It’s pretty obvious that what worked for you in the past, is old school and will not continue to work for you as time goes on. Just as medical practices have had to change and add both EHRs and patient portals or die, so does marketing for medical practices and health facilities change over time.
As Darwin pointed out, the strongest of the species does not survive. It is the one who is flexible and adapts that survives!
What is trending in health marketing as we move toward 2015?
Let’s take a look at the information based on Content Marketing Institute and Market Prof’s B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report.
The top take-away message of their meeting and report was
“if you want to be more effective at content marketing, document your strategy. Only 35% say they have documented content strategy. Those who have a documented strategy rate themselves highly in terms of content marketing effectiveness -60% 70% of content marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago.
The top 5 social media platform usage (for B2B) which works well for referrals and conferring with colleagues:
- Google+ 64%
- Email campaigns-72%
- Facebook-84%
- Twitter-88%
- LinkedIn-94%
The top 3 challenges of content marketing:
- Creating engaging content
- Producing content consistently
- Measuring content effectiveness
The top 5 goals for content marketing:
- Lead Nurturing 74%
- Sales 75%
- Engagement 81%
- Lead Generation 83%
- Brand Awareness 84%
Key differences between B2B (doctor to doctor or hospital interaction) vs. B2C (doctor to patient interaction)
B2B vs. B2C
- Creating a better can i buy ventolin over the counter in usa mobile strategy: 58% vs. 74%
- Better understanding content marketing technology: 70% vs. 77%
- Leveraging user or fan generated content:48% vs. 70%
- Real-time content marketing:47% vs. 58%
- Content personalization:44% vs. 70%
- Developing a Channel plan for social media:47% vs. 75%
Content Marketing Tactics
The average number of tactics used in business is 13. The top 10 are:
- Social media content (other than blogs) 92%
- eNewsletters 83%
- Articles on your website 81%
- Blogs 80%
- In-person events 77%
- Case studies 77%
- Videos 76%
- Illustrations/Photos 65%
- White Papers 68%
- Online presentations 65%
Which of these tactics are you using for your health marketing?
Certain techniques or tools lend themselves well for both B2B and B2C health marketing- drawing in both referral bases and attracting more patients by strengthening your brand. Consider an eNewsletter. There is no outside expense such as postage here and it provides an opportunity where you can highlight:
- procedures that you are doing (that are unique to your practice) or that are new in your field
- new staff members
- new affiliations
- new insurance participation
- disease or technique of the week
- process patients follow in case of emergencies or signs to look for necessitating a call to you
- who covers the practice
- new medical devices
The health content pertaining to you is endless. Remember, it may be old hat information to you but not to your patients and prospective patients! They will be educated and appreciate your time and interest in them.
Decide what you can commit to and enjoy doing it!
I would be happy to discuss your needs further. Contact me at 516-647-3002
