reach the person who clicks. Check these settings first.

Location option. By default, Google reaches people in your area "as well as those who show interest in your targeted geographic areas". Google recommends that broader setting in general, and it also says to consider Presence when you only want people in specific locations. For most mobile IV accounts, start with Presence. The trade-off is real: it can miss someone planning a wedding weekend from another state. If group events matter to you, try the broader setting for a few weeks and compare bookings.

Towns or radius. A radius is quick to set, and Google allows one as small as 1 km, but it also warns that "your ads might only show intermittently or not at all" on very small targets. A wide radius has the opposite problem. It sweeps in towns across a river or a toll bridge you will not cross. Use the same town list as your profile, or use a radius and add those towns as exclusions.

Hours. Campaigns are set to show ads "All day" by default. Change that to the hours someone can answer, or a nurse can go. Google also lets you "set numbers to appear only when your business can accept calls", which matters when your only nurse is in the middle of a visit. On a small budget you do not need extra campaigns. When the day is full, pause the campaign from the Google Ads app and turn it back on when a slot opens.

Some out-of-area people will still get through, since Google calls location targeting its "best effort to serve ads to users who meet your location settings". Keep a text ready: "Thanks for reaching out. We do not drive to [town] yet. We do go to [nearest town], so if you can be there, here is our booking link: [link]."

Write town pages a local person would use

Your ads and your search traffic both need a page that names the town. Be careful how you build them. Google's spam policies list this as doorway abuse: "Having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page".

Only build a page for a town you really drive to, and fill it with things only you would know:

• The travel fee or minimum for that town, stated in dollars.
• The arrival window you can honestly keep there.
• The hotels, gyms or offices you already go to, with their permission.
• What you need from the client there, like a gate code, a room number or where to park.

Here is a test. Swap the town name for another one. If the page still reads as true, it is not finished. Our IV therapy SEO guide goes deeper on town pages.

Build trust before the nurse reaches the door

Someone choosing a lounge can walk in and look around. Your client decides from a phone, then opens the door to a person with a needle. Your marketing has to answer that worry before they book and again before you arrive.

Put the nurse's name, credentials and a real photo on the site. Then send a message when the nurse leaves for the visit, so the client knows who to expect.

Sample text: "Hi [name], this is [nurse name], RN, from [business]. I am on my way for your [time] visit and I drive a gray SUV. Reply here if anything changes."

Think about the car too. A wrapped vehicle gets seen around town, and it also sits in a client's driveway during a health visit. Ask at booking whether the client would like you to park on the street, or use a magnetic sign you can take off.

Reviews are the proof a client can check before you arrive, and Google says "More reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking." Ask the same day, by text, with one link. Keep every ad, flyer and caption about the visit and leave health results out of it, because the FTC has charged an IV marketer with "making a range of deceptive and unsupported health claims".

Go where groups already are

Going to the client gives you something a lounge without a mobile service cannot offer. Hotels, short-term rental hosts, wedding planners, offices, gyms and tournament organizers all have people in one place, and one visit can mean several bookings. Make a short list of ones inside your home area and send a plain note.

Sample note: "Hi [name], I own [business], a nurse-owned mobile IV service in [town]. We travel to clients in this area and we handle booking and payment ourselves. Could I leave a few cards with you, and is it all right to say on our site that we visit your property?"

Give each partner its own tagged link or QR code, so you can see what each one sends.

Two cautions before any money changes hands. Some states restrict referral payments for health services, so check with your medical director or an attorney first. And if a partner gets paid or gets free visits and then recommends you online, that connection has to be clear. The FTC says an ad featuring a relative or employee is misleading unless the connection is made clear, and adds: "The same is usually true if the endorser has been paid or given something of value to tout the product."

Count bookings by town every week

Set up conversion tracking first, so Google can tell a booking from a click. Google will not know your drive times, so keep a simple sheet as well. Give each booking one row: date, town, how they found you, visit price and minutes on the road. Ask "how did you hear about us?" on every booking, because someone who saw your car and then searched your name looks like a search in your reports.

Read it once a week. Change something only when a town has enough bookings to show a pattern, which can take a few months at low volume:

• A town books and earns well. Give it its own page if it has none, and more of the ad budget.
• A town gets clicks and no bookings. Check that the page names the town and shows the travel fee.
• A town books but loses money. Raise the travel fee or set a minimum. If that does not fix it, take the town off the ads.

Google's location help page tells advertisers to "check your overall performance metrics" and change settings as needed. Treat your town list the same way.

What to do this week

1. Sort your recent bookings by town and split your area into home, outer and not yet.
2. Match your Business Profile service areas to that list, and remove your address if clients do not come to it.
3. In Google Ads, set the location option, add exclusions and set the ad schedule to hours someone can answer.
4. Put your town list and travel fees on the website where people see the prices.
5. Save the on-the-way text and the out-of-area text on your phone.
6. Send the partner note to one hotel, gym or planner.

Sources

• Manage your service areas, Google Business Profile Help
• Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Google Business Profile Help
• Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, Google Business Profile Help
• About advanced location options, Google Ads Help
• Target ads to geographic locations, Google Ads Help
• About Ad Scheduling, Google Ads Help
• About call assets, Google Ads Help
• Spam policies for Google web search, Google Search Central
• FTC Brings First-ever Action Targeting iV Cocktail Therapy Marketer, Federal Trade Commission
• FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking, Federal Trade Commission

Want us to do it for you?