If your healthcare practice doesn’t have a digital marketing strategy, you might want to change that. With today’s industry challenges, digital marketing is non-negotiable for a practical healthcare marketing plan.

One of the best ways is to acquire new patients and maximize revenue. Alongside traditional marketing strategy tools, you could be missing out on reaching patients who are looking for your services without a strong online presence and strategy.

Digital marketing for healthcare industry constantly evolves as new technologies and trends appear. Healthcare marketers must keep up with the changing climate to compete with other businesses and provide the best outcome for their patients.

This guide covers almost everything a healthcare marketer needs to develop effective digital marketing in healthcare in 2024. The issues covered are:

• how it is used in the healthcare industry,
• its benefits and
• the latest trends.

We’ll break down the top healthcare online marketing strategies and the legal and ethical issues to consider when dealing with patients’ data.

What is Healthcare Digital Marketing?

Healthcare digital marketing is how businesses promote and grow through their online presence and activity. There are a variety of channels and mediums that healthcare practices can take advantage of to promote their services. Each channel requires a different strategy to effectively boost online visibility and brand reputation.

Digital marketing for medical practices helps healthcare businesses grow and increase their client base. It can be used to attract new clients, communicate with existing clients, and educate users about healthcare services.

Results from the National Health Interview Survey revealed that:

Actively searching online is how many people answer their health inquiries. It helps them decide what actions they need to take next and which healthcare representative to choose. This makes it all the more important that medical centers have visibility online to help patients make informed decisions.

The Role of Digital Marketing in Healthcare Industry

There are many benefits to both patients and businesses who adopt an online healthcare marketing strategy.

Educate Patients

Medical Internet marketing educates patients and answers their questions. It gives them the knowledge of what their symptoms might tell them so they know what product they need or what specialist to see. This can be achieved through marketing content such as blog posts, website content, or email communications.

Improve Accessibility

Digital marketing for hospitals improves accessibility as it allows patients to contact you and get the support they need when they can’t reach you in person. This could be in the form of virtual consultations or text messaging services.

Build Relationships 

Through digital healthcare marketing efforts, health providers can build trust with new patients. People can learn about your services, read reviews, and get to know your business to help them decide if you are the right medical center for them. It also helps to maintain your relationship with existing clients as you can engage in communications tailored to them based on their past visits.

Establish Brand Reputation

Building a memorable brand reputation helps healthcare businesses stand out against competing providers. It establishes your credibility in the marketplace as you appear to be a known and reputable brand. Healthcare providers can improve their reputation by providing client testimonials, credentials, and medical industry knowledge.

Improve Customer Experience

Patients use the Internet to find hospitals, book appointments, and get the information they need. Optimizing for online usage streamlines the patient journey, making it easier for them to find the information they need and access the care they are looking for.

Cost-effective

Healthcare digital marketing activity is traceable online, providing data and analytics. These insights can be used to refine marketing activity to get a better return on investment than other alternative marketing efforts that are not as easy to track.

Features of Digital Marketing in Healthcare

There are some useful features in digital marketing for healthcare that are helpful for businesses in the industry.

Personalization 

Healthcare digital marketing efforts can be personalized, unlike alternative marketing methods like billboards, TV advertisements, or newspaper advertorials. Personalized content appeals to people because it is more relatable to them. It gives them information they are more interested in knowing based on data.

Data and Analytics 

Healthcare digital marketing collects data that drives marketing decisions. The data can be used to analyze what people are looking for and want to know. Healthcare practices can tailor their services to their users’ demands and identify trends.

For example, data might show a particular time of year when more people are searching for a specific service. A healthcare provider could use these digital insights to promote their services at this time when people are looking for them.

Targeting

Healthcare digital marketing efforts can be targeted specifically to people who are interested. You can target by location, age, gender, or past buying habits, which helps tailor your marketing efforts to reach the right people.

Automate

Save time by implementing healthcare online marketing techniques that automate and streamline processes. Add automated messaging services to provide information to patients or send automated email reminders of appointment times.

Key Trends in Healthcare Digital Marketing in Recent Years

Digital marketing trends in the healthcare industry frequently change as new popularity rises, sometimes as quickly as overnight.

Social proof continues to be one of the most prevalent trends and important inclusions in a healthcare digital marketing strategy. Social proof shows that other people like and use your product or service. It’s particularly important for healthcare professionals as this service can carry some level of risk that patients want to mitigate by viewing social proof.

A survey by Software Advice found that 90% of healthcare patients use online reviews to evaluate physicians. They found that online reviews are the first step to finding a new doctor for 71% of the surveyed respondents. Healthcare practices need to use social proof to help patients make these decisions.

Social media is another aspect of social proof, as users can share their experiences with different products and services through user-generated medical content.

The social media landscape continually changes over time, for example, the recent rise of Instagram’s Threads. Since Twitter changed to X, it has dropped in popularity, but TikTok has moved up to become one of the more popular social sites. It’s become the 5th most popular social media network in January, with over 1.5 million users, according to a Statista survey.

Sourced from statista.com

Artificial Intelligence is a current trend that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. In fact, its presence in healthcare marketing may only increase in the coming years following the benefits it’s shown. This tool sometimes gets a bad reputation, but there are many ways it can help healthcare businesses optimize their marketing efforts.

One way is to streamline processes such as automated responses, emails, and chatbots placed on your website to answer common questions. This helps give the patient the information they need without needing someone to spend extra time answering the questions.

Another trend for this year is wearables like Fitbits and Apple Watches, particularly with new forms of health-tracking devices appearing on the market, such as the Oura Rings. Healthcare professionals can benefit from data collected from these new technologies by segmenting audiences based on the information. For example, you could promote sports massages to people training for marathons.

A survey conducted showed that 91% of patients were interested in sharing the data from their wearables with their doctor. For healthcare digital marketing, this opens up more doors in ways of targeting customers.

Top Digital Marketing Strategies for Healthcare

Let’s take a look at some of the healthcare digital marketing strategies that you could benefit from implementing in your healthcare businesses.

Here are some examples of the types of healthcare organizations that would utilize these strategies. 

• Hospitals
• Care Homes
• Pharmacies
• Dentists
• Surgeries
• Rehabilitation Centers
• Therapists
• Diabetic Care Centers
• Childcare Services
• Dietitians
• Dermatologists
• Alternative Care, including Acupuncturists

Develop High-Quality Content

Content appears across a variety of channels, such as the website, blog posts, articles, social media, podcasts, and e-books. It can be used to educate your audience and promote your services.

Your content could be the first interaction a potential patient has with your business, so making an excellent first impression is vital. It needs to provide the audience with the information they are looking for and reflect your high-quality service.

When creating content for your practice, answer common questions and showcase your expertise to position yourself as an authority in your industry. This will help you attract new audiences and build trust.

Consider the different channels and how that will impact the format of your content. For example, videos on social media need to be shorter within the time limit and need to grab attention, whereas blog posts on your website can be longer forms with more information.

Invest in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is paid promotion online, predominantly through search engines like Google and social media platforms like Facebook.

Ads are created for these platforms to attract more people to your website. The number of clicks on the ad and other ads in the market will depend on their cost.

Paid advertising attracts high-quality leads, which means it targets people who have already shown interest in what you are offering, either by searching for something you provide or interacting with similar content.

For example, a Google ad could be created to appear when someone searches for a keyword like ‘physicians near me.’ By implementing PPC ads, your business could be one of the top results.

However, PPC advertising is a competitive game, as many other businesses are trying to get their ads in front of the same audience. Effective PPC ads must be backed by a data-driven strategy with persuasive messaging to appeal to your audience.

Create Compelling Video Content

Videos are useful forms of content to include in your social media strategy and your website to provide information in a different format. Like other forms of content creation, videos need to be high-quality to reflect your quality of service.

This can be particularly beneficial to demonstrate a service or walk through a procedure. It gives a potential patient more information to help them select your services.

Videos are a great way to attract views on social media. Platforms like TikTok use only video content, which makes it unavoidable if you want to appeal to its audience.

When creating video content, start with an engaging hook to immediately grab the viewer’s attention, then provide valuable information to keep the viewer watching. Always ensure your video content has a clear purpose and call to action at the end.

Optimize Your Website for Search Engines

SEO is the process of enabling your website to appear higher in organic search results for engines like Google.

The purpose of SEO is to get your website in front of the right people who are looking for your healthcare services. Optimizing your website for search engines is therefore essential for increasing traffic because, without it, other competitors will appear before yours in the results.

A CallRail Survey showed that the majority of healthcare providers were prioritizing their digital marketing focus on website and SEO optimization to attract new clients to their practice. This shows it is one of the best options for a digital marketing strategy for healthcare in 2024.

Source: CallRail

When optimizing SEO, there are two facets to consider: on-page SEO, everything on your website, including the user journey, and off-page SEO, your presence outside your website.

Optimization includes focusing on the following areas of on-page and off-page SEO:

• Keywords
• Titles
• Meta descriptions
• Image tags and alt text
• URL slugs
• Page load speed
• Navigation and user interface
• Backlinks
• Guest posts
• Promotions
• Social media
• Local SEO like Google Maps

Implement Social Media Strategies

Social media is a key trend for digital marketing for healthcare in 2024. Creating strategies for social channels is a crucial approach to growing your audience base and connecting with your existing patients.

Create a social media plan based on what your community is looking for. This might include educating them on topics, promoting your medical procedures, and sharing testimonials and reviews for social proof.

For a social strategy, plan to make updates regularly, as the algorithm prefers to promote consistent pages. This will make sure your content is continually seen by people who want to see it and help you spread awareness of your services.

Social platforms create a community, which is a great way to gather feedback from your current patients. You can answer questions in the comments and even book appointments directly through messages.

Use Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective medical digital marketing strategies you should consider for your 2024 strategy. Market data shows that email marketing has the highest return on investment for healthcare digital marketing over alternative channels.

This is because it’s relatively low costs to set up but engages the audiences to convert.

An email marketing strategy could include automated updates for booking reminders and booking confirmations. It can also be used to send important documents like pre-registration questionnaires or follow-up results and e-newsletters, updates, and offers.

Develop a Reputation Marketing Strategy

A reputable marketing strategy is necessary to plan activities and forecast the budget. A plan should be guided by market research and data analysis.

Creating content without a strategy could result in wasted resources, as analysis has not been carried out to determine the best course of action.

Develop a Mobile Application and Invest in Mobile Marketing

Most people use mobile phones to consume content, so yours must be optimized for mobile users across all channels.

This includes ensuring your website works on mobile, and all the content is accessible and easy to navigate. Statista reports that almost 55% of website traffic is generated from mobiles.

When designing your website, consider a mobile-first strategy. Mobile usability is also one aspect used to assess your website for SEO. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, it may result in less traffic.

Optimizing marketing efforts for mobile can be achieved through testing and data analysis. Ensure ads display correctly on mobile and emails are formatted in a mobile-friendly way.

Consider other ways to use mobile phones, such as SMS and text message reminders, to share information with patients.

Set Up Retargeting

Retargeting is a marketing tactic to reach people who have already used your healthcare service or bought your product. The purpose of retargeting is to get repeat sales from existing or past customers.

Return visits are important as these customers are already interested in your offer since they have previously purchased. People who have already shopped with you are more likely to return and shop again than those who have never used your service.

Retargeting isn’t always applicable to some healthcare professions and practices if your product or service is a one-time use. For example, they might have had surgery that they don’t need to repeat. If that’s the case, you may be able to promote your other healthcare services they might also be interested in.

Retargeting can be done through digital channels, including email marketing, PPC, and social media. It means segmenting your audience to provide content and strategy to people who have already bought from you.

Use Geotargeting

Most healthcare providers are location-based as they require a physical location to carry out their practice. For that reason, it’s essential to utilize geotargeting in your digital marketing for healthcare efforts.

Geotargeting uses geographic data to tell you where someone is based. You can tailor your marketing efforts, such as online ads, to only reach people in certain locations. This way, you can ensure the only people seeing those ads are people in your local vicinity.

Without geotargeting, you risk promoting to people who would not be relevant to your service.

In some instances, you may want to target people from a wider location if you find that your patients are willing to travel to reach you. However, it highly depends on your business and your customer base.

Analyzing data for your existing patients is an excellent way to start to understand how broad you can go with geotargeting.

Leverage Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has continued to gain popularity over recent years with the increasing demand for user-generated content. It uses people of influence, predominately on social media platforms, to promote products or services. It has a similar effect to using celebrities in advertisements, but it works across a wide variety of niches and can be a more cost-effective solution.

The opinions of influencers are placed in high regard by the people who follow them. Their purchasing decisions are respected, and that’s how they influence others to buy.

Influencer marketing is a great tactic to add to your marketing tactics in 2024 to reach new audiences. It’s particularly useful for businesses with visual results or requiring a story to see the transformation of the experience, such as dentistry and surgery.

Implement Virtual Сonsultations and Telemedicine

A virtual consultation is a video call to discuss what the patient needs help with and to provide advice on the next steps. In some cases, this is a step before an in-person consultation to determine if further medical support is needed or if the issue can be remedied in other ways.

Telemedicine is a way to connect patients remotely. This includes phone calls, text messaging services, and other remote platforms where the patient and healthcare provider can interact.

Virtual consultations and telemedicine services make it easier for patients to access the care and advice they need. They are also beneficial for healthcare companies, as they allow them to reach more patients and streamline services.

Run Сontests and Promotions

Creating competitions with prizes can be an excellent way for healthcare aspirants to expand their audience reach. It encourages engagement from your existing audience as they have an incentive to get involved.

It helps to nurture your audience so they remember your brand and your services stay in front of their minds. It can be a great way to provide new information about your services in a fun format.

Giveaways are a tool used in social media strategies that can help broaden your network of followers and subscribers. In the case of social media, participants are required to share the contest with other people to be entered into the prize draw. This helps expand your brand awareness and attract new potential customers to your social channel.

Use Messengers and Chatbots

Messengers and Chatbots can be used throughout your healthcare digital marketing strategy. Chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence or pre-written answers. Other messenger services allow you to message patients directly.

The aim of these tools is to answer patient questions. It’s usually at the start of the customer journey when they have just discovered your healthcare brand and want more information. Many times, people in this stage have similar questions that can be answered in automated responses.

These chatbots can be used on your website, social channels, or any other platforms you might use to host information or booking services.

Using these services saves time as a person is not required to answer the same questions manually.

When more complex questions are asked, these services can automatically notify you by email or ask the patient to book a call. In many cases, this is achieved without your intervention.

Messager tools can be used to communicate with your patients if they cannot use a phone or video call. For example, this is useful for deaf people who need to text over calling.

Ethical and Legal Issues in Digital Marketing in Healthcare

The healthcare industry tackles sensitive information, and there are rules and legislation regarding how this data should be handled.

Protection of Patients’ Personal Data

Digital Marketing in healthcare involves using and storing patients’ personal data. It is vital that confidentiality and security of personal information are protected by following relevant data protection legislation.

There are different laws to abide by depending on where your healthcare business operates.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This set of guidelines and standards outlines how sensitive patient data must be treated and stored. It includes data disclosure and usage and compliance for healthcare digital marketing activity.

In the European Union, they have GDPR, which is the General Data Protection Regulation. All businesses in the EU must comply with this legislation. It covers compliance with topics such as data collection, consent to give data, and data protection methods such as encryption.

You need a secure way to store patient data and a robust process for maintaining that data. This means you need to get approval before you use email addresses for marketing purposes, remove data from your storage when asked or after a certain period of time, and have a backup plan in place for any data leaks or misuse.

Compiling with legislation not only ensures your practices are legal and avoid fines, but it also ensures your patient’s information is kept safe and is only used for what is needed.

Compliance with Medical Ethical Standards

There are moral compliances that healthcare practices need to consider when carrying out healthcare digital marketing activity. Any claims you make in your content need to be backed up by statistical evidence to ensure your advertising isn’t misleading.

When ads make untrue claims to promote their product or service, they cross an ethical and moral boundary.

It’s also necessary to maintain patient confidentiality and respect patient rights. Be transparent and tell your patients how you are using their data. This is important for maintaining a moral code and trust in your service.

Regulation of Advertising for Medical Services and Products

Advertisements and promotions have standards and compliance guidelines that must be followed.

In different countries, various laws apply. For example, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) in the UK has specific guidelines that all businesses should follow for their advertising practices. The General Medical Council (GMC) has used these guidelines to create a set of standards specifically in the medical industry.

The HIPAA also provides advertising guidelines for the US healthcare sector. For example, they stipulate that healthcare practitioners cannot use patient testimonials unless consent has been given.

Conquer the Healthcare Market with Brand Intimate: Optimize Online Presence and Patient Acquisition

Having the help of an agency like Brand Intimate can improve the digital marketing strategy for healthcare providers.

Brand Intimate has the skills, knowledge, and expertise in healthcare digital marketing to implement a successful strategy for healthcare businesses. They can lead your healthcare digital marketing strategy, which includes improving your SEO, managing your PPC ads, and running your social media. This ensures you consistently find new clients and get more out of your existing ones.

Having the help of an agency gives you a clear direction from the start, as they can provide a plan based on what you need to improve on. With their expertise, they can help you reach your goals quicker and improve the customer journey so you can streamline the process and attract new patients.

Healthcare providers should consider Brand Intimate to maximize their healthcare digital marketing efforts and improve their visibility online.

Conclusion

Healthcare digital marketing is essential for healthcare practices because it allows practices to find and retain clients. With daily innovations, keeping up with new industry trends like AI and social media is important.

Various channels can be used to optimize your presence online, such as your healthcare website, paid ads, and email marketing. Each channel requires its own strategy, but you always need to create quality content that provides value for your patients.

Whatever healthcare digital marketing activities you are carrying out as a healthcare professional, you need to ensure you comply with legal and ethical standards by protecting patient data.

Consider hiring an experienced agency with a proven success record, like Brand Intimate, to improve your healthcare digital marketing strategy.