Healthcare marketing is reactive by nature. People don’t search symptoms until they have them or look for emergency care until they need it. But that’s the past. Let’s look to the future of healthcare marketing, where acting proactively builds brand awareness and market share for your company long before a patient needs it.
But how do you create a strong marketing plan that makes your healthcare company Google-worthy?
You market proactively. Generate content on topics that create awareness of your brand and benefits. Don’t completely eliminate pain point marketing but increase proactive efforts to gain a loyal following and build a community.
As a healthcare system, you need strong visibility and awareness within your community. You can leverage social media, local events and even your own employees to garner more reach. Content and event marketing can become a crucial piece of your advertising plan.
Providing followers with digital content will help promote your expertise. Your content doesn’t have to be about illness. Instead, give fans a more complete picture of your brand and mix in employee spotlights medical breakthroughs, or tips on how to stay healthy. There are tons of proactive topics your followers will relate to, you just have to integrate them into your marketing plan to see what sticks.
A good example is the rise of preventive health. People are searching for a resource around daily health and wellness, for some it’s a daily pursuit. They search using for specific keywords to find a trustworthy source. Healthcare companies should take advantage of this actively engaged audience and generate content around preventative health topics.
Participating in local events will help connect you with the people in your community. Plus, it will humanize your brand and make it more approachable. Letting the community interact with the brand in a fun and inviting setting will pivot the negative association that comes from seeing the brand when they feel bad, to the positive associated with seeing the brand when they feel good.
Encourage employees to talk about the healthcare company they work for through an employee advocacy program. We have found success with this grassroots approach. Employees engage with approved content or create their own and share it with their friends and families who become part of your brand’s audience. And because they are hearing the message from a friend or family member, they are more likely to engage with the content.
Speaking of influencer marketing, let your patients do some of the work for you by giving them the tools they need to have some fun. Make sure patients are able to tag your facility in social media posts after a visit and generate a hashtag to create a sense of exclusivity and hype. When you are out of the office and promoting a local charity, include your hashtag. Consumers will be able to click on that hashtag and see all of the associated content, providing a database of positive user-generated content.
It can be overwhelming to stay on top of all healthcare trends in digital marketing. The Agency Creative Healthcare Marketing team happens to have a healthy appetite for all things digital. We’d be happy to help.
