For a long time, the healthcare industry relied heavily on in-person marketing tactics. They worked well when the internet was considered a luxury, but healthcare marketers have begun specializing in the online market in recent years.
Many organizations still rely on old-fashioned techniques despite the healthcare industry’s moving to the online market. These often cost a lot of money and could limit your exposure to crucial audiences.
This is true, especially for millennial audiences and younger who admit to finding 90% of their healthcare information online.
Many of these discoveries are made through social media, where healthcare organizations can increase their brand exposure by using free marketing tactics.
However, it can be difficult to know where to start in an industry that still lags far behind many others in marketing.
Engage With Relevant Online Influencers
In a world where over 50% of the population has access to the internet, there’s a high chance that you will discover a community of people already talking about the condition your healthcare company aims to treat.
These days, influencers are taking to their platforms to talk about everything, from chronic and terminal illnesses to debilitating, life-long disabilities.
By finding and communicating with the frontrunners in your healthcare organization’s field, you are getting your name out there to those who could directly benefit from your services.
Lots of people turn to online communities when healthcare organizations have let them down in the past, so by being there, you can reassure people that they are not alone in their battle and that you can help them.
For example, if you are a healthcare organization focusing on the nutrition of people suffering from cancer, you’d want to target communities talking about the subject. You’d want to establish your brand as a place to go for reliable and educational information that will benefit the community.
Once you establish yourself as a brand to be trusted, people who have lost hope or would prefer to access services online will naturally turn into clients.
Use Interactive Media To Educate
Research into efficient social media marketing is still ongoing, but one thing everyone is sure of is that interactive media is the best way to engage your audience. In most cases, infographics and videos will largely increase your engagement rates over text-only posts.
One of the best ways to market your healthcare organization on social media is to ensure the interactive content you’re putting out there is educational and speaks to your target audience.
You can do this by providing your audience with facts about the healthcare needs you’re targeting, revealing myths, and reassuring people that seeking help and/or treatment is not something that should be feared.
By providing meaningful, educational content, you encourage others to engage by sharing their experiences.
You will also invite them to ask their questions, giving your healthcare organization the chance to display your expertise.
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Create Trendy Content
People are far more likely to engage with content they see as familiar than the content they see for the first time.
This doesn’t mean that you have to copy what other healthcare organizations are doing. Instead, consider the trends and angles your organization can take to appeal to these without compromising your brand’s authenticity.
One of the biggest predicted trends of 2022 in the healthcare marketing niche is wellness.
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This can be interpreted in terms of physical and mental health, depending on the target audience you are aiming for and how you present your brand on social media.
Let’s take the cancer healthcare organization example from earlier.
You could physically promote wellness by promoting the benefits of a nutritious diet on cancer recovery. Certain vitamins and minerals can decrease recovery times and lower the impact of side effects, such as hair loss and malnutrition.
You could also promote wellness in a mental health manner by explaining how good nutrition during cancer treatment can help you feel better. Eating certain foods or supplements can help with gut health, making you feel better and giving you the motivation you need to fight through grueling treatment.
You could also incorporate a mix of the two to show your target audience that your healthcare organization does holistically care about them.
However, it wouldn’t be a good healthcare marketing move to start talking about spirituality if you were a cancer-focused organization, as this would not fit in with the rest of your marketing.
It may also make your target audience weary of your intentions and leave them questioning whether you primarily care about them or the business.
TIP: Healthcare marketing is about showing your target audience that you care about them as individuals.
Handle Complaints Efficiently and Professionally
Recent research has shown that the number of people turning towards social media to air their complaints about healthcare organizations continues to grow yearly.
Even if you are the best healthcare organization for the niche you are working in, you will likely receive complaints on your social media at some point.
For this reason, how you handle your social media complaints procedure should be a big part of your healthcare marketing plan.
It is incredibly important that your healthcare marketing team get into the habit of replying to messages from unhappy customers quickly, to solve their issues as efficiently as possible.
It can be disheartening when people insult individuals or company practices you have worked hard on, but you must always remember to remain professional.
This is to ensure that you suitably deal with complaints before the complainant has time to tarnish your organization’s reputation on social media.
If you fail to do this, the fallout could be disastrous, affecting your organization’s business in the long term.
On a more positive note, your response to customer complaints on social media is a marketing tool in and of itself. It provides an opportunity for you to stand out against your competitors.
By having someone specifically to handle social media complaints as part of your healthcare organization’s marketing team, you are telling customers that what they say matters and that you take feedback more seriously than your competitors.
Going back to what we said at the start of this article about healthcare marketing teams being in their infancy stages, being progressive in this manner would promote your brand as the one to choose in a competitive market.
It also shows that you are active on social media instead of letting your accounts stagnate like many healthcare organizations continue to do without realizing the effect this could have on them in 2022.
