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What is Healthcare Marketing?
Are you an owner of a dentistry cabinet? Massage salon? Or an aesthetic clinic? For quite a long time, a business of this kind could successfully exist, function, and even grow with the help of traditional promotional methods. So what has changed now that we are talking about marketing in healthcare as a separate direction with its own secrets, tools, and strategies? The thing is that the nature of leading a business and the portrait of a customer have undergone irrevocable alterations as a result of global digitalization. People think and prioritize things differently, having a much wider choice and much better access to the market and information than ever before. That is why if you want to get more clients and scale, traditional advertising is too ineffective. It’s time to move online and consider health marketing.
This is a direction in the marketing sphere that has appeared relatively lately (we are talking about the Internet and digital marketing) to promote businesses from the medical niche: clinics, hospitals, dentistry cabinets and private practices, spa & massage salons, aesthetic medicine institutions, pharmacy & drug stores, online e-Commerce projects for distributing medications, instruments, or other medical equipment, etc.
Why is Marketing Important in Healthcare?
As we have already mentioned, medicine establishments successfully functioned for many years using simple advertising and word of mouth methods. Now, in the conditions of tough competition and a great number of private clinics, where everyone tries to stand out and offer better conditions to attract more clients, you should look for new promotional ways, and strategic healthcare marketing is exactly what might help you out.
1:
Prospective patients live in a digital world
All people online may become your potential clients in the future, and search engine, social media, email service, and so on are wonderful opportunities to let users of the Internet know about your business.
2:
Almost half of the users google info about doctors and other providers
Online reviews are one of the crucial points when helping people making a decision of what clinic/doctor/service, etc., to choose. So, if you put effort into building a strong and trustworthy online reputation, you have great chances to win more clients for your business.
3:
More than half of Internet users connect by way of a mobile device
Gadgets (smartphones, tablets, laptops) made the world ‘smaller’ and more accessible. Online marketing is a much faster and more convenient way to reach the audience and promote your clinic/pharmacy, etc.
Healthcare Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing
If we look at the core of the issue, the aim of healthcare advertising is pretty understandable and does not differ from what we call traditional marketing – promote a company, attract more customers, boost sales, increase revenue, develop brand awareness, and so on. They also use pretty much similar tools for achieving the aim – offline marketing, SEO promotion, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Facebook & Instagram ads, email marketing, contextual ads, SMM, and so on. So what is the difference?
Well, everything is about the customer and the kind of services you provide. When we say that any business should strive to help and be useful rather than sell, about the healthcare industry, this point is crucial as never before. Whether you have a medical clinic or spa salon, people are coming to you with their concerns. They may have health issues, problems with their skin or teeth, cellulite, or just seeking relaxation. Your task is to provide a solution. The job of an advertising and healthcare marketing agency is to explain to the potential client why particularly your clinic and your service is better, more reliable, and comfortable. Such things as discounts and promos are not always relevant to your business. The same is about a customer loyalty program. It is one thing if you own a cosmetic studio or massage salon, but no one would be happy to become a regular customer of a medical clinic.
That is why the main task of a healthcare digital marketing agency is to build a competent psychological strategy to press the right ‘buttons’ in order to determine the clients’ pain and ways how you can help them out. Here, you need to be a little bit of a psychologist, not to overdo it with your desire to help, as a matter of health can be very sensitive for the potential patients.
Of course, everything depends on the nature of your business, whether it is an aesthetic clinic or medical center, and to build a successful promotional strategy, the marketing specialist would have to study the niche carefully. There is no universal formula of success here. For this reason, we would suggest that hiring one of the professional healthcare marketing companies would be a wiser decision than going with a regular marketing agency, as they already know the market and specifics of working with this kind of business. It will help you to avoid lots of mistakes and save your budget correspondingly.
Final Word
Everything changes, and in order to stay afloat, you and your business should follow the trends and catch the wind of changes. We live in the era of digitalization and the Internet, and even medical clinics and beauty salons go online, start Instagram pages, create website, and do everything to survive. It helps to attract more customers, speak about yourself, and build a reputation. Moreover, it is comfortable for your patients as they can easily find about you by googling it and even make an appointment by contacting your manager is social media. It is beneficial for you and them.
Another point is that online competition is tough, and you should offer more to outstand and prove you are better. Do not despair. Professionals in IntlTech know everything about healthcare and health marketing to help you win your place under the sun.
