Healthcare marketing is what hospitals, private practices, and other similar facilities use to keep in contact with past and present patients, and to draw new business to their facility. Even though healthcare is sometimes a necessity, and there is a lot of federal funding to help people pay for theirs, that money still goes to a care provider, and a solid healthcare marketing strategy will help a given facility find and keep their patients.
The COVID pandemic caused a lot of facilities to shuffle things around to make room for more victims of the virus, and this resulted in a lot of telehealth due to the lack of hospital space. One result of the pandemic has been a bigger commercial reliance on ecommerce and web use, and even when everyone is safe to run around and hug each other again, many experts believe things like ecommerce, remote work, and distance learning will all continue to thrive now that people have experienced the flexibility they afford. With that, digital marketing in all fields, including healthcare, will be more important after the pandemic than it was before.
Here are 3 ways you can better your healthcare marketing strategy in 2021.
Table of Contents
Consistent Branding
Branding is the style and overall message you are trying to convey to your target audience about a product or service (in healthcare it can be both). If your website, for instance, has a certain text style and rustic feel, your email newsletters, printed marketing materials, and any video content should contain the same. When it comes to text, it’s also important to know your major selling points and keep their order of importance consistent. You don’t want to say “Oncology is our specialty” on one advertisement and “The best place in town for dental work” on the next. Your facility may be both of those (though an odd combo), but conveying a message that encapsulates both will prevent potential customers from seeing two different things and thinking you are just trying to sell them on whatever they want to hear. Things like “One stop healthcare” or something like that would work much better.
Social media also comes into play with consistent branding and making all of your accounts look and feel like the others makes your brand more recognizable, ultimately sticking it in people’s heads.
Reviews
Reviews or patient confessionals often shape healthcare trends. Wearables, for example (Fitbit, etc.) become extremely popular, extremely quickly, and it was in part due to an endless supply of positive reviews about the product. Likely, many reviews already exist at places like Yelp, and there are no glaring cons for scrolling through and reading what people have to say. It can be used as a way to learn, and you can also take positive reviews and share them on social media and other digital outlets. If you think someone was exceptionally satisfied with their service, encourage them to write one for you!
Analyze
The data industry is expected to grow to $274 billion by the end of next year, and some experts believe that is conservative, as so many people remain online for work and school (data doesn’t only get tracked online, but it’s where the majority is found). Utilizing a customer relationship management system (CRM) allows you to track your customer’s data, and utilizing machine learning (part of artificial intelligence), these analytic programs can help your message find a narrow niche, and also help you see what’s working and what isn’t.
Beyond 2021
There are a lot more granular tips related to marketing, but these three stand out because they have aspects of old-school marketing, as well as new-school. Arming yourself with some sort of consistent periodical relative to marketing trends can help you be at the front of the next one!
