Any successful healthcare marketing campaign demands both effort and innovation. In short, it is tricky and that is why very few people try their hands in it. This blog post explores few smart marketing tips for the healthcare industry shared by experienced marketers in London. Hope these tips boost your insight and please feel to contact us at Dub SEO for more tips and explanations.
Table of Contents
Let’s start with a Quick Re-cap:
Healthcare marketing is a broad term that covers marketing strategies not only for healthcare providers but also suppliers, insurers, and advocacy groups. These strategies help drive new patients and increase awareness about the healthcare-related services or products each of the players offers.
Fine-tuning strategies for Healthcare products:
You may be running a solo practice or a small clinic with less than 50 employees – when the healthcare industry is concerned, your services are the products that you try selling. Word of mouth marketing in this domain can help you up to a level, beyond which your growth gets stunted.
To maintain a steady patient flow in your practice, and innovatively designed and carefully customized comprehensive healthcare marketing plan is the basic necessity.
Conduct a thorough audit of the services and products that you offer. Taking stock of your offerings provides some crucial benefits.
- This allows you to get a crystal-clear understanding of your business.
- Provides you a better insight into your targeted patients – in marketing terminology it calls developing a patient persona.
Developing a patient persona is the primary and most important goal of your marketing effort.
Ask yourself some simple questions like the following:
- Who are my patients?
- Which age bracket do they belong to?
- What kind of jobs they are into?
- How much do they earn?
- Why do they rely on my practice to solve their health-related issues?
- How are they paying my bills?
The answers when combined empower you with enough knowledge to design a marketing strategy that resonates with your patient community and generates business. Healthcare products marketing success today is dependent largely on the quality of your website. You must have a beautiful and user-friendly website that clearly explains the following aspects:
- Who you are.
- What you can do for your patients.
- How easily patients can find you.
Content Marketing:
Professionals at a well-known healthcare marketing agency believe that content marketing blended with educational content is the most effective way in 2020 to drive new patients and customers to your healthcare business.
One in five web users has an ad blocker installed on their browser. Thus, you are throwing your money in the Thames just as easily if you are investing in placing ads online.
The world is so badly filled with noise that indeed difficult to get your message heard. Thus, you have to multiply your effort to achieve the goal. The healthcare industry is further divided into several segments. But across the board the reality is one and simple:
There is an audience who will buy your products:
That audience accesses the web to educate himself before interacting with or buying from a vendor. Compared to other industries, everyone is so anxious to learn something new and upgrade the knowledge base in healthcare. Whether it is about tips and tricks about ground-breaking advancements, common news related to the industry, or new diagnostic ways.
This is where skilled and experienced healthcare marketers come in and bridge the gap! It is the result of their efforts that your brand will place in front of the right audiences at the right time.
It is relevant mentioning that content strategy is not just about writing content and praying till it shows up on the first page of organic search results. Post fresh, original content that covers interesting and popular topics related to your business on various social platforms as well as guest posts on third-party niche high-authority websites. Ranging from Facebook and LinkedIn to Twitter, Instagram – there are many digital platforms to cater to your needs.
Importance of mobile responsive website:
The ongoing context calls for the involvement of professionals from Healthcare Marketing London. According to them if your healthcare website is not mobile responsive prepare to spend the rest of 2021 without any significant volume of organic traffic. Google is thoroughly dedicated to implementing its mobile-first index. In short, under this particular search algorithm, Google shows only those websites in its organic search results that have their mobile version.
Thus, if your healthcare business lacks a mobile-optimized website, it gets automatically ignored from all organic search results. But when a user or users search with the brand name itself, only then your business shows up in the resultant SERP. This Google strategy is absolutely in sync with the current trend. Web traffic coming from handheld devices is rapidly rising compared to that coming from desktops and laptops.
If you have any CTA (Call to Action), make sure it has a clear and easy-to-understand message. Ensure that the CTA place in a strategic position so that it is easy to spot.
Video marketing:
While marketing your business practice always keep in mind that YouTube is not just a video website, rather it is a search engine. According to statistics, YouTube is a much bigger search engine compared to Yahoo!, Bing, Ask.com, and AoL combined. At the center of your 2020 marketing strategy make sure to place video marketing. You may invest in a 10-second ad that plays before YouTube videos. Or, you may also create a channel that promotes the vision of your business along with people, products, and services related to it.
Video content invariably personalizes your healthcare brand and makes it more easily approachable for the target audience. Your video content must be rich in both quality and quantity. There are lots of ways to improve any video content but make sure this fact should never put you in paralysis of stopping the content from launch.
Multi-channel initiatives and touch-points of your customers:
Make sure your customers can reach you fast and smoothly across almost all the channels that are available. Include options like text messaging, chatbots, and even some of the most basic chat options for the purpose. In 2020 anything that provides a unique user experience and boosts user engagement is the key to success in healthcare marketing campaigns.
The greater number of touch-point options you offer your mobile and web visitors, the higher the user experience of your website, which facilitates a higher engagement rate and conversion. Even though a negligible volume of the target audience will call on your landline number, yet it is crucial to display it prominently on your website.
In short, you have to keep all the options open and appreciate your customers so that they leave happier than they arrived.
Online Reputation:
In 2020 you must control the narrative of what users say online about your healthcare business. And of course, take necessary corrective steps whenever required.
You may provide the best services or products but if your business’s online reputation is not very bright – maintaining a steady patient flow to your business is difficult. Trust is the most crucial factor to bring patients to your business in the healthcare sector. If you want to convert visitors into patients or customers, make sure that your brand is the one they can trust. Your site should have a professional look and give correct suggestions to visitors in every step.
Mixed reviews and articles paint a brand in poor light as far the healthcare sector concern. Hire professional help to deal with such issues.
Exploit social media to get business:
In 2020, healthcare brands need a foolproof social media marketing plan for success. Stress on the following:
- Consistent posting schedule
- Sharing original posts that are also visually appealing
- Prompt reply to reviews
- Collect patient feedback through Q&A
- Inviting influencers on board
Location-based SEO to generate business:
Healthcare businesses have to rely on location-based SEO services. If your business has a physical location, then you can reap a rich harvest from location-based SEO and geotagging your location in your posts. Location-specific content plays a crucial role to reach out to and tap on your targeted audience. Use long-tail keywords or key phrases in creating your content. This way you resonate with your potential customers easily and get high-quality traffic from the local community.
Advanced analytics and Artificial intelligence (AI):
These are very crucial tools for healthcare brands to appear before the right customers at the right time with the right products or services.
Google Search Console or GSC is a powerful tool to understand consumer behavior for any business and healthcare brands are no exception. With loads of highly relevant and useful data within easy access, you get a much better understanding of your visitors as well as customers with help of AI algorithms.
Healthcare marketing in 2021 is not difficult, provided you dare to think out of the box and tread on virgin paths.
