The health care field is constantly growing and evolving, and it’s becoming more crowded every year. It’s not effective anymore for your business to market itself as the only option in the field; today, patients have access to more health care products and services than ever. Patients are also doing more research than ever before choosing health care products and services. They want high-quality health care that offers a personalized experience.
The best way your health care business can provide a personalized experience is to ensure your marketing plan is streamlined and efficient to compete in a crowded field. This year, health care companies should be prepared to:
- Invest more in digital marketing to reach patients who search and research services online
- Invest in paid advertising and analytics to reach targeted demographics who are looking for specific products and services
- Invest in technology to make the patient experience more accessible and convenient with chatbots, online forms and scheduling and telehealth services.
In 2020, your marketing plan needs to be smart, targeted and oriented toward a patient-first value. Here are the top 7 marketing strategies your health care company should be using this year.
1. Determine a Target Audience
Focus your marketing efforts on the people who are already looking for the products and services you offer. By using analytics to target your demographic across multiple platforms, and monitoring the channels that produce the most engagement, you can drive relevant content and advertising that directly addresses your audience’s questions, concerns and needs. Targeted messaging across the platforms your audience uses will reach more of your demographic and have a greater impact on potential patients.
2. Develop High-Quality Content
Content marketing helps you build a relationship with your patients before they ever use your services. Today, patients are doing more online research before they make health care choices; make sure you produce high-quality content that answers their questions, provides helpful and relevant information and establishes your business as a knowledgeable resource. This year, video marketing is predicted to gain big audiences — the database company Statista reported that 85% of U.S. internet viewers watch online video as of January 2018. Videos can help your business connect and engage with patients, provide education to a wide audience and tell your story in a compelling format.
Good content builds trust and credibility, and it also increases your search engine ranking with Google. Google rewards content that meets high standards in EAT: expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
3. Maintain Reputation Management
Today, more patients than ever are making informed health care decisions by performing research and reading online reviews before speaking to a service provider. Maintain your public profile on trusted review websites like Healthgrades, Health MD, Yelp, Google and Facebook. Additionally, make sure your website, local citations and directory entries are up-to-date with your company’s location, hours and contact information.
Be prepared to respond promptly to reviews and comments online, and don’t let a reported problem balloon out of control by not addressing it. You can help boost your company’s reputation by asking satisfied patients to leave a positive review.
4. Design a User-Friendly and Mobile-Responsive Website
User experience is a factor in Google rankings and slow websites are being penalized in search. This year, make the necessary updates to ensure your website loads quickly and is easily navigable. Most importantly, make sure your website is mobile responsive; according to statistics from the database company Statista, approximately half of all website traffic has been generated through mobile phones from 2017 to 2019.
5. Build a Social Media Presence
Most likely, your target audience is on social media. In 2019, Hootsuite reported that 45% of the world population uses social media and more than 40% of digital consumers use social media to research new brands and products. And social media platforms can be a great place for you to connect with your patients in a meaningful way — use social media to address patient reviews (especially negative ones), answer questions and provide good customer service. You can also use social media to highlight staff members, alert patients about new treatments or technologies and share relevant information.
The goal of social media is to foster connections among people — use your company pages to be less sales-focused and provide more patient-focused value. Facebook rewards engagement (reactions, shares and comments), so schedule time in your marketing plan to be active on social media and maintain your company pages.
6. Create and Promote Strong Branded Messaging
In a crowded field, use branded messaging to promote what sets you apart from competitors. Determine how your products and services offer real solutions to patient needs: are your products and services the most cost-effective? The most advanced in the field? The most time-efficient? Develop clear, informative, branded messaging around your value proposition to enhance your trust and credibility among potential patients.
7. Boost Search Engine Optimization — Especially Locally
Make sure your website is optimized for the specific keywords that are relevant to the products and services you offer. Boosting your search engine ranking will increase your visibility, reach and online reputation. Additionally, optimize your site to rank for local search — queries that include the phrase “near me” or your location. Craft location-specific content to draw in local visitors who are searching for accessible, convenient health care services.
NewGen Marketing Can Help Optimize Your Marketing and Sales Plans
NewGen Marketing can help your health care business develop a well-rounded marketing plan that will acquire new patients into your business, increase your brand reach and drive more to your bottom line. Our leadership team has years of proven marketing and sales experience working with leading brands in the health care industry. We develop and invest in performance-driven strategies that deliver measurable results to optimize your return on investment.
Contact us for a free consultation about performance-based strategies we can use to ensure the greatest return on your marketing spend.