Healthcare Marketing

Top Healthcare Marketing Trends for 2019

The healthcare field evolves and advances at an incredibly rapid speed. Marketers need to have the ability to analyze the marketplace for trends and develop plans for the future if they want to succeed. Success in the healthcare field, as with any other, depends on a marketer’s ability to engage with the customer. Repeated studies have shown that customers, both businesses and individuals, respond better to companies that appeal to their human side. Engagement is the best way to build loyalty, but how are marketers going to develop this relationship with healthcare customers in 2019? Here are a few of the biggest healthcare marketing trends to watch for in 2019 that can help you connect with your target audience.

Hospitals to Make Patient First Care a Top-Down Business Priority

While day to day staff of clinics and hospitals across the country have embraced a patient first philosophy to the provision of health care, change is often slow to happen at the top. As a result, there can be discrepancies in the delivery of customer service. In 2019, you can expect to see more top-level executives at hospitals and medical clinics adapt this perspective as well.

Making this change may involve subtle things, such as investing in electronic billing services to make it easier for patients to pay outstanding bills. Hospital and clinic websites may also change in 2019 to include online booking features. Convenience rules other industries, such as the retail and service industry, and it is projected to hit the healthcare industry soon. Making sure that websites are modern, contain useful and easy to find information, and allow patients access to booking services is going to be the only way to stay ahead of the competition.

The Future is Mobile

Almost everyone in the country has a cell phone, and nearly 80 percent of people use their mobile phones to access information on the internet. To remain competitive, clinics and hospitals need to adapt. For starters, it is crucial for these companies to have responsive websites that are easy to read and appealing regardless of which device they are viewed on. When setting up a website, it is essential to be sure that the text is easily visible, that accessibility options are available, and that tools like online booking are fully functioning.

Advertising campaigns also need to be constructed in a way that is mobile friendly. Taking advantage of social media sits, sharable content, and carefully worded pay-per-click advertising is a great way to reach a wide market.

WEBSITES NEED TO BE USER FRIENDLY

In this day and age, all clinics and hospitals need to have a website to thrive. Almost all people search out information about a company online before seeing them in person, and the healthcare industry is no exception. As a growing number of companies start investing in user experience, you can expect to see this change spill over to the healthcare industry. Websites may change to include more accessibility features, less crowded text, and faster load times. The goal is to attract patients who are seeking information by giving them exactly what they need, making them more likely to seek out care at that particular clinic.

Conversely, patients who cannot find what they are looking for on a hospital site are more likely to visit the competition. Studies show that people spend an average of three minutes on a website looking for information before they decide to search elsewhere. This means that in the future you can expect to see web pages designed with user experience, not SEO, in mind.

LEAN BUDGETS, HIGH EXPECTATIONS

Unfortunately, marketing budgets are not likely to go up in 2019 despite the raised expectations of members of hospital and clinic management. There are ways to overcome the challenge of a low budget, and you can expect to see numerous organizations embrace them. These include social media marketing, where a Facebook post containing informative and sharable is promoted to a specific crowd. This is a relatively inexpensive way to complete a few marketing goals:

• Establish yourself as an authority by providing useful information
• Engage with your market in way that encourages a back-and-forth conversation
• Save money on your marketing budget
• Reach only the audience you intend to reach

Other, less traditional approaches to marketing may also be embraced. These could include having board members give presentations at charities or colleges about the hospital or clinic’s work and asking doctors on staff to write articles for online newspapers containing a link back to the hospital’s site. These approaches to marketing are low cost, making them appealing to top level executives.

MARKETING NEEDS TO BE PERSONAL

Another trend to watch for is the personalization of marketing. Practically speaking, it means that companies are going to create more ads directed at specific market segments. For example, a hospital may target parents with ads about its pediatric services, young adults with sports injury information, and elderly patients with ads relating to geriatric care. Executives have started to realize that a one-ad-fits-all approach is not working. It often leaves a large part of the available market alienated or unaffected. By breaking the market down into segments, and taking steps to target each one, clinics see more success.

Personalized marketing also involves figuring out how to best reach each segment. Not all advertising approaches are equally effective on all demographics. For example, radio ads are still a good way to reach older audiences, but completely ineffective if your market is millennials. Likewise, Instagram ads may appeal to younger crowds but are not likely to have any effect on older markets. Using the right medium to present the right message to your target market is a great way to establish a relationship with them as well. People feel more connected with companies that reach them on a personal level, which is exactly what the healthcare industry needs to do to attract and retain repeat visitors.

IMPROVED PATIENT PORTALS

Retaining patients involves more than just reaching them with the right type of advertisement. Hospitals and clinics are also going to need to give them extra services to compete. In 2019, this is going to mean greater access to patient portals. This gives your users access to all their important patient information, such as prescription history, history of visits, and billing information. Patients love being able to easily access this information without going through lengthy phone calls and wait times. It is also a great way to encourage them to use one clinic’s services for multiple healthcare needs. Visiting multiple clinics means that not all of their information is easily stored in one place.

Improving patient portals can also mean giving them access to mailing lists and other healthcare tools that come at no or very little cost to the clinic. A mailing list, for example, could send out information once a month or so that is relevant to the patient’s healthcare needs. This is another fantastic way to build loyalty and encourage repeat visits.

The healthcare field has made rapid changes in the last few years, with many hospitals and clinics scrambling to keep up with the competition in terms of technology and advertising strategies. As we enter 2019, you can expect to see this trend continue.