The growth of social networks and people’s limited attention spans
are helping to make the craft of healthcare marketing tougher.
are helping to make the craft of healthcare marketing tougher.
by James Dowd, MMN
As social networks continue to grow in popularity and instant information – or misinformation – is merely a click away, Mid-South communications experts agree that providing accurate and engaging content is more important than ever for healthcare organizations.
And as myriad media platforms vie for increasingly limited attention spans, providing relevant information that increases efficiency and enhances user experience is key.
“The first thing healthcare marketers, or any marketers for that matter, have to consider is their audience,” said Dave Chaney, director of communications for the Tennessee Medical Association. “We must consider their perspective when crafting our message. In Memphis, for example, there is a robust medical device sector and marketing messages to that community may be different, say, from marketing messages to pharmaceutical companies in Nashville.”
Stinson Liles, a principal of Memphis-based Red Deluxe Brand Development, agreed.
“So much of marketing now is targeting,” said Liles, whose firm serves a number of healthcare clients, including Baptist Memorial Health Care and the national ALS Association headquarters in Washington, D.C. “It’s amazing how specific you can get in choosing exactly who gets your messaging in digital now. And when you build a program that combines that with your social media and email strategy, it can be really powerful.”
For Chaney, a significant marketing push for his 8,500-member association is recruitment. Shelby County boasts the largest county medical society in the state (there are 2,234 TMA members in Shelby County) and developing marketing messages that appeal to specific areas and demographics has become standard procedure.
“In the last few years we’ve seen health care reform and everyone is now looking to increase quality of care and efficiency and reduce cost,” Chaney said. “This is a dramatic change from 10 or even five years ago in terms of marketing and messaging. The convergence of different stakeholders, from physicians to health care professionals to patients to insurance companies, has led to more specific and detailed marketing.”
This is where accurate, easily accessed content comes in. Healthcare organizations and professionals must realize that the proliferation of online searches means an increasingly large number of patients are getting their initial medical information online. And marketing efforts must capitalize on that.
A study by the Pew Research Center found that more than 70 percent of Internet users have searched online for health information. And nearly 80 percent began those information-seeking journeys by utilizing search engines such as Google or Bing or Yahoo.
Marketing to online audiences therefore takes on greater significance and may yield tremendous results, Liles said.
“Imagine you’re an endocrinologist looking to build market share. Mass media was once your only option., but today you can create some premium content — maybe a weight loss guide for women with hyperthyroidism — put it on your site, and advertise it in digital ads that are shown only to women in their 30s and 40s,” Liles said. “Better still, you can require an email address to get the content and then set up periodic emails to that person about thyroid issues. It’s a cost-efficient, high-ROI set of tools that didn’t exist before.”
And while marketing efforts are being developed with online audiences in mind, attention must also be paid to how such campaigns are discovered and consumed.
“Every day there is something new. I saw a cool platform recently that offers employees redeemable points as they post company social content to their personal social media channels, but none of this novelty is a silver bullet,” Liles said. “Successful marketers are still the ones who understand their audiences and plan clear and focused programs for reaching them. Technology is great, but it’s no substitute for strategy.”
