Healthcare Marketing and Millennials

Have you been marketing to millennials? What success have you seen in the healthcare marketing realm? Marketing to millennials, especially in healthcare, is rough going. It’s rough going for any industry simply because they are a tough demographic to fully understand, and yet they are the most important consumers right now because they are the single, largest demographic and largest generation in U.S. history!

Marketing to Millennials

Full disclosure, I’m a millennial, as are many team members of Quaintise, and many other marketing agencies in Los Angeles. They key to marketing to millennials is getting millennials on your team!

Millennials discard many traditional forms of advertising, feeling smarter and stronger than any tv or radio campaign. They understand how marketing works, and thus reject any idea of falling for conventional ad campaigns. To reach millennials, especially in healthcare marketing, you absolutely must think outside of the box. And in today’s marketing realm, that means utilizing social media.

Recent research into the minds of millennials, conducted by The National Society of High School Scholars, showed how important the act of helping others is to a great deal of millennials. In a survey conducted with over 9,000 millennials on the topic of ‘best places to work,’ these young respondents chose St. Jude Children’s Hospital as their number one choice, followed by the Walt Disney Company and Local Hospitals.

What can we learn from these results? Combining this research with the fact that we already know how effective social media marketing is with millennials, we can create applicable and successful advertising and healthcare marketing campaigns aimed at this demographic.

In related news that is directly associated with healthcare marketing and millennials, additional research has shown this generation to be the ‘most stressed generation.’ This increased stress leads to health complications such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiac arrest – all areas of which healthcare marketing agencies can target within specific campaigns.

The Numbers

Now, let’s take a look at some digital statistics regarding millennials. According to AdvocatesForYouth.org, millennials are "digital natives" — they grew up with the Internet, social networks, and texting, and they are comfortable and fluent with these technologies. Their experiences online include communicating with friends and acquiring news and other information.

• 92 percent of Millennials use the Internet at least occasionally.
• 75 percent of Millennials have created a social networking profile
• 80 percent report texting within the last 24 hours
• 54 percent of Millennials believe new technology brings them closer to friends and family.
• 29 percent visit their social networking profiles several times a day (more than any other age group and more reported this highest level of use than any other level)
• Only 14 percent use Twitter but they are the most likely of any generation to do so.
• Nearly as many Millennials cite the Internet (59 percent) as their main source of news as television (65 percent).¹

If you’re still a bit confused on how to market to millennials in the healthcare realm, give the experts at Quaintise a call today!