Healthcare MarketingHealthcare Marketing and Strategy: 7 Trends You Need To Follow In 2020

With the Coronavirus taking center-stage in 2020, more people than ever realize the importance of healthcare. The people of the world are demanding better quality of services and more effective strategies to improve the quality of their lives.

More and more people realize the importance of healthcare, which makes it a growing industry. More industry players mean a more complex approach to marketing. Since more players in the industry means all common marketing strategies have been tried, the search for unique marketing strategies goes on.

Unique marketing strategies are hard to come up with and often take a lot of time. Instead, it is easier getting a seat on the trend train and growing with the industry. This means we apply tested strategies that have proven to be effective and reap the benefits from them.

So, without further ado, here are 7 Healthcare marketing trends you should be aware of –

1. Content Marketing Moves Beyond Blogs 

Content marketers are quickly realizing that more and more people are spending more and more time online. Thus, more content is being consumed. If healthcare providers want to attract more clients, they need to pitch quality information – not just fluff content. Nowadays, when people are sick, they do not go straight to the doctor – they Google their symptoms.

Many savvy healthcare providers are going beyond blogs to capture more market share and make better impressions. They are creating digital healthcare centers. The best part about digital property is the level of personalization it offers. These online healthcare centers include not only written content but also educational videos, communication forums, smart tools, and apps to help monitor and give out information.

2. The Era Of Zero-Click Search

Astonishingly, almost 49% of the Google searches in the year 2019 in the United States ended without a click on any link. What does this mean? More and more people are getting their searches answered through snippets and featured content.

While Google’s featured snippets might reduce the clickthrough rate to your site, you have the chance to entice the reader and put up content that compels a reader to click on the link. The best way to go about this could be by hiring professionals to help you with the content and the technicalities.

3. Digital Video Consumption

With more people having access to low-cost internet, more content is being consumed. Now, we humans are lazy – rather than reading, we prefer watching a video or listening to a podcast. This is why the consumption of video content has shot up. With digital marketing platforms like Instagram and Facebook increasing allowances for posting video content, the consumption is definitely going up.

Include these things in your videos to get the most reactions and follows –

Tell your story – with healthcare, people want assurance. People are looking for a story to believe in, and you must make it worth their while. You can enhance your credibility greatly with a good storyline. Ensure that there are facts, though. The internet has its way of busting lies.

Show empathy – The second thing you must pay attention to is empathy. People love feeling like they are not alone. Your video should show positive emotions, which will help forge strong relationships with potential clients.

Educate – Finally, give out some vital information. People always look for value. If they feel they just wasted time listening to your story, they will not pay attention, but if they learned something from your video, they would definitely remember.

4. Healthcare Marketers Are Embracing Social Media

Many health care marketing strategists are embracing social media with open arms. Since the internet has become so cheap, more content is being consumed. The internet has given the power of targeted advertisements to companies all over the world, and healthcare is finally starting to use it. The World Wide Web is the best place to do it – only because of its reach. With more than 90% millennials on social media and upwards of 75% of GenX users on social media, the digital space of Instagram and other social media sites is like a shopping mall for health care providers.

Inherently, healthcare is more of an inbound industry where people are compelled to come to the service providers, but with the amount of competition in the market, there is a need to create a brand image that people can go to. Digital space is getting more and more complicated to maneuver, and it is best to take help from a dedicated Instagram marketing agency to portray your brand image online – or atleast have a dedicated in-house team putting in constant efforts.

5. Reputation Management Is A Growing Priority

Sometimes, one single negative review can discourage potential patients and be the factor that will lead to great losses in business. Healthcare providers all over the world are aware of this. With healthcare being an industry that is extremely sensitive to reviews because of the trust factor involved, healthcare service providers are implementing programs to improve the patient experience.

Right from the website to the waiting room, many forward-thinking healthcare providers are coming up with ways to optimize patient experience, using new technologies to book appointments, voice-powered technologies, and many other nifty features to make their online space more interactive. Healthcare service providers are also increasing employee training that emphasizes the importance of customer satisfaction.

6. Telemedicine Continues To Grow 

Consumers are demanding better customer services and rightfully so. Everyone is fed up with long waiting lines and the confusion that follows because of bad customer service or poor communication. Poor communication causes more problems than no communication. With telemedicine, there is an opportunity to do away with this problem. With personalized attention from doctors, the bad communication problem is avoided.

Telemedicine has proven to be a boon for mobility-impaired individuals and rural communities, where it is difficult to access doctors. Instead of making long journeys to a specialist where time and resources are wasted, people can opt for telemedicine and are able to talk with their doctors from their homes. This also reduces the time taken to provide assistance. By saving time and valuable resources, telemedicine is solving problems left right and center.

7. Software Tools

With the advent of the internet, a lot of life functions got easier. Healthcare companies have gotten a chance to make a presence online and tap into customers physically far away from them. This means that the same platform can be used for all kinds of purposes. Right from routine check-ins to new appointments, everything can be done remotely.

As more and more companies receive traffic online, there is an ardent need for compartmentalization. With software, this is very easy. You can control which visitor can see what on their screen and thus passively guide a visitor to becoming a paying customer. As different people come with different intentions, the website can create separate gateways from these different intentions and thus follow a path that will give them the answers they need. The use of software tools to do everything from guiding traffic to analyzing traffic based on their activity, software tools are to be paid attention to.

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