Over the last few years, we have seen a digital marketing boom. Every industry has started incorporating a digital marketing strategy in their marketing campaigns. The healthcare industry has also joined the bandwagon by making their presence felt in the online world. Healthcare, like any other industry, needs to be visible online to promote their business, generate traffic to their website, increase brand awareness, increase customer engagement and increase profitability. The strategy for digital marketing for healthcare industry must be designed keeping in mind their target audience.
Searching and understanding health and health-related information is one of the most popular online activities. People constantly look for healthcare solutions online. Healthcare industry cannot neglect digital marketing as it has the potential to make healthcare services more accessible to the customers.
To leverage digital marketing for the healthcare industry, businesses should employ an experienced digital marketing agency like Max Effect Marketing. We will provide search engine marketing, SEO, PPC and social media marketing services, which are going to help your business to gain visibility, enhance traffic and generate sales.
How Healthcare Industry Can Benefits from Digital Marketing
People are more health conscious now than ever. Rather than blindly trusting the physicians or doctors, people go online to understand more about health and the diseases. This growing trend in awareness and the growing inquisitiveness of people has radically affected the healthcare industry.
Fitness lovers download apps on their mobiles to log distance covered, and monitor weight, blood pressure, etc. This is undeniably an important factor in digital marketing for the healthcare industry. Social media can drive both negative and positive word of mouth. This makes it an important channel for organizations and individuals in the healthcare industry to focus on attracting as well as retaining patients. Many doctors believe that the authenticity and transparency that social media helps spur is improving the quality of care provided by them to the patients.
There has been a visible transformation in the healthcare industry that creates both opportunities and challenges for marketers. There are two variables which drive this transition. One is the rise of the digitally empowered healthcare consumer and the other is the shift from a fee for service payment to a healthcare delivery model based on patient satisfaction, quality outcomes and transparency.
It affects both the ‘who’ and ‘how’ of marketing strategies in the medical industry. Therefore, there has been a transformation in the role of physicians as decision-makers.
Key trends in the healthcare industry aiding the relevance of digital marketing
Customers are well-informed
A recent survey indicates that customers are no longer satisfied to blindly accept what a doctor tells them. They prefer doing their homework before visiting a doctor. This means that the doctor no longer has the only say on medications, hospitals, treatment and more; Healthcare is more like a collaboration between the doctors and consumers now.
Customers are different for each product or service
Each product or service has a different target audience. Targeting the generic customer through your digital marketing for healthcare industry won’t help. The digital marketing strategy must define their potential customers based on products and services offered.
Digital channels have taken over traditional marketing channels
Digital marketing is infused in almost every sector, the healthcare industry continuing to be a growing market. The last couple of years have seen a leap in the preference of digital marketing in the healthcare industry over traditional marketing. Since consumer marketing tricks are shifting greatly to digital ads, social media, and mobile apps; the shift to digital channels in the healthcare industry is not surprising.
Search engines plays a strong role
Search engines are used by 77% of the patients before booking appointments. Search drives nearly 3 times as many visitors to hospital sites as compared to the number of visitors from other affiliate/referral sites. 44% of patients schedule an appointment after researching about the hospital on a mobile device.
The growth of the healthcare market
The healthcare market has shown tremendous growth in the last few years. The digital world has brought about quite a change in the healthcare industry. The average life expectancy of human beings will grow in the coming years with the strong emphasis on digital technologies which will help maintain good health for the customers.
Digital Marketing Strategies for Healthcare Industry
A very engaging and content-rich website serves as the welcome mat to your organization. It is the first impression your company has and plays a strong role in a patient’s decision to choose your facility or go elsewhere. With this in mind, you want the user experience to be as easy as possible. Chances are if someone is on your website, they are looking for answers for themselves or a loved one and want to find what they’re looking for quickly, so that they can take an action.
Email marketing is another strategy that can be implemented. The key is to provide your email database with a variety of information to best capture your audience’s interest. Use email personalization and segmentation based on a recipient’s interest and needs so they’re receiving information relevant to them. Send out a video, a current blog post or provide industry news that will give readers information on various topics.
A blog which is up to date with the latest topics and has a steady stream of content that covers a variety of health concerns is a good way to promote yourself. Its navigation should make it simple to browse topics by health categories, such as men’s health or heart health. Readers can easily find the blog subscription and the most commented blogs indicating the engagement should be shown first.
A strong digital marketing strategy for the healthcare industry is most effective when it is managed in a streamlined way, where each component is in sync with one another, rather than soloed. In addition to regular meetings with your team about your marketing strategy to discuss changes or updates, connect these elements to a content management platform.
Max Effect Marketing helps you to create such a strategy and implement it in such a way that it enables you to track the performance of your efforts and identify areas for improvement.