Digital marketing in the healthcare industry includes tactics and strategies healthcare organizations use to efficiently reach their patients, consumers, and members through various digital platforms. Platforms, such as email, SMS, social media, and the web, provide the target audience with the information they need, where they need it, and when they need it.
Through digital marketing, doctors and other health specialists get the opportunity to showcase their services to the digital world that extends beyond their locality. It also allows them to build a strong and professional territory and boost their healthcare reputation.
Importance of Digital Health Marketing
The shift in consumer expectations requires healthcare organizations to keep up with them through the right channel and the right message at the right time. Digital health marketing ensures consumer retention and promotes patient acquisition, thus allowing health systems to keep growing their market share as a result of increased competition. Moreover, digital marketing brings the following advantages for health tech and life science teams:
- It creates a repeatable income generation process and allows healthcare experts to add value to their companies.
- It is measurable and encourages the marketing team to make well-informed and data-driven decisions.
- It helps the business build a direct relationship with its target audience and potential consumers, which can later be turned into brand loyalty and increased sales.
- It allows hospitals and other healthcare facilities to segment campaigns targeting suburban, rural, or local areas.
- It allows access to different tools, channels, and platforms to scale digital campaigns, thereby driving quality leads to the service.
Healthcare institutions, academic research facilities, and digital health startups are some of the main categories of organizations competing to get into the digital healthcare space.
Digital Health Marketing Strategies
Healthcare companies are distinctly positioned to leverage digital marketing solutions to draw in the audience, convert them into paying customers, and retain them for services in the future. The core practices of an effective digital marketing strategy for healthcare include the following:
- Attracting the audience: Healthcare facilities need digital marketing strategies to reach an audience on their preferred platforms, such as text, email, web, and social media. Outbound digital marketing tactics should attract potential consumers and turn them loyal customers.
- Acquiring Consumers: Once the target audience becomes aware of your healthcare organization, digital marketing tactics help convert leads into paying customers. Here, digital platforms like email and SMS are important in encouraging patient engagement in proactive and preventative care.
- Retaining Patients: Turning your patients into loyal customers is as crucial as acquiring them. This can help save costs and proves more valuable than patient acquisition programs. Digital health marketing enables companies to prove their value and motivate patients to further engage with them.
Top Digital Marketing Trends in the Healthcare Industry
It is no surprise that digital marketing is everywhere. For example, more than 90% of healthcare patients look for reviews online before choosing a doctor, so it is a good idea for healthcare sector participants to have a strong presence online. Listed below are the top digital marketing trends of 2023.
Creating a Responsive Website
Around 50% of patients looking to book appointments online report an unresponsive or non-user-friendly website. This study makes it clear that patients are looking for a responsive website or they could be easily lost to competitors.
A responsive website adapts to the size of the screen, making it easier to navigate and read. Clients use different devices, such as tablets, phones, and laptops, so having a responsive website will prevent the content from appearing clunky and slow.
Implementing the Best SEO Practices
Having the right SEO strategy for your organization is integral to be found when a prospective customer carries out an online search. The competition is intense when it comes to search traffic.
For instance, if a nearby clinic has a more efficient SEO than yours, it will have a higher rank in organic search results than yours. Developing a highly targeted SEO strategy will strengthen your overall web presence.
Do an exhaustive search of which keywords are used by patients, healthcare experts, and doctors to search for your organization. Tools like Google Keyword Planner can help you decide which buzzwords your competitors are using, so you can use the same words with a few tweaks.
Moreover, add a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ to your webpage containing all the key information and general queries surrounding your doctors and practices. This can include topics like timings, pricing, insurance coverage, services provided, doctors’ qualifications, symptoms of different health conditions, etc.
Pick a relevant keyword for every page of the website, such as blog posts, services page, and about us section. These keywords should be flexible depending on their performance and Google’s updates.
Building a Well-rounded Content Marketing Strategy
Content is the king of digital marketing, without which it is impossible to have a successful webpage or SEO strategy. As a healthcare facility, you should come up with new and engaging content regularly to attract more surface leads.
It is fundamental to create content that is not only informative but also enjoyable and personalized for consumers. When creating content, think outside the box and look for ways beyond the newsletter and blog. Think about the types of content that will nurture your online leads as your audience progresses through their journey.
What’s Next for Digital Health Marketing?
The one thing that is inevitable in digital health marketing is change. Recent additions to the mix of services and products help healthcare professionals precisely target their audience.
In 2023, we can expect a lot of new and improved changes. These include the use of Beacons, which are in-store Bluetooth-powered devices connecting retailers with patients within a specific geographic location. They offer real-time surveys, appointment messages, and other services.
Another expected trend is the use of high-quality virtual reality. Patients will be able to use this technology to check out the latest procedures, office lobby, labs, and healthcare staff. This trend is especially beneficial for clinics that do private practice.
