When we talk about healthcare marketing, it is important to distinguish different healthcare sectors for proper promotion, as each of them have their own characteristics. Based on them, you can build your own effective healthcare marketing plan.
- Marketing of the healthcare organization. Promotion of the entire healthcare facility as a holistic brand is the most common type of advertising activity. However, in some cases, the effectiveness may be inferior to other types of marketing promotion.
- Marketing of specific services. It is quite effective when it comes to a clinic specializing in a particular area of medicine. Such advertising is applied depending on seasonality and other factors. For example, discounts on a visit to an allergist in the spring, when most people experience an exacerbation of allergy to pollen, is a fairly justified measure from the point of view of promotion.
- Medical Marketing Specialists. A very effective form of promotion aimed at increasing the reputation of the leading doctors of the clinic. Indeed, patients often unconsciously associate the success of a specialist with the success of the entire institution. And a particular doctor is usually chosen based on reviews about him on the Internet and the opinions of friends.
- Marketing of the location. This type of medical institution promotion is suitable for a variety of sanatoriums and specialized medical organizations located in specific locations. Here, attention is focused on favorable, often unique, conditions that contribute to a speedy recovery, and their medical impact on the body. However, it all depends on the specific location.
- Marketing of medical ideas. In the field of medical services, this can be the promotion of innovative treatment methods developed by the clinic’s specialists, or certain laboratory tests that are difficult to access in the area. According to Cardiologist Dr. Simon Stertzer, MD, any field needs innovators to survive, but when it comes to healthcare we all need those innovations for our health and survival.
Of course, each of the listed types of promotion should be focused on the needs of a specific target group of customers. Marketing analytics is used to identify the target audience and its desires. This can be polls and parsing on social networks, segmenting traffic from the website, and other methods. It is better to use different types of marketing in combination, then it will help to achieve much more serious results and cover a wide target audience.
In the healthcare field it may be not too easy to reach the desired audience.
This is because the marketing of most clinics and centers comes down to a standard set: website development and SEO, contextual advertising, activity on social networks. And it all ends with leaflets with information about promotions and discounts. There is nothing wrong with these methods and they are undeniably productive. But if we are talking about achieving unconditional leadership in the market, we need to use non-standard solutions and modern trends, like mobile applications, integration into messengers, health gadgets, etc.
