Key Concepts in Healthcare Marketing
For most healthcare companies and organizations today, having a strong online presence has become an important element for ensuring long-term success. This reality made its way into nearly every industry decades ago, but has become more critical with each passing year. Most medical companies and organizations also invest in a baseline digital foundation, but it’s often not fully optimized.
In addition, there are many other ways beyond online owned media in which healthcare organizations and medical marketers can differentiate themselves from a crowded field and highly competitive space. To help achieve this, many rely on our experience at Maricich Health in a wide variety of marketing communications mediums to increase their reach.
While healthcare companies have various options when advertising their services, these organizations can take several paths, each with its own purpose and considerations.
What is Healthcare Marketing?
Healthcare marketing is an encompassing term covering a variety of activities, all designed to actively engage new and current patients while educating them about health-related matters and preventive care options. Furthermore, healthcare providers and professionals (HCPs) along with other healthcare stakeholders are often important audiences for clients of healthcare marketing agencies.
The purpose of healthcare marketing tactics can and will range considerably from one organization to the next. However, in most cases, marketing in the healthcare sector can provide several benefits, including helping to drive volume for hospitals, promoting specific public health initiatives, educating about healthcare access and health insurance plans, driving B2B awareness for various healthcare products and services or increasing understanding about illnesses and their treatment options.
Educating Patients through Integrated Marketing Campaigns
Healthcare organizations can often provide helpful information to their members and patients through integrated marketing campaigns that combine different digital and traditional platforms, providing them with up-to-date information about their health options and certain healthcare-related issues.
Healthcare organizations may opt to employ multiple formats when choosing how to engage with new and current patients. Marketing formats can include branding and patient/member-acquisition campaigns leveraging a variety of marketing channels such as paid programmatic display ads, Connected TV (CTV), YouTube, Paid Facebook and Instagram ads (Meta), streaming audio and radio, out-of-home billboards and advertising, native ads, healthcare brochures, blog posts and whitepapers, and helpful branded content videos posted on their website or social media channels.
Influencing Behavioral Changes and Raising Awareness
When healthcare organizations and companies, including hospitals, health systems, payers (health insurers), healthcare suppliers, medical device, pharma and diagnostic companies invest in various forms of marketing and advertising, they can be highly effective in helping to encourage beneficial behavioral changes. For example, by highlighting the health risks associated with certain lifestyles or the value of certain healthcare products, services and treatments, organizations can better promote healthier alternatives while continuously raising awareness about the short- and long-term benefits of their offerings. This can be within public health entities and community non-profits, for-profit or even publicly traded companies.
When it comes to public health, marketing can be a fast and effective way to get information out regarding vaccinations, drug abuse prevention, nutrition, public safety and a variety of other topics. Of course, educational materials alone can be used to teach healthcare consumers about certain signs or symptoms to look for while also providing instruction on how to treat the public effectively. But the most effective approach is to develop highly integrated public health marketing campaigns that communicate key health issues with creative that’s distilled in a memorable way.
Types of Healthcare Marketing
Healthcare marketing can be broad or narrow in scope depending on the goals of the organization. Below are some of the various types of healthcare marketing formats and their general purpose:
Brand Strategy and Development
Effective healthcare marketing communications efforts begin with strategically defined brands. This involves applying consumer and business insights to develop breakthrough brand positioning and messaging strategies aligned with business objectives. These translate into brand messaging and creative campaign platforms crafted to change perceptions, communicate, inspire and motivate actions in support of organizational strategies and marketing goals.
Brand Identity, Logo Development and Brand Activation
Powerful healthcare brands have compelling stories. And those stories are communicated through brand identity development, both verbal and visual. This includes defining the voice and personality with which a brand speaks to its audience. As well as visual characteristics such as color palette, typography, imagery, and of key importance, logo design. Implementing these choices in support of a brand strategy requires expertise in brand activation best practices ranging from project parameter definition and cost estimation to specification development and vendor management.
Brand Launch Campaigns
Launching a new healthcare brand or rebranding a previous identity typically is a multifaceted initiative. A diverse range of creative materials may be required to deliver consistent, impactful messaging with a coherent brand identity across channels that best target the desired audience. A launch timeline should be strategically planned to introduce this messaging when and where the campaign elements will most effectively reinforce each other.
Integrated Marketing Campaigns
Reaching healthcare audiences through multiple media channels commonly requires integrated marketing campaigns that span channels ranging from print, broadcast and online advertising to social media and more. The elements of an integrated marketing strategy will share visual elements and textual language, adapted as necessary for specific channels, to ensure they reinforce each other when collectively encountered by their audience.
Multicultural Healthcare Marketing
Traditional multicultural strategies, which speak to consumers within the market majority and then filter for ethnicity, have become outdated and ineffective. A more sophisticated understanding of diverse populations within communities, including multicultural households and LGBTQ groups, offers real benefits. The proprietary Maricich Cultural InfusionSM approach looks at diverse communities for what they have in common, then fine-tunes the message by tailoring to their respective nuances—taking into account social determinants, education levels and mindsets of the targeted groups.
Website Design and Content
An established online presence can provide several opportunities for connecting with new and current patients and stakeholders. Websites can become a powerful resource for organizations to develop helpful knowledge bases for patients looking for reliable health information. A well-designed website is one of the most important ways that a medical center or other healthcare entity can demonstrate its brand identity, promise of innovation, and patient- or member-centered care. It’s important to engage with web design experts who specialize in developing mobile-friendly sites that reflect your brand and meet the needs of the different personas within your medical community. This includes patients who research services; staff evaluating employment opportunities, and healthcare purchasers evaluating medical devices and other B2B products. Being fluent with Drupal, WordPress, Microsoft, Unix, and popular back-office platforms is also a must.
Content Strategy and Marketing
One of the most valuable ways to reach core audiences such as patients, physicians, healthcare CEOs and others involved in healthcare purchasing committees is through content marketing. This is the technique of creating valuable, relevant and consistent healthcare-related content to attract and acquire your target audience. This includes articles (blogs), e-newsletters, videos, webinars, e-books, podcasts, and other highly targeted content. Our writers and designers are experienced with all types of medical services, so we can create quality content quickly.
Social Media Marketing
Healthcare organizations can create more ways to connect with their audience by becoming active on various social media platforms. These can be great places to distribute content already created on company websites and blogs, and be another platform to promote specific health initiatives or connect with the community while positioning a brand as a thought leader.
Digital Advertising and Programmatic Campaigns
Digital advertising services make it easy to plan, launch and measure your campaign across all the major digital channels, including digital display/programmatic ads, streaming audio, paid search, social media, native ads, connected TV, streaming video, and more. Digital advertising is an important way to connect with your target audience at the local level. Ongoing optimization and reporting means that you’ll understand how your budget is impacting brand awareness and campaign KPIs.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing services ensure that your brand is what patients or other healthcare audiences experience when they search online for medical information. It’s crucial to combine local SEO, reputation management (patient reviews, PR, etc.), Google Business Profile Manager optimization, and other local marketing tactics to help future patients and other marketing targets find, evaluate and ultimately select your healthcare products or suite of services.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Google reports that search is the preferred way for patients to find healthcare providers online. That means if your website isn’t optimized for specific keyword searches, your patients or other healthcare, medical and pharmaceutical audiences you’re targeting cannot find you. Making sure you have experts in “white hat” SEO practices, helping you achieve higher organic rankings to increase visibility in search results, is paramount. Performing extensive local keyword research, conducting on-page and off-page optimization and tracking your organic search rankings is also key. It’s important to be consistent and take measured gains each step of the way to realize the long-term value of SEO. Furthermore, SEO practices are being transformed in real-time by AI that favors contextual search. Staying up to date on these rapidly shifting SEO practices is paramount.
Branded Content and Video Production
Most people today prefer absorbing new information in a fast and concise manner. Video marketing using branded content that associates a brand with an informative production can be a great way to tap into this requirement, providing healthcare organizations with an effective advertising medium to educate their audience while promoting their services. Branded content can of course also be created in print and digital formats as well.
Email Marketing
Another way healthcare organizations can continue to reach and engage their patients is through email. Email marketing is a common marketing channel for many businesses and organizations due to its easy distribution and trackability. As emails are opened and viewed, these metrics can be relayed back to the organization and can be used to improve content to help optimize click-through rates continuously.
Traditional Print Media
Even though digital marketing has quickly outpaced older forms of marketing, this doesn’t mean print media is no longer effective. In fact, many healthcare organizations and suppliers still utilize print media to reach a broader target audience. Healthcare ads in local newspapers, business journals, brochures and pamphlets can be quick and helpful ways to relay important information and be highly accessible to individuals in various healthcare settings.
Benefits of Healthcare Advertising
When executed correctly, healthcare advertising initiatives can bring a host of benefits to organizations and their overall image to the public. Some of these benefits include:
Promotion of Preventive Care
Advertising can be a fast and efficient way to promote the importance of preventive care to a large audience. It can educate patients on the necessity of getting screened for various illnesses and provide helpful information regarding vaccinations or making smarter diet and lifestyle choices.
Reduced Stigma and Myths
Everyone’s perception of general healthcare is different. Unfortunately, it’s become more complex and challenging for each person to get the answers they need regarding their health, especially as misinformation and stigmas surrounding certain conditions or treatments continue to grow. Healthcare advertising helps organizations normalize meaningful discussions surrounding individuals’ mental and physical health while helping debunk certain misconceptions.
Enhanced Brand Awareness
Like most companies, healthcare organizations can benefit significantly from the additional brand awareness their advertising initiatives help create. By using these opportunities to showcase their unique strengths and expertise, they can see significant improvements in their online engagement while also helping to establish more credibility with patients.
Expanded Reach and Competitive Advantage
As digital platforms become more common, online advertising continues to be an effective tactic for healthcare organizations to stand out from their competition. By not limiting themselves to word-of-mouth referrals when establishing a local presence, organizations can extend their reach further when advertising online services, attracting a larger market share.
Better Patient Outcomes and Increased Revenue
Healthcare companies can better educate their patients and encourage them to make better life choices, all while improving their resume sources. The more information individuals have accessible to them regarding their healthcare choices, the better decisions they’re able to make. This can lead to a much more improved quality of life while also leading more individuals to try new healthcare products and services.
Navigating an Evolving Healthcare Landscape
How can healthcare marketers systematically apply the preceding insights to maximize results? Often, partnering with a specialized healthcare branding and medical marketing firm can make all the difference. For example, at Maricich Health, our branding, advertising and marketing communications campaigns unite strategy, creativity, diversity and data-driven measurability in a process we call Brandtivity. This enables our clients to thrive in a world evolving through rapid innovation and engagement with diverse audiences. And it recognizes that truly effective marketing should help clients navigate this landscape and grow by doing more good for the populations they serve—so that everyone wins.