Marketing Strategies for Healthcare in 2019
10 years back
you would have been amazed if you could have just all the healthcare details
online or an instant service! But these days, almost every person goes online
for a healthcare inquiry and expects the
services to be instantly available.
Thus, Healthcare
is changing with the recent times, hence the marketing strategies need to change too. Below we have mentioned
some of the key points you need to consider if you want to excel in healthcare
marketing in 2019.
Key action and
decision making moments
Whenever someone is suffering from an illness he or she will go through a series of actions before
choosing a solution. It’s these key action moments,
when you can influence a customer the most.
As the research has suggested that all people these days
expect that internet has all the answers and the answers are customized to
their liking. But the thing is that,everyone;
every time is expecting something extra and they will keep on raising the bar. So
let’s see what these moments are,
·
First Action moment: Wanting to know or
researching about the problem
·
Second Action Moment: Wanting to search for a local solution to the problem
·
Third Action Moment: Wanting to try out a solution or visit a
specific place
·
Fourth Action Moment: Wanting to avail the
specific service or product
Likewise, there are
four action moments for Healthcare industry too:
“Enquiring about the
problem” Moment: A healthcare marketer can reach out to the patient when
they are enquiring about the problem through pre-designed
and optimized videos, infographics and web pages with relevant information.
“Enquiring about the
Treatment” Moment: When someone is looking for local solutions he should
stumble upon your services instantly. Through digital marketing, you have to ensure that your service is at the top or at
least comes in some of the top local searches.
“How feasible and
reliable the treatment is” Moment: Here a patient will like to enquire about the background of the service
provider. A healthcare marketer can register their presence, by displaying
accreditations and awards, affiliations to various medical societies,
testimonials, academic papers, introductory videos by physicians and much more.
“Opting for a treatment” Moment: It’s a fast procedure when it comes to booking an
appointment. People are usually restless as they want to go through the
information quickly. A healthcare marketer can have an edge by providing the
ease of access and smooth functioning of the online software. All the option
should be readily available and should not be confusing by any means. The
easier the booking process is the chance for confirmed booking increases.
Designing the
Website from a patients point of View
You should invest in the website to make it look good. A
visitor on your website will judge you from the look of your website. According
to the survey, more than 60% of the
people will judge the credibility of the service based on the website design,
website loading time, ease of navigation and easy to grasp the content.
There are some companies going on the right track but most
of the healthcare companies are not paying enough attention to how their
website is performing. The survey even
further suggests that a bad website experience can create negative opinions
about a brand.
There are some key boosts your website needs,to be
successful in the current market, they are,
·
The website
needs to load the webpages within 3
seconds
·
The website
should be secure and SPAM free
·
The website
should be mobile friendly
·
The website
should be SEO friendly
What patients want is visually interactive and easy to use
website platforms. Patients have also shown some great interest in receiving virtual healthcare. Another thing highly
preferred by the patients is a hassle-free
online booking and proper reminders. Hence, if we include all well-performing healthcare sites, then few
features are common, such as,
·
Online scheduling
·
Customized services for patients
·
Online bill payment
·
Prescription renewals
·
Online real-time
messaging
·
A large pool of specialists and doctors
·
Visual content
·
Virtual visit options
SEO is still the
King in the current market
Don’t know about the future but till this date SEO rules the
roost. More than 90% of the patients will go to a search engine for their
queries and thus book the treatment. Moreover, people,
these days are more inclined to search nearby places through a search engine.
“So in today’s healthcare market, your
website needs to rank well, both in organic
and local searches.” Few important points to be mindful of are as follows,
·
Local SEO depends on a checklist of”my google
business page” which includes:
Business’ categories
Main phone number
Business’ description
Hours of operation
Address or service area
Reviews
·
Your website should include all
the healthcare industry related keywords
·
Your content should be focused
on the needs of the patient
·
Your website needs to be SEO
optimized
·
Your Website needs to have
backlinks and references from authentic websites
Invest in the
paid Ads
The organic search is shrinking day by day and the paid
ads are making much more noise. Hence you will have to invest in paid ads,especiallyin
the local context. You will have to opt for a pay per click package if you
really want to do well in online marketing.
Social media presence is important
People these days spend most of their time on social media; hence it’s
no surprise that even healthcare marketers have to be on social media to make their
presence felt. According to the survey,
more than 50% of the people were driven by social media, to go for a particular
brand or service, whereas, more than 60% were interested in viewing the health-related consumer reviews.
Video Marketing Is Essential
Whenever you go for google search you can see
all the top result videos lined up at the top.
Hence you can understand how much
a video is important in marketing. According to the recent survey in coming years, videos will drive more than 90% traffic
worldwide. Among all, there are a few
types of videos you must concentrate on, such as,
·
Welcome Videos on websites
·
Profiles videos of physicians
·
Testimonials and review videos
·
Videos explaining the procedure
·
Educational and informative
videos
Email Marketing
According to a report, 70% of the people check
their emails after they wake up. This fact
is also enough to push for some serious email marketing. Moreover, people like
to have personalized emails, when it comes to marketing. Among all different
types of emails, there are certain which
you must use for your a marketing strategy.
·
Reminder emails
·
Request emails
·
Referral emails
·
News Emails
·
Expert advice emails
·
Technology update emails
·
Seasonal tip emails
Patient’s reviews are important
People seldom use any service or product these
days without going through the reviews. Almost 85% people put their trust in the online reviews when they are going for a
service or the product. More than 55% of people opt to go for a doctor outside
their medical insurance, if they have
come across some great reviews. Moreover, 70% of
patients feel that doctors should respond to the online reviews. So reviews are
important and you should ask for them.
Automated messaging and notifications
Internet and communication have revolutionized everything and the customer
expectations have gone sky high. Patients these days expect to be in touch with
the doctor at all times. Either it is emails or phone calls or text messages,
Patients prefer every means of communication that is available. But the key in
doing so is tracking the patient and the way the communication is performing.
It will improve the channels of communication and eradicate any loopholes.
Data is important only when you have the important data
With the advancement in technology, we can accumulate data of whatever
we want to have but too much of anything is bad. Data can only be optimally
used when it is stored and processed in a proper way while having pre-defined and hassle-free
ways to retrieve it. Hence, while collecting the data a healthcare marketer
should know what to keep and what to leave. Some of the KPI’s, which act as
important data while decision making in the healthcare market is,
·
Number of patients
·
Admission rates
·
Readmission rates
·
Total revenue
·
Lead-to-appointment conversion rate
·
Cost per lead (CPL)
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