Patients have more sources of finding out about their health issues, remedies, doctors they should visit, and so on now more than ever! With such descriptive answers to their queries available just a few clicks away they don?t deem it necessary to visit the nearest medical practitioner for minor health problems anymore.
As a result, to make it big out there, medical marketing requires to focus on aspects like healthcare branding, promotion over social media, and feedback.
Dartmouth?s medical marketing research revealed that there had been an increase in medical marketing for prescription drugs by 60%. And, the overall expenditure by the U.S. on drugs grew from $116.5 billion to $328.6 billion (an increase of 180%). The above data were collected during a span of 20 years, from 1997 to 2016.
More Read
Following a medical marketing strategy will benefit you even if you are contented with the way things are presently going for you. And, to come up with a successful strategy for medical marketing, there are certain things you need to keep at the forefront of your mind.
Here, in this article, we are going to discuss 5 such points that you need to know about medical marketing. So, let?s dive right into it!
1. Consistent branding is as important as your expertise.
Gone are the days when people had limited options regarding expert doctors. With technological advancements knowing about and reaching out to the doctor of your choice isn?t much of a hassle anymore. So, it isn?t just your expertise that is going to help your patients differentiate you from a bunch.
You need to decide upon and promote what your brand stands for. What is it that sets you apart from others? Is it how you approach a health problem? Or your family-friendly workplace?
Once you figure out what works for your brand, your medical marketing strategy is going to pan out smoothly because now you will be able to narrow down the marketing options to whatever suits your brand the most.
2. Patients are likely to reach you the most through your website.
Your website will be home to your online persona. So, building up a responsive website with the ability to adjust to the size of a screen of the viewer is the norm these days. The browsing experience should be the same, whether one is visiting your website from a mobile device or a desktop.
Moreover, Google prioritizes websites with good user-experience when accessed on mobile devices. So, building a responsive site will be in your best interest, and they provide a seamless experience on mobile devices.
Make sure to have a blog section where you can add articles on the most trendy healthcare topics like a vegan diet, migraine, and how to detox, now that weed has been legalized in the U.S.
And, if you already have a responsive site up and working, then make sure the content and multimedia are loading properly.
3. Utilizing pay-per-click and display ads are helpful.
You might have heard of search engine optimization (SEO). It is an organic method to introduce your practice or hospital to new audiences. In spite of your website having a good ranking among the search results, there are still 2 to 3 paid advertisements that people are going to see before your company appears.
These are actually pay-per-click ads. Marketers hugely invest in them as these are laser-targeted to be displayed at the top of the screen whenever a person performs a search for a relevant term. NBC news revealed, a total of 80% of all internet users have looked up a health-related term in the year 2018.
You can easily maintain your budget to be spent on these by deciding upon how much you are willing to spend in doing so, to make your site keep appearing at the top of the search results.
4. Social media is where people spend most of their time nowadays.
It is pretty common these days for medical practitioners and hospitals to expand to social media as a part of their medical marketing strategy. This aspect of marketing includes posting images, events, and updates to Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other such popular platforms.
It?s a beneficial and valid strategy to make people know about your brand and the services you provide and to keep your patients updated on new launches. You can opt for paid advertisements quite similarly to the previous point. These paid advertisements are directed to a narrower group of people who may actually be in need of your services.
This way, you can garner new patients and build your brand gradually. Like pay-per-click (PPC) and display ads, these require your thoughts regarding the type of audience you want to reach and the amount of money you are willing to spend on them.
5. Reviews help you improve on your strategy.
Patients don?t normally leave a review. But, you can motivate them to do so. And, if you are ignoring doing so, then you are missing an opportunity to display positive feedback that will help you create a reputation on the market.
Now, this is not possible for the one at the reception desk to do. So, you can opt for automated reviews. To save the time of the visitors, you can instead ask them to click on an emoji that represents a stage from 1 to 5, 5 being very satisfied.
This way, patients who are willing to write a descriptive review can do so whenever they feel like. But otherwise, also, every patient becomes a potential reviewer as merely tapping or clicking on an image takes a fraction of a second. And, patients will be more drawn to that.
You can accordingly improve your practice and services and gather more positive reviews.
Conclusion
Like mentioned earlier, medical professions need intellectual marketing just like any other field of profession. But, we also firmly believe that no extent of strategic marketing is fulfilling if you don?t devote time to training the front office properly.
We hope you found this article helpful. Let us know in the comments down below.