Until recently, healthcare brands relied heavily on word of mouth and tangible marketing strategies to attract new consumers and clients. Due to the surge in digital promotion, brands are being met with increased competition, and therefore need to find new ways to differentiate themselves. Consumers need to be reached through multiple touch points, most of which involve the social media sphere. In order to stay on top of the health marketing game, brands must follow the trends that are currently being utilized to engage with consumers. The question now becomes – how many of these platforms are you taking advantage of?
In a follow-up to our 4 trends in healthcare marketing review, here are 3 more trends to enhance your business:
1. Entice Consumers with Video Content
Due to the fact that branded healthcare content can be long and time consuming to read, many brands will make their messages creative and concise by putting them into online videos. The popularity of online videos has been rising right along with mobile usage. According to ComScore data, this has resulted in 60 percent of U.S. digital media time now being spent on smartphones and tablets. To make digital content more mobile friendly, many marketers have been condensing their messages into easily viewable video content that can be watched on the go. In 2016, online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion (Cisco). With the increasing volume of video consumption, and the fact that YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, video ads will soon be necessary for healthcare providers to add to their marketing channels. Additionally, video will provide a huge opportunity for you to humanize your business and differentiate it in a meaningful way from the competition. A recent Pew Research Center study demonstrated that 47 percent of Internet users share videos and photos they find online. Behaviours are showing that video is fundamentally affecting how we think, how businesses will interact, how we consume content and how we live our lives.
2. Create a Consistent, Multi-Dimensional Brand Experience through Integrated Marketing
The main goal of integrated marketing is to create streamlined branding across all media platforms. This means that all branding efforts (television, Internet, radio, etc.) will be presented in a similar style that drives home the ultimate message of your brand. Like with the content in social media, consumers are drawn to companies that provide reliability and consistency in the presentation of the product or service that they offer. It is important to remember that consistency does not equal boring or lacking in creativity. Healthcare marketers must work diligently to create an interesting voice for the brand – one that transitions across all aspects of the brand’s identity. Integrated marketing leverages the best of traditional (TV, print, radio, point-of-care) and innovative marketing channels (search, web, social, mobile) and identifies the appropriate marketing mix to best achieve your healthcare-related objectives.
3. Turn Prospects into Customers with Marketing Automation
Marketing automation takes place when a brand invests in software and tactics that allow them to nurture prospects and turn them into customers. Marketing automation is used to generate new business, which inevitably results in added revenue. One of the attractions of automated marketing is that it essentially takes the steering wheel for you. When you invest in these software products, you are investing in a system that will prioritize and execute your marketing tasks in a more streamlined and efficient way. Without giving up your target audience or brand integrity, marketing automation software aids in saving you time and effort. It allows you to not only streamline and automate marketing tasks, but also determines what’s working and what’s not. The software allows you to segment your prospects into different groups to target them more effectively. Due to the fact that each specialty requires this product in a different context, you are able to tailor your communications accordingly. Automation software also handles more complicated segmentation. It can consider factors like:
- Location
- Language spoken
- Whether your prospect has opened your emails
- Sections of your website prospects referred to
- With marketing automation, you have the tools to guide your prospects down the path towards eventually becoming consumers of your product or service.
For more information about healthcare marketing that clicks visit, Whitehead Agency Group.
Whitehead Agency Group
Whitehead Agency Group is a leading Toronto, Ontario, healthcare marketing agency with in excess of 25 years of expertise. We bring healthcare to life — with marketing that clicks online and off. We are master communicators; engaging people is at the heart of what we do. Some of us know technology inside and out. Some of us are wordsmiths and some of us have unique business sense. Collectively, we are a team of highly experienced storytellers uniquely capable of developing innovative marketing strategies that deliver big ideas and big results.
