Top 6 Best Healthcare Marketing Trends
With all the new research and development in science and medicine, the healthcare field is constantly evolving. With so many new healthcare facilities and hospitals coming up every couple of months, the healthcare field’s competition is increasing rapidly.
To successfully set themselves apart from the competition, retain existing customers, and attract new consumers, healthcare administrators, facilities, and marketers have to develop marketing campaigns that keep the audience interested and engaged.
If an organization cannot promote itself and attract the right audience, its growth will be slow and limited. People have innumerable options to choose from, and if a healthcare facility does not stand out right from the start, it will not be able to influence their decisions and eventually lose out.
To stay on top of your marketing game, it has to constantly update your knowledge, technologies, and approach.
Here are the top 6 healthcare marketing trends and a simple healthcare marketing guide that will help any marketer navigate the new-age marketing landscape by creating marketing campaigns that are cost-effective and improve your ROI.
Healthcare Marketing Trends in 2024
1. Use of Smartphones
According to a 2019 research, 265.9 million Americans owned a smartphone at the end of 2019. People now rely on their smartphones to research information about everything, including their health.
From looking up the closest healthcare facility, hospital, or pharmacy to researching their symptoms and self-medicating, smartphones have become the first gateway to medical information. Healthcare marketers have to develop ways to make information easily accessible to people via their cell phones. Text message services, targeted ads, and mobile-friendly apps and directories are ways one can engage one’s consumers through their smartphones.
2. Social media
Gone are the days when Instagram and Facebook were only used to catch up with friends and family and share pictures online. These social media platforms have become an important tool for marketing.
Healthcare marketers should create accounts on all social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and regularly engage with the audience. From highlighting the latest developments in the medical field to showing the followers what to expect when they come to the hospital, social media platforms are a great way to generate a buzz around an organization.
3. UX is just as important as the content
If a page is overburdened with unnecessary information, has too many distracting pop-ups and banners, and has a slow loading speed, users will drop off from the site. This is not only a missed opportunity to convert leads but also damages a brand’s reputation.
To prevent that from happening, marketers must ensure that the websites have fast loading speeds and are also optimized for smaller screens like mobile phones and tablets. They should also make the layout easy to understand and navigate, and this will greatly increase the chances of users revisiting the website.
4. Chatbots
Artificial Intelligence has taken the world by storm, and companies are harnessing AI’s power by incorporating Chatbots into their websites. These chatbots are a great way of automating certain tasks.
Marketers can program these chatbots to do various things like answering common FAQs, directing users to certain web pages and tabs, and helping them get in touch with a customer service representative if they have specific questions. As a healthcare facility, use the chatbot to assist patients in booking appointments without making a phone call.
5. Voice search is the future
There is no denying that voice search is here to stay, and reportedly 20% of all the searches now are voice searches. According to a survey carried out in April 2020, more than 43 million people in the US own a smart speaker.
To rank higher in voice searches, one has to optimize the content accordingly. Use key interrogative terms like How, Why, Where, and When to improve your organic search rankings. Voice searches are also typically longer than typed queries and sound conversational and natural in tone. Include voice searches in your SEO strategy and create easy-to-understand and high-quality content that utilizes important keywords.
6. Demand for video content
From short snippets that can be easily shared on social media to detailed and informative videos on YouTube, video marketing is a great way to increase retention time. There are loads of free video marketing guides available online that will teach how can one promote and market the different types of video content one creates.
Conclusion
At its core, healthcare marketing is all about building the consumers’ trust in a brand and connecting with them on a personal level. Through marketing campaigns, make sure that the products, services, and information are easily accessible to customers.
