Healthcare marketing, like other forms of marketing, is becoming increasingly consumer-friendly. Rather than talking at consumers, marketers are starting conversations with them. Want to create healthcare marketing that resonates? Keep the following trends in mind when marketing.
Have a Clear Mission in Mind
Make sure your healthcare organization has a clear mission statement in place. If one doesn’t exist, it’s critical to create one. It should align with your business’s values and make sense with the services you provide. You will then use this mission statement to plan your marketing strategy.
Succeed in B2B and B2C
Being involved in the healthcare industry will likely mean you will need to market to not only patients, but their insurance providers. Have consumer and business facing pages on your website and consider creating separate social accounts for the two. Both want to see you’re an expert in the field, obviously. But their needs beyond that will diverge significantly.
Patients Regularly Research
Patients these days have an active voice when it comes to their health. In every step of the process, they will likely do some sort of research: research on potential doctors and hospitals, their symptoms or diagnosed conditions, and treatment options. In fact, 72% of Internet users have researched online for health information within the past year.
Don’t Neglect Digital Marketing
Traditional marketing continues to lose relevancy and digital is continuously growing in importance. 77% of consumers will use search prior to making medical appointments, so improving your search engine ranking will be critical in helping consumers find you. You’ll also need to ensure a modern, easy-to-use site; otherwise you may scare visitors away.
Social and email are also great tools. Create a unique voice for your brand and have fun with these forms of communication! It could be a new customer’s first introduction to your business.
Videos Enhance Healthcare Marketing
Although videos often oversaturate many industries (think of all the recipes you find on Facebook), healthcare doesn’t seem to be one of them. Have a health professional discuss diseases, treatment, and other aspects of healthcare via video. Use creativity to help make the informative videos more entertaining to watch.
Become a Thought Leader in the Healthcare Industry
Thought leadership is a perfect form of marketing for healthcare related businesses. As stated earlier, patients do their research, so why not provide the answers they’re looking for, all while familiarizing them with your brand? Provide the content they’re looking for through case studies, thought leadership, and other forms of content. Case studies also offer an additional benefit: they prove your value and back up your claims of superior service.
Discuss Wellness
It’s become increasingly popular for healthcare businesses to include some wellness-related content among their other marketing efforts. Offering wellness tips or, better yet, a wellness challenge for employees and/or customers to participate goes a long way. You’re promoting the well-being and preventative care of your customers.
United Healthcare launched a very successful wellness campaign with “We Dare You.” They include monthly “dares,” quizzes, and prizes on their website. They then encourage consumers to show off their challenge efforts on social media, further spreading the word of their campaign and building a relationship with its participants.
Use Data to Improve Your Marketing Efforts
Find a way to effectively collect and interpret relevant data related to your business. Understanding what consumers are looking for and what resonates with them will help you drastically improve any messaging.
Healthcare Marketing that Helps
Having clear focus, using modern tools, and keeping vital healthcare trends in mind will help you successfully navigate the world of healthcare marketing.
Learn some stats on healthcare marketing trends.
Check out these brilliant examples of healthcare marketing.