Why is Digital Marketing Essential for the Healthcare Industry?

1. What is Healthcare Digital Marketing?
Healthcare digital marketing refers to the process of promoting your services to healthcare aspirants through online platforms. Digital marketing is a lucrative investment option for your online healthcare services. Approximately, 88% of people look online for health information and 70% of people report that the health information they find influences a decision about treatment. Digital marketing paves a great way to make you stay connected with current and new patients whenever they are in need.

2. Role of Digital Marketing in Your Healthcare Services
People opt for online healthcare services because they can get instant responses and communicate with specialists from their comfort environment at their convenient timings. In a survey conducted by McKinsey, 75% of respondents said that they want to use digital healthcare services.

Here, we will walk you through various digital marketing techniques that expand the growth of your healthcare services in the online space.

A) Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience go hand-in-hand. If you want to become a successful healthcare SEO specialist, then providing the best user experience to your patients is crucial. Responsive layout, voice-search optimization, quality content, impressive design, smooth navigation, webpage load time, etc are responsible for determining the user experience. SEO is a smart digital marketing tactic that increases your exposure online. With the help of SEO experts, you can improve your patients’ user experience, increase your visibility on the search results, and drive more organic traffic to your healthcare website. If you like to get ideas for building your healthcare website, check out our blog that curates healthcare & medical industry website design ideas and inspiration.

Below, we have listed a few statistics that reveal the importance of SEO for nourishing your online medical center.
• 77% of online health seekers use Google, Bing, and other search engines to look for health-related information
• Consumers researching physical therapists, nursing homes, and optometrists are the most likely to call healthcare providers after performing a search
• Over 70% of health-related searchers click on the results listed on the first page
• 47% of internet users search for information about doctors or other healthcare professionals.

B) Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC advertising refers to the process of advertising your healthcare services on search engines, social media, and other platforms. Unless and otherwise, someone clicks on your ad, you no need to pay any charges. For instance, Google Adwords offers display ads and text ads. The display ads will appear while you are browsing on various websites that are targeted based on your past searches. Text ads appear at the top of the Google search results page.

Hence, PPC ads provide excellent opportunities to procure quality traffic and multiply potential leads to your online medical center. As you can measure the performance of your ads on each platform, you can easily get an idea about various approaches that are working and that are not working.

Here are a few statistics that reveal the impacts of paid ads on online healthcare.
• Healthcare companies’ global advertising expenditure is estimated at $36B in 2020
• More than 7M+ healthcare advertisers invested a total of $10.1 billion in PPC ads
• The average healthcare service providers get $3 back for every $1.60 they spend on Google’s paid ads

C) Social Media Marketing
Social media is booming in the healthcare industry and paves a great way to make you stay connected with your patients even at the time of uncertainties. Social media marketing provides better opportunities to target patients under different age groups, gender, medical conditions, health issues, etc. For instance, the government of India developed a Facebook Messenger chatbot that effectively answers questions, and directs citizens to the right resources by countering misinformation. On the other end, Canadian provincial medical health officers have used social media and healthcare communication effectively. They are regularly sharing official information during COVID-19 pandemic times.

Being a healthcare representative, with an active social media presence, you can build public awareness about staying healthy during pandemic times, provide tips to maintain both mental and physical health, clear the doubts of patients through your expertise, and many more.

These statistics listed below reveal the importance of social media in the healthcare industry.
• Among the healthcare centers in the United States, 94.41% have a Facebook account, 50.82% are active on Twitter, 99.14% use Yelp, and 99.41% have a Foursquare page
• 60% of social media users trust social media posts shared by health professionals and doctors
• 83% of social media users in America have searched for health-related information online, that include mental health, disease management, immunizations, etc
• 91% of participants said online social media communities greatly support their health-making decisions.

D) Content Marketing
Content marketing through blogs, infographics, videos, e-books, etc unveils your expertise to the right audience. With quality-rich content, it is easy to share your expertise and engage with patients.

For instance, if you are a well-experienced dietician, write blogs related to topics like childhood obesity, nutritional diet, fitness tips, and more. By posting articles based on topics related to your niche you can provide the best solution to your readers and also showcase your expertise to your audience. Make sure that your content focus on providing values to your patients instead of becoming a self-promotional element. Also, by avoiding medical terms in your content, you can make it more understandable to the readers.

Below, we have collected a few statistics that prove that content marketing is essential for your healthcare service.
• Healthcare content marketing has generated 3 times as many as outbound marketing and costs 62% less than other marketing avenues
• Healthcare video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year
• 83% of health organizations are engaged in content marketing
• 58% of healthcare marketers use blogs in their digital marketing strategy

E) Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing is a cost-effective technique that allows you to reach healthcare aspirants on their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices through smart and ethical marketing tactics. App-based marketing, in-game mobile marketing, location-based marketing, mobile search ads, mobile image ads, and text messages are some mobile marketing ideas that perfectly meet your requirements. Through mobile marketing, you can target local audiences, and encourage users to quickly avail your services.

Here, we have listed a few statistics that reveal the impact of mobile marketing on the growth of your healthcare services.
• 44% of patients who research hospitals on a mobile device end up scheduling an appointment
• 47.6% of healthcare industry emails are opened via a mobile device
• Around 19% of people surveyed had health and fitness apps on their smartphones

F) Email Marketing
Email marketing is another cost-effective gateway to stay in touch with your audience, provide a personalized experience, establish a relationship, and stay on top of your patients’ minds. Before embarking on email marketing, you have to segment your email subscribers based on certain demographics like age, interests, health conditions, etc. Personalize your emails with the appealing subject line, call-to-action (CTA), and user-friendly sign-up options.

Further, implement email marketing automation strategies to send effective emails consistently without any hassles. Through email marketing, you can effectively acquire new healthcare aspirants for your online medical center and retain the current patients.

Here are a few statistics that depict the positive effects of email marketing on your online medical center.
• 74% of digital healthcare marketers said that email is their most effective distribution channel for new content
• Email is 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined to help you attract new patients
• 89% of digital healthcare marketers reports that email is the primary source for lead generation
• For every $1 spent on email healthcare marketing, the average return is $44.25

It is clear that digital marketing plays a vital role in enlarging the growth of your online healthcare services. By properly optimizing these digital marketing platforms, you can turn your prospects into an active protagonist of your healthcare center.

3. Advantages of Investing in Healthcare Digital Marketing
Digital marketing would be a lucrative investment option for promoting your online healthcare center. Here, we have outlined a few advantages of healthcare digital marketing.

Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA)
Investing in digital marketing will reduce the cost of acquiring a patient. A survey held at U.S. vein practices reports that most common media channels used are print (68%) and TV (30%) which cost about $314 and $348 per patient. Digital outreach can cut that overall cost down by 50%.

Demographic Targeting
Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing allows you to target patients by their specific age, gender, location, and other demographics. By doing so, you can provide a more personalized experience to your potential patients.

Data-driven Decisions
In traditional marketing, it seems highly challenging to track the patient’s user experience. With amazing digital marketing techniques and tools, you can easily track the user experience and make decisions.

Search Engine Visibility
Out of 20 searches on Google, one search relates to healthcare services. Everybody uses search engines to find health-related information including wellness tips, symptoms, medical centers, specialists, and more. As you implement effective digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, you can boost your visibility on the search results.

Patient Referrals
Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing gives access to a lot of digital tools and techniques to drive quality leads to your healthcare services.