Driving the most success with healthcare marketing campaigns begins with a clear goal. It’s really that simple, and yet that complicated. Your goal must be sharp, well-defined, and ultimately purposeful. In doctor marketing, a well-defined goal becomes the driver, and all campaign strategies seem to fall into place. Your healthcare marketing team, like that at Quaintise, needs to have a shared vision with our staff that connects at the goal. Here’s how you make it all happen…
1. Patient Healthcare Decision Journey
We spent a great deal of time on this in a previous post titled Capitalizing on a Patient’s Healthcare Decision Making Pathway, and for good reason. Understanding how a potential new patient makes the important decision regarding their healthcare provider can mean the difference between a new patient and an empty schedule. Identify the specific steps that a new patient takes to reach your office. This can be done through analytics research, big data, new patient surveys, social media polls, and patient experience questionnaires.
At Quaintise, this is one of the most influential steps to a marketing campaign, and yet one of the most often ignored steps. If you don’t know how a new patient came to your office – the exact steps they took to find you – how can you learn and repeat the process? A large part of healthcare marketing is fully understanding why something happened, and repeating that method.
2. What Do the Numbers Say?
In the age of big numbers (aka: Big Data), analytics rule the roost. In healthcare marketing for doctors and hospitals, fully comprehending the numbers can help you trace a patient’s path from that initial phone call to check out at the front desk. Recognize health and virus patterns, determine what marketing methods should be in use during different times of the year, understand how the change in seasons affects the flow through your front door. All of these things and a billion more details will impact your marketing strategies.
3. What is Your Digital Strategy?
Are you connected on social media? Do you have video on Youtube? How are patients and potential patients receiving your newsletters? Are you banner ads effective? Are your Facebook Ads under $0.20 per click? Digital media, no matter what your demographic is, can be a powerful tool.
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According to results of the The Markle Survey on Health in a Networked Life 2010, completed last summer by more than 1,700 patients and 200 physicians in practices and hospitals, an increasing number of patients prefer the use of technology such as online personal health records when it comes to managing their health.
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According to health professor and author Ramona Nelson, who helped co-author the recently published book Social Media for Nurses, the use of social media is only going to continue to grow in the healthcare industry. In an interview with InformationWeek, Nelson says, "Patients are becoming our colleagues, it's changing relationships and the kinds of questions and services a patient asks for."
It’s the truth – patients are becoming our colleagues and the relationship between doctor and patient is changing. Data can be used effectively to drive those relationships and increase engagement and trust with patients.
4. Organization
With so many numbers, so much data, it’s also imperative that you have a strong organizational plan. Your healthcare marketing team must have an organizational plan in place with your office staff. Whether it’s hospital staff, front desk associates, or general practice physicians; a plan must be in place to keep everyone on the same page, structured with the same strategies, and yet able to collaborate to design new approaches outside of that structure and box to increase patient load.
5. Technology
If you have a clear goal, you should have no problem determine which technologies will be needed to achieve that goal. You healthcare marketing team should marry perfectly with your IT team, your front desk team, your decision makers and everyone in between to develop and implement the best healthcare practices with the best possible technology available. Whether that’s a better digital records program, more useful in-office apps, more effective healthcare apps for patients, better digital communication with patients, or a better scheduling system, everything needs to be in sync and purposeful – making it easier to move towards your end goals.
The healthcare marketing team at Quaintise can implement these five steps, as well as the thousands of other important details that combine to contribute to an excellent campaign. Give us a call today!