As interactive digital experiences become more ingrained in everyday life, they are changing the way consumers relate to healthcare services. One in 20 online searches is now health-related.1 And about 70% of hospital traffic comes from search.2 Today’s healthcare consumer is eager for information, and healthcare marketers benefit from consumer engagement at every stage of the decision-making process.
Although marketers have a strong incentive to engage with audiences online, physicians — who are often partial to more traditional marketing — are more reluctant. In a recent poll, 46% of healthcare marketers said resistance to change in their organization is a barrier to digital marketing efforts.3 Effectively working through these challenges can enable healthcare organizations to take an active, ongoing role in consumers’ decision-making process around health services.
To align physicians with modern marketing practices, we have outlined four strategies healthcare marketers can take to garner the necessary support.
1. Define marketing.
Those who are unfamiliar with the business of marketing tend to blur the lines between sales, marketing, and advertising. It’s important to create the distinction between each activity. Offer some clarity on the purpose, functions, and goals of marketing. Share consumer insights and trends. This transparency can help physicians understand the need for digital tactics.
2. Support your efforts with data.
Physicians are trained to understand evidence-based research. Traditional methods of marketing simply cannot measure ROI the way digital practices do. Measure the metrics that are most important for reaching your organization’s goals, and report the results. By providing a quantitative analysis, healthcare marketers can help physicians process the information in a familiar manner.
3. Seek physician expertise.
Physicians are problem solvers by nature. Invite them into the strategic process by asking them technical questions related to patient care. Prompt them to talk about their challenges and successes. Not only will you build a more communicative relationship, youll also likely come away with some compelling stories to work into your content.
4. Shift to video.
Traditional marketing methods such as billboards and newspaper ads give physicians a sense of recognition. The limitations of these media, however, are many. For the physician who enjoys a more public presence, healthcare marketers should experiment with video campaigns.
With over 50% of users now favoring mobile devices over desktops, audiences want content they can easily consume.4 This approach is win-win-win — marketers have more control over messaging, the consumer connects with the brand in a new way, and the physician receives the desired exposure.
Final thoughts
Closing the gap between physicians and hospital marketers is critical for both organizational success and a satisfying consumer experience. This starts with proactive leadership that champions the role of digital marketing to meet the needs of the demanding healthcare consumer. A united effort will enhance consumer engagement and effectively prove the value of integrated marketing ROI to physicians and the C-suite.
To learn more about enhancing engagement and improving access for consumers, visit Healthgrades.
1. Google Engage, “Connect Healthcare.” YouTube, March 9, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdiwk4D6imE&feature=youtu.be
2. 2016 Google/Millward Brown Digital “Path to Treatment” study. http://www.liftconversions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Partners_Healthcare_OneSheeter_v5.pdf
3. “The 3rd Annual State of Digital Marketing 2017,” www.greystone.net
4. Agrawal, AJ, 7 Content Marketing Tips for Healthcare Companies. January 17, 2016. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/01/17/7-content-marketing-tips-for-healthcare-companies/#20a81e893c44
In the highly competitive healthcare marketplace, the rules of marketing are changing. Healthcare marketers are turning to new strategies to better engage patients and provide them with relevant, personalized healthcare information, says Rose Glenn, senior vice president of marketing and PR at Henry Ford Health System. Here, Glenn discusses the latest advances in digital media and CRM.
Q: What are the compelling trends in digital media today?
Glenn: To start, marketing roles are changing. Our marketing team members must now be content experts. At Henry Ford Health System, we want our marketing and communications teams to work in a much more integrated and comprehensive fashion to optimize content across all platforms. For example, when we write a news release, we are also thinking about how to treat a quote, make it interesting for a Facebook audience, and determining how we can develop a video to showcase that same information in a compelling way.
Also, consumers are shopping around for their care more than ever before and using sites such as Healthgrades and Yelp to learn about other people’s experiences on physicians and hospitals, so you can’t just rely on your own website to reach and engage people. To position your organization favorably, it is important to develop a comprehensive strategy that takes into account the other credible places online that patients turn to for information. For example, we have a partnership with Healthgrades that enables us to spotlight and expand our online physician profiles in certain ZIP codes. Automated marketing is a new tool in which we are also very interested. We recently piloted automated marketing to brand-new patients to welcome them to the system. We email them information on our wellness program or our walk-in clinics and then base subsequent messages on what they click or don’t click.
Q: How can hospitals set themselves apart in a crowded healthcare environment?
Glenn: To break through the noise and stay on the cutting edge of digital communication, you have to understand consumers better and provide valuable content. We are taking a much more individualized approach when it comes to engaging our different stakeholders. We start with a lot more customer listening through our patient and family advisory councils and via an online patient panel.
Q: How is Henry Ford using CRM to support digital media strategies and tactics?
Glenn: CRM allows us to provide relevant information to the consumer—which is important in today’s world, where it is so easy for someone to mark your email as spam and prevent you from communicating to them again. We have become better at collecting email at the point of care, sending customized information to patients depending on their interests, and measuring what they do with it. This allows us to see if we are meeting our targets.
CRM is used in a number of ways, including helping support people who have certain diseases. For instance, we can send information about ophthalmology and podiatry services to people who have diabetes. And, Henry Ford launched a New Movers campaign this year that introduces someone new to this area to one of our primary care physicians. The campaign has been quite successful. In one quarter we had a 13.4 to 1 ROI and a contribution margin of $6.5 million, which is true income. Having a great CRM partner is a critical piece to the pie because if we don’t show the outcomes, it is a difficult investment to continue to fund.
Q: What are the biggest challenges that healthcare marketers face today?
Glenn: Both the healthcare industry and the marketing discipline are changing rapidly. Keeping pace and making sure you align your resources with the best way to acquire and retain your customers is a big challenge. You have to be on top of understanding and being responsive to customers’ needs. You must also have a clear understanding of what digital marketing can and cannot do to achieve growth.
The call for transparency is another big challenge. People want to know the price of their healthcare and what others think of the physicians who work at our health system. It is important to use the same retail models as TripAdvisor, Yelp, and others for healthcare consumers. Our current website offers patient satisfaction scores on all of our employed doctors. In the future, we plan to use a star rating because the research tells us that is what people prefer.
Q: What is the best way to work with hospital leadership to create effective marketing programs?
Glenn: You have to continually engage them in what you are doing and not just show them the ROI once a year. I am fortunate because I report to the CEO and am part of the senior leadership team. I like to see marketing and communications executives reporting to the CEO because then we can more easily and quickly develop strategies that reflect the system’s priorities. The structure we have at Henry Ford has really allowed for a very smart marketing strategy.