Digital Marketing for Healthcare Industry
Healthcare has been one industry where the primary focus is on patient outcomes. There is nothing wrong with that and that is in fact how it should be. However, healthcare being such a vital industry, has consistently lagged in areas of marketing. The focus was always on much more important factors. Also, in the past healthcare wasn’t as expensive as it is today. The demand for health services were higher too. Hospitals always had a constant influx of patients. Neither was the industry as saturated as it has become today.
Today’s healthcare consumers are smart, educated and bold. In a country like India, where healthcare is primarily cash driven in contrast to the West where it is insurance driven, consumers have begun asking for more transparent, cost effective medical services and also begun to demand two-way communication with healthcare providers. This was not the case earlier where people had only a few options to choose from and medical providers had the upper hand and business just came far easier to them.
One must remember that the increasing internet usage is not merely for the purpose of socializing online, but rather in search of solutions for their problems or queries. In fact, searching for health related information is the third most common activity done on the internet. This hints at the potential of digital marketing to transform the healthcare industry in a very big way. Experts predict that by 2020, healthcare industry in India is will be worth USD 280 billion due to the increasing adaptation of digital techniques. As such, healthcare information technology market is expected to enhance its net worth of USD 2.5 billion by 2020.
How Digital Marketing is shifting the Healthcare Industry?
With the help of digital technology, consumers nowadays select hospitals in a way startlingly similar to how one would select a hotel. This includes social media, online ranking sites and hospital websites. The medicine industry is slowly becoming brand-specific. Traditional marketing methods are inevitably losing their prowess. Strategies such as word of mouth, television ads, newspaper ads and banner ads are nowhere nearly as effective as they used to be. Digital marketing, whilst taking over the advertising industry has slowly penetrated into the healthcare industry too. Brands are now forced to revamp and rework their marketing strategies if they want to attract patients. Patients who are healthier, live longer, and rely on healthcare organizations less which means that they now have the luxury of time and better health to take a well-informed decision. Today’s patients are also able to do extensive research online, which means they are more particular about the services they receive. This indefinitely means that to reach a huge chunk of the young population which is a really able section of the population who are also almost entirely online, digital marketing strategies need to be looked into and implemented with the appropriate finesse. Healthcare brands need to start focusing on driving the point onto personal screens.
Relevance and Advantages of Digital Marketing for Healthcare Industry
There are several reasons that explain the relevance and importance of digital marketing for Healthcare Industry. Some of them are listed as below:
- Digital marketing helps to influence the consumers on social media. According to Mediabistro, 40% of the users are affected by the health information circulated on social media. Another report by Demi & Cooper indicates that the medical information on social media influences nearly 41% of consumers in choosing specific medical facility, hospital, doctor or health consultant.
- Digital marketing helps to identify potential health influencers on social media. By recognizing influencers based on their popularity, qualifications and their followers on social media, you can decide the most suitable influencer for your target audience.
- Digital marketing enables the health professionals and influencers to interact with consumers over internet. According to Search Engine Watch, 90% of the social media users aged 18-24 years trust the health information shared by heathcare experts. Thus interacting with social media users increase the consumers’ level of trust and brand loyalty.
- Digital marketing has the ability to transform the existing scenario of healthcare industry. Mediabistro reports that 54% of patients prefer seek advice from online communities to cure their ailments. This hints that the futuristic ‘customer support’ of healthcare industry could be functioning online.
- Digital marketing helps to grow health awareness among the public on a large scale. According to Wordstream, one-third of the total internet consumption is done by watching video. This is very helpful for healthcare professionals to spread awareness through informational videos that could be watched by the masses.
- Digital marketing techniques such as SEO will improve your business if your firm is listed in the top of Google searches. When it comes to healthcare, people prefer only the best of services.
Our Digital Marketing Services for Healthcare Industry
And that’s exactly what we’re here to do. Adsyndicate are long time experts in the field of digital marketing with a dedicated in-house team aptly named ADCODE who can professionally assist you with any digital marketing need you could possibly imagine to think of. Why us? Well, you could ask our clients which include health organisations like Rohto and Wings why. Or maybe it’s our expertise in various components of digital marketing such as SEO, CRO, search engine management, ad-campaign strategy, social media marketing and management, website management and so on, the flawless execution of which has helped our existing clients reap amazing returns. We would love to help you achieve them too.
The healthcare industry has been one of the slowest to embrace marketing trends as and when they emerged. Even though it wasn’t absolutely necessary for their survival earlier, the industry is inevitably moving towards such an age. With more and more healthcare brands stepping up their digital marketing strategies, anyone who doesn’t is sure to bite the dust sooner rather than later. Let us not let that happen, together. Contact Us today!
About Adsyndicate
AdSyndicate is ranked among the most preferred Digital Marketing Agency in India. With a wonderful team of dreamers, achievers, believers, innovators and endowed individuals, we have been winning hearts and writing successful stories in the Advertising and Marketing domains since 25 years.