New consumer priorities and competitive trends are changing the healthcare marketing industry.  Hospitals, practices and corporations have many things to consider in managing effective marketing strategies that meet patients’ needs.
 

Today healthcare consumers are thoroughly vetting providers online before scheduling an appointment.  Online reviews are often the first thing people are looking at and if they cannot find reviews, they may just find a different provider.  Implementing reputation management to respond to reviews and encourage more reviews is an important step for doctors to take in today’s consumer-friendly marketplace.  Making sure patients can easily book an appointment on your website, communicate with you via email or chat as well as access health records are also important.

Google is the most likely place where patients will search first to find a healthcare provider.  Search Engine Optimization and content marketing will help your organization appear higher in the results on Google.  By providing a better user experience on your website and having credible content that is verifiable you will be more easily found in searches on Google.

Sophisticated programmatic advertising is becoming critical for targeting the right people with the right message.  Geofencing to efficiently reach people in a specific location and doing social media, display retargeting, and search advertising can help deliver your message to the right audience at the right time.  Using custom landing pages enhances the results from these advertising messages. Patients want to find what they’re looking for quickly as they search for a specific service or specialty. Directing them to a page that addresses that specific search increases the chance of patient conversion by utilizing form fills, clear calls-to-action, efficient messaging.

Marketing automation is the last but not least important trend to contend within healthcare.  Software that helps in performing processes such as follow-up emails, digital ads, and social media posts has become a vital tool.  With automation, you can send emails that remind patients of appointments and provide helpful content for healthy lifestyles that keeps the provider top of mind

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 57% of marketers don’t measure content marketing ROI.  This is a problem because Content Marketing should be focused on growth and without measuring you are not able to define success.  In order to understand whether your Content Marketing is working you need to know what to look for.

The first thing to monitor is your SEO ranking.  Google has high standards for ranking sites in search results.  Only the best information related to specific search terms is going to get ranked in the top 5 results.  The content you create needs to help you get there and the more valuable content you create, the more qualified traffic you will get.

Qualified traffic leads to more engagement, which is the second way to gauge the effectiveness of your content strategy.  This means you are getting prospective customers reaching out to you through your various channels such as email, chat, and social media.  The content you produce triggers a reaction and a level of interest in the prospective customer because you are providing valuable information.  In turn, they become more likely to consider buying your products or services and ultimately you see the result in terms of sales revenue.

Consistently producing great content builds your reputation and trust with your audience of prospective customers.  Make sure to include a clear next step for the reader to engage with you in the form of a call-to-action that continues your interaction with them.  Then, it is just a matter of being consistent and responsive while measuring the results.