Digital marketing has availed doctors and health specialists the opportunity to showcase their service to the digital world, beyond their locality.
Digital marketing allows Health specialists to showcase expertise to prospective patients, build professional territory, and boost healthcare reputation.
The importance of digital marketing for healthcare service delivery cannot be underestimated. If you’re yet to implement this strategy, maybe now is the right time.
This article walks you through the benefits of investing in digital marketing for healthcare and the best strategies to implement for the best result.
How can digital marketing promote a hospital?
Digital marketing tactics can promote hospitals in many ways. Let’s find out the key reasons behind it:
1. Prospective patients hang around online
As the popular saying goes, ‘fish where fishes abound.’
Today, everyone, including your prospective patients live in the digital world. And even, according to statistics, most successful healthcare deals started from the internet. A significant percentage of the US population look up health information online
2. The use of mobile devices has risen
Many people, including millennials, now turn to their mobile devices for information. Everything from catching the latest football score to the newest supplement in town. Utilizing this recent trend can be a turnaround for digital healthcare marketing.
3. Digital metrics track down everything
Digital metrics are powerful and can track any info, trend, or happening which, in the long run, are helpful to run a successful campaign.
3. Email marketing is a saver
Hospitals can tap into the numerous benefits of email marketing for reaching out to patients.
4. The ability to target particular demographics
Digital marketing allows hospitals to segment campaigns to target local areas, suburban, and certain healthcare territories which make it easier to reach out to the target audience.
5. Most prospective patients value reputation
Digital tools allow healthcare services to display professionalism, reputation, and reliability.
Patients look up the reputational aspect of a business before giving them a try.
6. Most health service audiences are college-educated.
A recent study from Think with Google confirmed that over 75% of people who look up health-related issues are college-educated.
. 50% of them are looking up information about a specific healthcare practitioner online.
7. Change is constant and digital healthcare marketing isn’t exempted
People are beginning to dive into the digital marketing healthcare industry to connect with the right hospital or medical practitioner.
Digital marketing is the most flexible, reliable, and easy-to-implement strategy for a hospital marketing pursuit.
What are the advantages of investing in healthcare digital marketing?
Not only is digital marketing a lucrative strategy for getting more patients, but also a cost-effective way of advertising a healthcare service.
Let’s explore some key advantages.
Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA)
Implementing a digital marketing strategy to acquire new clients can reduce your total ad spend. According to a survey by US vein practice, medical centres spend over $314 and $348 per patient on print and TV ads, respectively. This is a lot of money, compared to what they’ll spend on running a digital marketing campaign (over 50% slash in ad spend)
Location-based targeting
Digital marketing avails the healthcare centres the opportunity to target a specific demographic, including age, sex, location, and more. That way, relating to patients will be easier, and patients can get a more personalised experience.
Data-driven decisions
Tracking down patient’s information can be difficult with traditional marketing, but with digital marketing, the process is a breeze. Plus, making an informed, data-driven decision is easier with digital marketing.
Better visibility on Search Engine
One out of 20 searches on Google is healthcare-related, including health and wellness tips, disease symptoms, diet tips, and more.
Good news. With effective digital marketing and search engine optimisation, you can increase your chances of becoming visible on Google’s first page.
Increased patient referrals
With digital marketing, you have access to several professional tools and software that can scale your campaign for utmost performance and drive quality leads to your healthcare service.
Healthcare Digital Marketing Strategies And Best Practices
Digital marketing has gained huge traction because people turn to the internet to get quick access to a specialist from the comfort of their home.
A McKinsey survey found that over 75% of respondents said they love to speak to their specialists online.
That said; let’s outline some of the most effective strategies and best practices.
Plan for Local SEO
Search Engine Optimization and user experience go hand in hand. Implementing an efficient local SEO strategy will help scale a successful healthcare business.
Responsive design, web load time, mobile and voice search optimization, easy navigation, and quality content are some of the features that make a website stand out.
SEO, a digital marketing strategy, boosts your visibility online. With the help of a professional SEO agency, you can target a specific location, boost user experience, brand visibility, and generate more traffic to your website.
Check out these statistics highlighting the importance of SEO for your healthcare service.
- 77% of people who look up online for health concerns use Google, Bings, and other top search engines.
- People who search for an optometrist, therapist, and nursing home have a higher chance of putting a call through to a medical centre.
- Over 70% of people who look up health-related searches online don’t go past the first page of the search engine
- 47% of online searchers look up for more information on a doctor or a medical centre.
Consider pay per click advertising
PPCis an advertising service implemented by search engines, social media, and other platforms where you only have to pay when a lead clicks on your ad. An example is Google AdWord that offers text and image ads. Text ads are those ads you see on the first page of search engines.
Image ads are those occasional display ads that pop up on your screen. The algorithm of these ads works based on your search history.
PPC ads allow your healthcare service website to be visible on search engines and generate more traffic. You can monitor the progress of your PPC ads to know what’s working and what’s not.
These statistics show the importance of PPC advertising in the healthcare industry.
- Globally, the Healthcare industry spends an estimated $36B on advertising in 2020.
- Over 7 million healthcare services spent over $10.1 billion on PPC advertising.
- On average, healthcare providers get $3 back on every $1.60 ad spend on Google.
Social Media marketing
The healthcare sector uses social media to reach out to more people, including prospective patients.
Social media marketing allows hospitals and healthcare practitioners to target their desired demographics, such as age, sex, location, and more.
With social media marketing, not only are you able to put your healthcare service out there, but also to educate people on certain health concerns, provide tips on mental and physical health, and lots more?
The following statistics reveal the importance of social media in the healthcare industry.
- 94.41% of healthcare centres in the US have a Facebook account, 50.82% have a Twitter account, 99.14% have yelp, 99.41% use Foursquare.
- 60% of social media users love health-related tips posted by professionals online
- 83% of social media users in the United States have looked up health-related information on social media.
- 91% of social media users confessed that the health information they looked up on social media has helped them make better decisions.
Content marketing
As with many industries, content marketing has been one of the most effective tools for healthcare specialists to engage with patients.
Whether it’s through articles, blog posts, infographics, video contents, and more, content marketing allows you to share your expertise with patients.
For example, if you’re a dietician, you can share information on diet tips, give nutritional advice, fitness tips, and lots more.
The goal is to provide valuable content. Avoid being promotional with your content. Focus on providing value; everything else will fall in place. Also, avoid using too many medical terms. It makes your content less engaging.
Content with fewer medical terms will easily connect with the audience and is generally understandable.
The following statistic reveals the importance of content marketing in the healthcare sector.
- Healthcare content marketing generates three times more ROI than outbound marketing, and ad spend is 62% less than other marketing plans.
- Healthcare video marketers make 66% more targeted leads in a year.
- 83% of health organisations implement a content marketing strategy
- 58% of health marketers have an updated blog
Mobile marketing
Everyone uses smartphones, from young to old. Mobile marketing in the healthcare sector is aimed at targeting people who use mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and other handheld devices with internet connectivity.
Text messages, In-game mobile marketing, mobile image ads, mobile search ads, and location-based marketing, geofencing, cross channel marketing, are some of the popular ideas that work well.
Mobile marketing allows you not just to target a wider audience but also share health-beneficial information and boost reputation.
Here are some proven statistics on the impact of mobile marketing in the healthcare sector.
- 44% of people who look up hospitals on their mobile end up scheduling an appointment
- 47.6% of healthcare emails are opened via mobile.
- 19% of mobile users have health and fitness apps on their mobile devices.
Invest in email marketing
If you want to maintain a healthy, near-direct relationship with your patients, email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to achieve this goal.
Personalise your email messages based on demographics like age, interest, location, health condition, and more. Always create friendly messages, enticing subject lines, and calls to action.
Implementing an effective email marketing strategy can help generate more leads and more patients for your hospital.
Below are some proven statistics on the impact of email marketing in the healthcare sector.
- Email is 40 times more effective than Twitter and Facebook when it comes to acquiring new leads
- 89% of digital health marketers said email is the primary source of their lead generation
- For every $1 spent on email marketing, the ROI is $44.25
Conclusion
There’s no denying the fact that healthcare marketing is the new normal for a successful professional health service.
The importance of digital marketing in the healthcare sector cannot be underestimated.
Establishing an online presence is critical to the growth of your healthcare service as it allows you to reach out to a wider audience who hangs around in the digital world.
In the long run, a patient’s experience and brand reputation will remain the most crucial factor for a successful digital marketing strategy.
