Consumer control is at an all-time high in 2022. We are in a new age of highly informed, very picky consumers who want to feel in control for their entire journey; from discovery to purchase.
Healthcare, as an industry, is also feeling the effects of consumer control, especially after the pandemic pushed everyone online and searching for health concerns. Now, a patient would spend a significant amount of time online, researching before settling on and even booking an appointment.
The COVID-era helped fully transform the healthcare industry into one where healthcare consumers want individualised experiences. This has been called the consumerization of healthcare and will inform many of the healthcare marketing trends we will see in 2022 and beyond!
Live video & Telemedicine
Live video has a massive impact on the way a potential patient feels about it and is far more impactful than text-based marketing efforts or adverts. You can use social media networks or even your website to offer live healthcare-focused videos. For example, if you are a GP service looking for new patients, you can hold a webinar to introduce yourself, the staff and the services at the organisation to prospective patients.
The pandemic has also accelerated the demand for telemedicine. Patients aren’t willing to wait weeks or even days for answers when a quick video call can alleviate worries. Use video innovation to become the dependable go-to service for patients, which will build trust, authority and positive word of mouth.
Reputation Management
Because patients are now conducting their own healthcare research online, reputation management is now absolutely vital. You can manage your reputation in a couple of ways as a healthcare service, aside from patient reviews posted on exchanges that you have no control over.
The first is to form a base of authority and build a voice of trust within the healthcare industry. You can engage in social and communal discussions on your website through a blog or through your official social media accounts.
The second is patient reviews that you do have control over. This is where you proactively look for and cultivate reviews to push on social media posts, in brochures or even advertisements. If you’re wondering where to source these reviews from, have a review slip in physical locations, use an automated email/text service, monitor reviews daily and search your business by name online – you never know if someone has posted about you!
Reputation management is key to the success of healthcare services as 85% of consumers looks to online reviews as much as social recommendations.
Simplified Communication
People are sick and tired of misinformation and convoluted medical jargon. They want trustworthy and simplified patient communication. For healthcare services the case for changing communication is two-fold. You need to cut out the number of pre-forms and appointment reminders that need to be sent, filled, sent back and all the protocols that need to be followed. Opt for automated text/email services which are much easier to manage for patients who can instantly add it to their phone calendar.
The second aspect is toning down the way you talk about medical issues, treatments and procedures on your social channels and website. Once you have established yourself as a trusted medical professional, you will naturally understand how people search for issues, what information they want and in what order. A healthcare marketing professional can use targeting, keyword research and search analysis to find out what you need to say and how to say it to get your page in front of people looking for answers.
Personalisation
Personalisation isn’t just a big trend for healthcare in 2022, it is just a big trend. Full stop. And truth be told, the healthcare industry has been dragging its feet with this offering. Deloitte’s 2016 report on healthcare revealed that healthcare consumers want personalised interactions from their service but this demand has not been met.
If you want to give your healthcare service a personalised feel and make every visitor feel valued, you need to map existing content and optimise pages so you can catch consumers at the right moment for conversion. You must also instil a culture of patient-first actions at your service and extend empathy at all stages of the customer process. You can add a pseudo-personal touch to your healthcare service’s online presence by employing AI chatbots that can then funnel customers to a real person.
A.I & Health Clouds
More than 86% of healthcare companies employ some type of artificial intelligence. However, up until last year, much of this has been in back-end management. Using artificial intelligence funnelling systems doctors, patients and the healthcare industry as a whole can get assistance and important information with the snap of a finger.
Transferring data between healthcare providers has always been a hassle for patients but those days are gone. Clouds holding health information can be used to give patients access to their data at any time, without needing them to physically come to the doctor’s or request information release. This electronic access can then be recorded by an artificial intelligence program to ensure security and track data use.
Privacy
The pandemic has also certainly strengthened the values of protecting electronic health information and maintaining both privacy and confidentiality. You have to ensure all your marketing efforts are respectful of the conditions you are talking about as your potential customers will be the ones suffering.
You must also ensure all your online services, portals and information points are regularly audited by security and meet the necessary guidelines for compliance in your particular jurisdiction.
Wearable device integration
Wearable devices such as Fitbits and smartwatches help people record blood pressure and heart rate and can even record blood sugar levels. If you are not taking into account that some of your prospective patients may have this level of medical analysis on their wrist, then you could be wasting appointment time.
Why not use this technological innovation to your benefit and out in place funnels that take into account visitors who wear a device that can track important medical information? This will then help you not only personalise the experience but also collect information in an efficient way for the patient.
Omnichannel Marketing
Now, omnichannel marketing has been a standard in digital marketing for many industries for years now. The healthcare industry is just catching up. Omnichannel marketing is basically a constant stream of content and marketing across all digital channels whether it be social networks, your website, video content and patient reviews all at the same time.
When a potential patient is assessing your appointment page, they will be bouncing off to see your reviews, your socials, videos of the treatment and maybe even a Q&A session with yourself. You need to make sure you have some form of content offering in all these places so your voice and value proposition is present and consistent throughout.
To achieve this, you need to take each and every treatment/procedure you offer and build out an omnichannel campaign for them that will activate at certain points of the consumer funnel system. An omnichannel marketing strategy usually includes social media outreach, long-form content, call services, email automation, pay-per-click ads (PPC), explanatory videos, search engine optimisation (SEO), TV and radio content and in-person events.
The point of omnichannel marketing is to be available to your potential patients at any stage of their decision process. If you can position yourself in this sweet spot, you increase your chances of conversion.
Voice Search Optimisation
Perhaps the biggest trend healthcare services need to subscribe to is voice search optimisation. Anyone with a smartphone is walking around with a digital assistant that is changing the way people find things. The frequency of voice search is slowly but surely catching up to traditional text-based search. And one of the most popular problems people voice search for is medical problems.
For example, if you are looking for a doctor in London, you may text-search: ‘GP in London’. But, if you voice searches it, you may say: ‘best doctor’s surgery in London’. The voice search query has totally different SEO factors and should change the way you write in keywords for your content. So, we recommend using more long-tailed keywords as searchers get more conversation and altering the keywords used in already uploaded content.
The future of healthcare marketing
Healthcare as an industry is always very slow to catch up to societal trends let alone marketing trends. However, the pandemic has accelerated its move to digital healthcare, and with that comes no innovations in the healthcare marketing space.
We’ve gone through some above but even more nifty marketing campaigns and ideas will pop up in 2022 and we will be on the case. And, as a dedicated healthcare marketing agency, Digital Aesthetics is uniquely positioned to meet your healthcare marketing expectations.
