- Dec 29, 2020
Covid-19 has brought tremendous uncertainty, political volatility, and economic instability. Locally, nationally, and internationally, healthcare is both completely upturned and top of mind at the moment.
While some sectors are expecting to return to ‘business as usual’ soon after experts figure out how to stop the Covid-19 outbreak, it’s not the same for other sectors such as healthcare marketing as it has been permanently changed by this pandemic.
Marketing is an ever-changing, fast-paced field, and the marketing trends for healthcare are evolving along with it. As a healthcare marketer, you’ll have to be more authentic, innovative, and authoritative in the coming year so you can attract new prospects and retain old ones.
This blog will cover the 4 biggest 2021 healthcare marketing trends that will be quite effective in helping you deliver results in the coming year and beyond.
Here are the Four Biggest Healthcare Marketing Trends For 2021:
1. Effective Communication is Going to be Necessary
The healthcare environment now is vastly different than ever before. Even the process of routine visits – whether it’s scheduling or how it’s carried out, is no longer the same. As such, patients require information. While authoritative, proactive engagement has always been the trademark of leading healthcare companies, today there are various practical & safety considerations than ever before.
Patients are now seeking information concerning how to receive care and the safe way to get it. Specifically, with regard to Covid-19, people want every information on symptoms, testing, treatment, and prevention. The healthcare marketers’ ability to get past this noise and fulfill this demand will play a pivotal role in building credibility as well as nurturing patient relationships.
What Must Healthcare marketers do About it
This offers a tremendous opportunity for brand-building. As a healthcare marketer, it’s a great opportunity to humanize your communication tactics.
Currently, 52 percent of online adults in the US prefer purchasing from organizations that show how they’re protecting clients from Covid-19, suggests Forrester. In our perspective, every communication as a healthcare brand must be:
- Useful
- Compassionate
- Trustworthy
Find out what information your patients or prospects are seeking right now. You can even monitor Coronavirus Search trends using Google.
Using that insight, you can source verified, intent-based data from experts to create content and make it available to your audiences across various channels.
2. Patient Experience Will Be a Top Priority
Patient experience plays a big role in determining the successful growth of the healthcare organization.
If you have been in contact with your dentist or primary care provider lately, you might have noticed how everything has changed – from pre-appointment communications to check-in procedures.
You have to understand that it’s not the patient’s job to figure everything out by themselves. Instead, healthcare organizations must audit every touchpoint throughout the patient journey.
Also, where required, must update and improve the interactions so the clients feel understood, cared for, and confident about the safety of their service.
What Must Healthcare marketers do About it
As mentioned earlier, communication is vital when it comes to shaping patient experience. In addition, healthcare marketers must focus on some important areas of which patients need to be made aware of in light of the pandemic:
- General updates on Covid-19
- New safety requirements and procedures
- Accommodation of nonelective vs. elective procedures
- Appointment availability & scheduling
Additionally, optimizing the experiences themselves is important. For instance, updating your website navigation and content, revisiting your automated call routing and phone system to include information on new policies, procedures, contact information, and policies.
It’s also important to personalize text and email notification and offer a healthcare mobile app experience to make the overall patient experience convenient and seamless.
3. Brand Reputation Will be Incredibly Important Than Ever
“ Your brand name is only as good as your reputation”
According to Edelman’s research, 71 percent of people will no longer trust a brand that seems to be working more for its own favor than the people during the Covid-19 crisis.
Simply put, what your organization does or says will gain a lot more scrutiny and visibility in 2021. This is particularly true for healthcare brands and businesses. On the bright side, 85 percent of people expect brands to reach out and educate customers through their platform.
What Must Healthcare marketers do About it
In order to ensure that your brand reputation continues to remain relevant, you must start by building a pandemic-proof strategy revolving around a few important points:
- Transparency: This is the time to be as transparent as possible. If your organization has had to make changes or scale back operations that affect the patient experience, you need to first make your audience aware of it. In the example below, you can see how Philips Healthcare is outlining its response to the pandemic by being transparent concerning its approach to enhancing workflow.
- Authority: Right now, your patients are relying on you for credible information regarding their safety and healthcare amid the crisis. Offer physician-vetted bulletins and information on the various channels your customers use, such as your website, mobile app, or Google maps.
- Reputation: Design a review program to generate patient/customer feedback. This will not just help your brand’s digital reputation and visibility, you’ll also be able to identify and respond appropriately to your patients’ needs, and perhaps, improve the patient experience.
4. Captivating Content Will Get Your New Customers
In the coming year, healthcare marketers must harness the advantages of captivating content (like video content) for gaining new patients. Sharing valuable and eye-catching content consistently helps build trust and credibility. Over time, your content will help convert your prospects into new patients, thereby increasing your revenue.
What Must Healthcare marketers do About it
To start creating effective healthcare content, you’ll have to keep the following questions in mind:
- What kind of pitfalls your patients are likely to face when picking the right healthcare provider and how you can help them avoid those problems?
- What questions do your patients frequently ask about?
You can build a powerful healthcare content marketing plan around similar questions and offer the answers with the help of informative medical video content or digital graphics. This will help build trust in your brand.
If you wish to leverage content to strategically engage with your patients, it’s vital to offer the type of content that your audience is looking for. You must also ensure that they get it frequently and consistently.
Final Say
Marketing trends are guaranteed to evolve, and that applies to healthcare marketing trends as well.
However, there is one need of the patients that will remain the same and that is finding a healthcare provider who is genuinely helpful, knowledgeable and generates great results. What’s changed is the way patients find & build trust with the healthcare providers.
Nonetheless, if you implement these 2021 healthcare marketing trends in the coming year, you’ll be ahead of your competitors.
