- Mar 21, 2017
Though started off late, the medical industry is slowly taking up its speed in the adoption of digital marketing techniques. With increasing number of people becoming active online, marketers in this sector cannot just overlook the multiple benefits and opportunities that inbound marketing provides.
But reaching out to specific targets and getting attention in the crowded world of digital media is challenging. Building a strong brand is essential to make your business distinguishable from the others in the healthcare market.
Hence, developing a multi-channel approach that can help marketers in reaching consumers with a tailored healthcare marketing campaign through the channel they prefer can contribute to the promotion of patient engagement and a healthier society as a whole. Unlike traditional methods, digital marketing enables marketers to create and distribute informational content that can educate, convince and transform strangers into loyal and valuable customers for any business.
Below, we highlight the six guidelines that can help healthcare organisations utilize digital marketing tactics to generate quality leads, drive ROI, and take their business to greater heights of success:
1. Know Your Audience before Approaching with Content
Before targeting your prospects with a personalized message, first try to know them. Today’s marketing strategies are all customer-centric so addressing their inquiries or demands becomes necessary for brands to get their attention. Each prospect is different from the other, and so is their requirement. You cannot feed a patient of diabetes with the information a cancer patient requires. Do detailed research on the healthcare industry and also use real-time data collected from surveys, online forms, etc. to know who your audiences are and what they are looking for and feed them with the right content they need.
2. Blogging
No matter whether your business is a small sized or a large one, blogging is considered to be an integral part of your online content marketing strategy. By maintaining a regularly updated blog with fresh and relevant content, businesses can attract visitors to their website which in turn will contribute towards increasing web traffic as well as help in gaining new customers. A well-maintained blog will act as a proof of your expertise in the field and convince readers in trusting you and your brand. Blogging helps in establishing a stronger bond with readers who when impressed by your content can come back to your site for more information in the future.
3. Leverage Email Marketing
Considered as the most effective and powerful tool, email marketing is a great way to reach wider audiences especially in a sector like that of the medical industry where with each passing day, demands for healthcare products and services are rising high. With less investment and more benefits in return, email campaigns have become a preferable channel for marketers looking to target a wider audience, hoping to get maximum responses. An email stuffed with valuable information, colorful images, and attractive offers can help in creating brand awareness. But, remember to make most out of an email marketing campaign, marketers need to ensure that their messages are delivered to the right address at the right time. So, before starting to plan for your next email campaign, make sure that you have an updated and verified healthcare email list in possession. For instance, emails can be used by a healthcare organisation to alert its audiences on any future promotional offer, upcoming events, service launch and other activities to keep them informed on latest happenings. Also, don’t forget to include call-to-action (CTA) in your email.
4. Be Active on Social Media
Today everyone is active on various social media platforms, be it Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. With the internet becoming a household need, staying online and connecting with audiences over multiple channels is must for a business to mark its presence amidst the digital chaos. Even the healthcare industry is making its way to the digital world, making valuable medical information available online for access by patients, medical professionals and others from anywhere in the world at any time.
Creating and maintaining social profiles are done with the motive of staying connected with customers, sharing content they require and addressing their issues as fast as possible. If your business has developed any new product that can cure any particular health problem then by sharing information on it, you can let the world know what you are up to and how you are all ready to make staying healthy easier for the world. But, make sure whatever you do online should adhere to HIPAA regulations to avoid legal troubles.
5. Create Keyword Specific Content
Competing for recognition in the online space of the highly competitive healthcare market is not an easy affair. Hence, marketers need to make search engine optimization (SEO) a priority in their digital marketing strategy. Creating content around specific keywords is what they have to focus on for helping their brand get the much-needed attention. All marketers have to do is make a list of the keywords, topics, and categories they want their brand to be visible on in the search engine and then create your website content using them. Keywords are important for online recognition but don’t ignore the importance of writing fresh, unique and relevant content.
6. Set Goals and Measure its Success
For any healthcare organisation trying to make it big online, the ultimate goal is achieving greater customer engagement, satisfying patients with faster recovery solutions and ranking high in the search engine listings. With these objectives in mind, digital marketers working in the industry must focus all their efforts aiming to increase brand awareness, get better leads and conversions and ultimately earn greater revenues.
But wait! That is not the end of all. While working towards meeting business objectives, marketers also need to measure the results of their initiatives. Digital marketing allows marketers to keep a track on the success rate of their online campaigns, helping them in knowing where they are going right and where they are going wrong. By measuring website traffic, engagement ratio and social media reach, they get to know the performance percentage of their marketing endeavors.
