2023 Trends in Healthcare Marketing: Adapting to the Digital Shift

In the current times, every sector of industry is starting to go through a revolution of digital technology. The current trends in healthcare marketing are also shaped by the digital tools and techniques in use today. Marketing in the healthcare sector is a prime necessity because of the highly competitive landscape of the industry.

Clinics and hospitals need to be on top of the relevant marketing trends of the healthcare sector because it is important to cater to the audience. The marketing strategies and messages should not be tone-deaf and relatable to people. The healthcare sector influences and affects real people. So, the marketing techniques and campaigns should be sensitive and open to the actual people who are targeted by them.

If a healthcare setup wants to attract more patients, it needs to cater to the patient's needs and market itself as such. There is a huge scope in this where digital marketing steps in. Digital marketing is necessary to reach people because people have a higher digital footprint these days. From kids to elders, diverse population metrics are present in digital marketing. The diversity of the digital landscape is why it is the right place to market your healthcare setup. For this, you need to partner with the best healthcare digital marketing agency.

Why Healthcare Digital Marketing is Crucial in Today's Digital Era?

Number of factors make digital marketing strategies for the healthcare industry. The audience of healthcare companies and hospitals is wide. The majority of these people are present in the digital landscape and obtain a lot of information from the Internet. People get to know about the healthcare digital marketing trends through the Internet.

Because of the increased consumption of healthcare information from the Internet, healthcare establishments need to increase their presence and activity on the Internet. The Internet is fast, and by leveraging the latest trends in healthcare marketing, a healthcare institution can spread awareness among a wider audience within a short period of time.

Another one of the emerging trends in healthcare marketing is the use of digital channels as the primary patient touch points. People use digital apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and other communication channels to talk to people and gather news these days. The traditional ways of communication are giving way to better, faster communication channels. Therefore, healthcare companies and hospitals also need to target and build communication through these channels. The use of these channels can spread information and awareness faster.

There has to be a realization that digital marketing for healthcare can work really well and help achieve the primary social and economic goals of healthcare enterprises. Digital marketing is nothing but the use of communication and social apps to reach out to more patients so that a larger audience can connect with the healthcare institution. By using the right digital channels and building apps to offer healthcare solutions to the audience, hospitals and clinics are improving the accessibility of healthcare services for common people. Digital marketing, thus, has a higher social welfare impact in the healthcare sector.

Emerging Trends in Healthcare Marketing

Now that we are clear about the impact of digital marketing in the healthcare sector, let us look into the healthcare marketing trends 2023 that are set to bring a revolution in the sector. These emerging trends will change the way doctors and service providers interact with patients and how patients avail of healthcare services. The rising digital marketing trends linked with the healthcare sector are as follows-

1. Telemedicine Integration

The use of telemedicine has been around since the 2000’s as telecommunication developed further. Today, telemedicine has evolved into a digital front where patients can connect through apps and websites to consult doctors and take their advice for medicine. Telemedicine portals can be linked to healthcare websites through digital tools and used for digital marketing.

People are looking for convenience, mostly in healthcare, when they want to avail services urgently. The use of technology and marketing tools can be done to promote the use of telemedicine in local and remote areas. This not only helps patients it also creates a better reputation for your healthcare institution. Whether you are starting a private practice or a clinic, you can offer your audience the ease of appointment booking and digital communication through website and application portals.

● Expanding Service Accessibility

The integration of telemedicine capabilities into your website and communication channels increases the level of accessibility of healthcare services. The healthcare services offered can be easily browsed through and opted for through digital channels. The accessibility of healthcare services benefits the patients at the grassroots levels and helps the healthcare setup in achieving the most basic goals of its operations. The healthcare clinic or Hospital increases the responsiveness and activity of the healthcare team through the integration of telemedicine into its offerings.

● Reducing Physical Barriers for Patients

The use of telemedicine and online appointment booking processes reduces the physical barriers between patients and doctors. The doctors can connect with the patient at the earliest according to their schedule and convenience. There will be no physical restrictions on the consultation, and the patient will get the right kind of response back from the doctor. While not all medical and healthcare procedures can be digitized in the virtual space, most of the communication and reach can be done through telemedicine and digital communication channels.

2. Personalized Patient Journeys

● Tailoring Content Based on Patient History

The element of personalization needs to be integrated into patient-handling activities so that any patient who connects with the healthcare establishment gets the right kind of treatment and advice. Quite often, a traditional healthcare setup becomes too administrative and mechanical toward patient needs. The use of communication channels, touchpoints, and digital marketing can help create personalized patient journeys based on patient history.

Healthcare advertising trends can be used to create content and images that are customized according to the needs of the patient. Targeting the patients with relevant content supports their service journey and increases patient loyalty. Patients need to know that the healthcare establishment is offering the services they need.

● Enhancing Patient Experience with Customized Communication

The personalization of content also ensures that the communication going out from the Hospital has a human-responsive touch that connects with people in a better manner. The tailored content shows that the Hospital cares about patients at an individual level. Even the formal communication and reminders that go out to the patients should be personalized to ensure that their issues are solved.

Whether through customer service or through marketing activities, personalized content has a better impact on patients. The use of customized communication can also improve the internal administration and quality of services offered to patients at the user end.

3. Mobile Health (mHealth) Advances

● Optimizing for Mobile User Experience

The optimization of mobile user experience is also one of the major recent trends in healthcare marketing. It is important to note that mobile phones are the new computers of reliability for people. From children to senior citizens, everyone holds a mobile phone these days.

The goal of accessible healthcare and digital marketing converge at meeting users where they are most present. Since mobile phone usage has increased manifold these days, offering all information and services through mHealth is a major step toward accessibility. The use of mobile apps and mobile-friendly websites by using b2b healthcare marketing trends creates channels that bring patients and hospitals closer together.

The app design should be highly responsive and optimized so that the user experience is excellent. The user experience layout should be adaptable to different demographics like senior citizens, disabled people, and caregivers. Healthcare mobile apps should be fast and high-performance in nature with low downtimes.

● Deploying Health Apps for Enhanced Patient Engagement

Health applications can take care of patients like their own fitness assistants. Fitness and health apps are all the rage today. In a busy lifestyle, people are unable to take care of their health and appointments on their own. So, there is an organic demand for health apps, which are riding over healthcare marketing trends.

Healthcare establishments and hospitals can partner with app development companies to create health apps and hospital apps that offer digital healthcare services to patients. The deployment of health apps after understanding the demand for services creates a positive shift in patient engagement. A good app can also increase lead conversions for the Hospital or clinic.

Any person who wants to know more about the Hospital or use its services can simply download the application. The application can be used to send out marketing messages, healthcare information, and reminders about checkup appointments. Thus, there is a scope for constant patient engagement through such apps.

4. Content Marketing Focus

● Educating Patients with Quality Content

The content marketing front of digital marketing can also be integrated with hospitals and healthcare ventures. All that goes out to the patients and stakeholders can be termed as content. Staying attuned to pertinent subjects and recent healthcare marketing trends can assist in crafting content that deeply connects with patient audiences. In the healthcare sector, it is important to educate patients and spread awareness.

Education through content shows that the Hospital is a socially responsible entity. Patients do not come to the Hospital until absolutely necessary, but the Hospital needs to create an image of being ever present to help the patients. The marketing campaigns and content going out from the hospital website and media handles should be aligned with this image.

● Building Trust Through Information Leadership

The Hospital can not only create scope for marketing but also create popularity to become the key opinion leader in the field. The use of a good application and website can be used to offer accurate and helpful information to people. The more the healthcare setup connects with the patient base through information, awareness, and reliable services, the more trust it enjoys from the patient base.

The more trust it gains, the better credibility it has in the sector. A lot of people, in fact, most of them do not have the right information about diseases and healthcare procedures. The Hospital can create channels of social welfare through the application and website to create its own niche as a thought and information leadership.

5. Video Marketing Expansion

● Increasing Engagement with Explainer Videos

The use of video across social media platforms and strategically on websites is something done across industry verticals. Therefore, it is important to use such content in the healthcare industry. From short-form to long-form videos, hospitals should use diverse content. Usually, healthcare information and details can be boring and confusing to people.

The current healthcare marketing trends of video creation and circulation can make information sharing more interactive and interesting for people. The facts and things that the patients should know can be explained to them through explainer videos. Explainer videos concoct a lot of information in them and are great for circulating a message with a lot of information on social media.

Apart from explainer videos, short format videos with clever messaging can also be used for patient base marketing. While most of the important information should be sent out directly, indirect messaging also engages the patients. The hospitals need to find a balance between direct and indirect messaging in their marketing campaigns.

● Building Rapport with Patient Testimonial Videos

Another element of video marketing that can be explored is the use of patient testimonials. Patient testimonials should be included on the hospital website, but they should also go out in the marketing channels. It is better if the patient testimonials and experiences are in video formats so that leads and patients can connect with their community.

The interactive level of videos adds layers of genuineness to the testimonials sent out through the media. Reviewing videos, sharing patient recovery stories, and also sharing personal experience stories of doctors can humanize the organization and build better patient-organization relationships for the Hospital.

While making these videos, the marketing team needs to ensure that the message that goes out does not sound salesy or does not infringe on the privacy of patients. The circulation of these videos on websites and applications does really well for online reputation management of the Hospital or clinic.

6. SEO and Local Search

● Improving Online Visibility in Search Engines

The online visibility of the hospital website page on search engines is also an important element for effective digital marketing. When people fall sick or need immediate doctor attention, they go to search for hospitals on the Internet. The Internet works with search engines, and if the Hospital creates a website and content according to the search engine, it will be able to be more visible to patients.

Using SEO marketing tactics and relevant content through blogs and articles helps increase the digital reach and visibility of the website. Keyword research and finding the right keyword tags to include in the website page highlight the right sections and snippets for the web.

The SEO tactics need to be managed in such a way that the website is accessible at the top ranks of search engine result pages. Whenever a patient types in keywords like Hospital near me, clinic near me, or any disease-specific keyword, the hospital website should pop up at the top of the results.

● Targeting Local Audiences with Location-Based SEO

A hospital is, at the end of the day, a physical establishment that offers services in real life. People look for hospitals and clinics that are close to their houses. To make the Hospital successful, the digital marketing team needs to use location-based SEO tactics and keywords.

Local SEO tactics can help target people in the locality and hyper-locality. The use of location-based SEO can make specific services available to specific locations and demographics. A wider approach for social media with local SEO techniques used strategically on search engines helps in taking the website to people who are most likely to visit the Hospital.

The intensity of local SEO can help improve customer conversions from the nearest areas of the Hospital. As the Hospital works in real life, it needs to target real people near its area so that it can have a stable patient base.

7. Social Media Interactivity

● Fostering Community Through Health Discussions

Social media pages of hospitals and clinics also play a huge role in fostering patient-hospital relationships. The social media page can be used to connect with old and new patients. You can use the patient base to create community groups for better internal interaction and organic word-of-mouth marketing through digital channels.

Creating a community of patients and doctors and fostering discussions on health issues and diseases can create a continuity of conversation around the Hospital and its services. Through these discussions, there could be a natural conversion of leads into patients and stakeholders. The health discussions and exchange of information create relevant hype around the clinic or Hospital.

● Increasing Brand Presence with Consistent Social Media Activity

The increasing brand presence from social media activity can establish the Hospital as a key opinion leader. The social media activity can create a niche for the Hospital if done with the right messaging and the right kind of information. The brand presence of a hospital or clinic can increase if there is a higher level of social media activity and interaction over a long period of time. Social media activity is not only posts and videos but stories, polls, comments, hashtags, and also messages to patients. At so many levels, different platforms can be used to create an omnichannel of marketing open for different purposes.

8. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

● Implementing Chatbots for Immediate Responses

The rise of AI and the use of AI for different purposes has also attracted the attention of marketing executives. The integration of AI with digital platforms and the use of AI in chatbot-like applications can be used for better patient experience. The use of AI is set to shape healthcare marketing trends in 2024.

Chatbots can be at the forefront of customer experience and interaction. Customer service executives can use chatbots to resolve patient issues and complaints very quickly with the use of AI chatbots. A hospital needs to be available for its patients around the clock. This round-the-clock support can be extended with the use of AI chatbots.

● Personalizing Marketing with Predictive Analytics

A personalized digital marketing strategy for healthcare can also help the healthcare industry. The storage of data and its management can help in the use of predictive analytics so that the patterns of patient behavior and needs can be predicted. These predictions can be used to offer services to patients before major health issues arise.

For example, services like scheduling appointments for chronic patients and checkups for regular patients can be done with predictive analytics. Predictive analytics can also be used to give personalized offers to people.

9. Online Reputation Management

● Monitoring and Responding to Patient Reviews

The online reputation of the Hospital or clinic also needs to be monitored and managed from time to time. Digital marketing executives can manage patient reviews and testimonials to highlight the efficiency of the Hospital. Long-term online reputation management creates a spotless reputation for the Hospital.

● Enhancing Brand Perception with Positive Engagement

Positive patient reviews and engaging patients consistently in an effective way can create positive engagement for the Hospital. The emergence of positive patient reviews and a strong online reputation translates to real life and attracts a lot of new and old patients for an expanded user base.

10. Compliance with Data Protection

● Adhering to HIPAA in Online Marketing Efforts

The Hospital or clinic also needs to manage patient data and useful information in a way that does not break any privacy rules. The Hospital or clinic needs to adhere to HIPAA rules so that the establishment does not land in legal trouble and manages its good reputation. The patient data should be protected by many security levels.

● Ensuring Transparency in Data Usage and Privacy Policies

The data usage and privacy policy of the hospital app and website should be very transparent and strong so that the patients are comfortable sharing their data with the doctors. The transparency of data usage builds a relationship of trust between the Hospital and the patients.

Stay Ahead: Adopt Trends in Healthcare Marketing Now!

The adoption of healthcare marketing trends can create scope for the promotion of hospitals and clinics as a business. Healthcare companies and hospitals often depend on word-of-mouth marketing, but in the modern world, digital marketing trends have to be taken into consideration for marketing and communication. The hiring of a healthcare digital marketing consultant is a good decision if your Hospital is trying to start its own digital marketing and promotions.