Marketing For Healthcare Companies In 2021: What You Should Expect

Telehealth has quickly become one of the most important services a healthcare company can offer. Thanks to the pandemic, in-person visits to medical professionals had to be cut back. Rather than skipping check-ups and appointments entirely, many providers made the switch to telemedicine and digital communication. Telehealth is not a new concept, but it was not taking off as quickly as anticipated. However, 2020 kickstarted the movement and changed the industry rapidly. According to the CDC, telehealth visits shot up 50% in Q1 of 2020 compared to Q1 of 2019. That percentage continued to increase as the pandemic persisted, and now thousands of businesses rely on digital platforms to conduct meetings with patients. 

Telehealth is doing well because both patients and providers are seeing the benefits. 

• More convenient to schedule and "go to" appointments
• Lower appointment costs and overhead costs
• More open communication because it's "less awkward" discussing medical issues via video call rather than in-person
• A normal day moves more smoothly because there's far less waiting and the appointment itself is shorter

Telehealth video calls are not the only communication that has gone digital. Most medical providers are also offering text-based or live-chat options. Depending on the issue, some medical websites are even utilizing chat bots to save time for the providers. Live chats are proven to improve the perception of the business' customer service, resulting in happier customers overall. They also free up time that could be better used caring for someone with larger issues. Digital communication has become an expected standard in the healthcare industry, so it's important for businesses in the field to jump on the bandwagon. 

So what does this mean for marketers? When marketing for healthcare in 2021, digital marketing agencies want to be sure they offer services that make telehealth even better. Create social media and digital ad campaigns specifically about the telemedicine services. Develop professional websites that include a scheduling tool, a chat section, and maybe even the telehealth video tool itself! As you would imagine, all of these new digital processes require a lot of back-end organization. If you truly want to set yourself apart from other healthcare marketing agencies, offer automation as a service. Automations link multiple actions, events, and platforms together to streamline processes. Rather than relying on team members to go through 10 steps, the automation can do it for you in a fraction of the time!

The pattern continues form our other 2021 marketing trend blogs! Video content is the front runner in the digital world right now. The healthcare industry can't escape it either. In fact, healthcare businesses are seeing enormous success from video content! Of course, video content in ads and posts are lumped into this, but it goes so much further. 2020 saw the rise of medical webinars, both live and pre-recorded. Since seminars and medical conferences were forced to shut down, many headed to the internet instead! Webinars are extremely popular amongst the healthcare industry as great ways to learn from other professionals in the field. In 2021, we expect the trend of online events to continue, which means that healthcare marketing agencies need to be prepared. Here are a few services you should have on your package if you run live or recorded webinars:

• Event Management: taking care of creating the event's page and monitoring attendance. This also includes sending out reminders and confirmation emails to those that sign up
• Lead Generation Ads: One of the best ways to get sign-ups for virtual events is a lead generation ad campaign. Create social media ads about the event, and link it to a registration link or form. You can set your ad's targeting to match the interests and demographics of your target market, ensuring that interested people will see your webinar. More views equals higher chances of sign-ups!
• Video Editing: Healthcare marketing agencies should be able to edit videos, particularly if the client posts pre-recorded video events. While you can probably get away with the bare minimum, the more advanced your video edits are, the better the results will be. Our team knows how to take an average video and make it spectacular! We add headings, subtitles, watermarks, music, and more by request.

Marketing for healthcare also requires an understanding of the video tools on all social media platforms. Short form video is the most effective media on social networks at the moment. And we do mean short form. Several studies have shown that the attention span of an average American has dropped from 12 to 8 seconds. That's 8 seconds to catch someone's attention and get your point across before they keep scrolling. Digital marketing agencies will need to master creation of short videos if they want to help healthcare clients. Videos are dynamic and add a much more human and personal touch than static ads do. It's up to you and your digital team to create the perfect video. Planforms that are now using short form videos include Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and more! When choosing a digital marketing agency to work with, be sure they understand content creation and advertising on these platforms!

Customer reviews have always played a major role in the success of service-based businesses, and they certainly do in the healthcare industry. If a patient does not receive the level of service they expect, they are very likely to take to the internet to leave a strongly-worded review. These can cost you hundreds of new customers and thousands of dollars over the years! You see, before making a purchase decision, the large majority of consumers will look for customer reviews. This is true of products as well as services across the board. Because reviews are written by other consumers, they carry a stronger sense of trust and validity than a statement from the brand does. Afterall, the company is trying to get you to come in, so why would they tell you anything negative? Customers, or in this case patients, will not hesitate to give you the honest truth. 

Many people don't realize that customer reviews are challenging, if not impossible, to remove from online platforms. The most common places people leave and read reviews include Facebook, Google, Yelp, and industry-specific sites like Angie's List, HomeAdvisor, or TripAdvisor. Once these reviews are posted, there is usually not much the company can do. Because healthcare requires so much trust from the customer, negative reviews can be even more impactful. According to some studies, it can take up to 40 positive reviews to counteract the effects of just one negative review! So what can your healthcare marketing agency do to help?

• Offer reputation management and watch over the account on all platforms. Respond to reviews as applicable, either apologizing for the issues or thanking the author for their kind words. 
• Create incentive programs to encourage people to leave more positive reviews. Anger usually fuels the fire for negative reviews, but it takes exceptional service for someone to review you positively in most cases. Only 1 in 10 satisfied customers will leave a review. One goal when marketing for healthcare in 2021 is to dramatically improve that ratio!
• Work on automations or software to alert the company of new reviews so they can be dealt with accordingly and in a timely manner. 

Marketing for healthcare 101: don't underestimate the power of SEO! SEO is Search Engine Optimization, an organic service that identifies keywords on your website and ranks you against others using the same keyword. The better your SEO, the closer to the top of the Google Search Results you'll be (and it's free!). It's easy to get confused between digital ads and SEO, so here are some major differences:

• SEO takes a few weeks-months to kick in, but it continues to build the longer it's there, all for free
• Ads are a short-term gain backed by money. 
• Ads show up on the most popular social platforms as well as the top of Google pages
• SEO keywords will be ranked on Google, with your site or page showing only when a matching keyword or term is searched. If your site does well, you could be on the first page of Google results just under the paid-for ads!
• Digital ads are outbound while SEO is Inbound
• Digital ads are pushed to people who have interests related to your brand
• SEO brings in results by pulling already-interested people in. They're actively searching for keywords related to your business, so you just have to draw them in. 

Healthcare marketing is moving steadily to SEO because it's more beneficial in the long run. Until recently, the majority of marketing efforts in the industry were centered around ads and sponsored posts. These are all pushed out to your target audience, but only last for a short while. Eventually, the budget will run out or you'll move in a different direction with ads. Many practices are learning SEO because it continues to "run" in the background for as long as the page exists on your website. You may not be focusing on those keywords anymore, but you're still ranking on them and can be found. 

So what does this mean for marketers? Digital marketing agencies will need to offer SEO services to all healthcare clients. This includes a well-developed website with SEO optimized pages, a frequently-updated SEO blog, and potentially backlinking services. With the right keywords and enough persistence, any healthcare client can make it to the first page of Google for relevant search terms!

Lastly, marketing for healthcare in 2021 is going to require a more complex campaign strategy. Ads and all content need to be more personal and more creative than in years past. A saturated market means you have more competition all vying for the same client base. The best way around this is to think outside of the box and create totally unique marketing efforts. When it comes to creating personalized ads and marketing content, you have a few options (dependent on the platform of course):

• Make location-specific content and target ads towards that area only
• Include variables when you can to show keywords, company names, customer names, and more (email marketing, outreach, etc.)
• Showcase your target audience in images and videos. For example:
• Home Care should feature elderly people and caregivers
• Pediatricians should feature parents with kids
• Disease specialists can feature patients with that disease
• Use hashtags, imagery, testimonials, language, and other elements that are most relevant to your target audience.
• Share user-generated content such as tagged images, reviews, articles, and more.
• Use dynamic ad options to show each person the copy/creative combination they will relate to the most based on their feed.
• Create interactive content that puts the consumer in control.
• And so much more!

By personalizing your marketing efforts, you are more likely to catch people's attention. An email addressed directly to you by name is much more effective than a generic one. It's a great way to instantly build more trust with prospects by showing that you care about them as a human, not just as a client. As we've discussed, digital marketing agencies need to work even harder to build trust for healthcare clients, so many marketing professionals are testing out more personalized content creation. In 2021, healthcare marketing agencies will need to get creative and unique to help capture new patients. No matter what field of the industry you're in, you're facing more competition than ever. Your content and ads need to express why you are different than everyone else and why people should work with you specifically. Marketers should offer all healthcare clients web development with interactive elements, email campaigns, outreach messages, social media ads, and general graphic design.