The best medical strategies all have three things in common — empathy, personalization, and consistency.

Introduction

A marketing strategy is a plan that includes all of the steps you will take to promote your business. It includes developing an effective message, creating and distributing content, setting pricing, creating offers and discounts for customers, and more.

A medical marketing strategy is especially important for healthcare businesses because they need to be able to communicate with patients and their families about the services they provide. Healthcare providers need to be able to explain what they do and why it’s important if they want people to trust them with their healthcare needs.

There’s no doubt that consumers are more educated than ever before. That’s why it’s crucial to use your marketing strategy to guide them toward the best care possible. If you want to be successful, you need a comprehensive strategy that combines all of your customer-facing efforts into one cohesive direction. But today’s healthcare consumers are not going to be convinced with strategies worked in the past. Healthcare marketing plans in 2022 need to focus on what makes the consumer choose a healthcare business to succeed. To help you create that plan, we’ve compiled a list of tips from leading healthcare marketers.

Understand who your patients are

To be successful in 2022, you’ll need a comprehensive strategy that takes into account the consumer journey. The first step is to understand who your audience is and what they want from healthcare. Next, create a plan that addresses each stage of their journey—from discovery through decision-making—and then execute it consistently.

With this information at hand, it’s time to determine how best to market your product or service so as not only to meet but exceed the expectations of your target audience (and hopefully bring them back).
The best way to understand your patients is by using patient journey mapping and audience mapping.

Understand the consumer journey

Understanding the patient journey is key to creating an effective marketing strategy. As a healthcare provider, you must know what your patients need and why they’re buying from you. A good way to do this is by understanding their pain points and needs.

For example, if someone comes in for treatment for cancer or heart disease, she may have an immediate need for treatment but also has other concerns about her health that she wants to be answered—like whether she should have surgery or whether there are any side effects associated with certain medications. These issues will guide her decision-making process as well as inform her purchasing decisions later down the line (i.e., when deciding on insurance coverage).

Create a comprehensive strategy

A comprehensive strategy is based on the needs of your audience and the consumer journey. It’s not just about what you want to accomplish with your marketing, but also how you plan to do it.

To create a strategic marketing plan, start by identifying who your target market is—that is, the people who will be most likely to buy from you or use something from you in the future. Next, consider what their typical customer experience looks like: What do they need? How can they get it? Then think about where these people are located (geographic location), what types of media channels they use (e-mail vs print ads), when they spend time online (at work vs home), etc., so that when designing an appropriate strategy for attracting new customers or retaining existing ones—or both—you can make sure everything fits together seamlessly without any holes left over!

Be patient-centered

While it’s important to understand the needs and pain points of your existing patient base, you also need to be patient-centered. For example, if you work at a hospital that serves people with a rare disease or chronic condition, then understanding what their journey is like may help you better serve them in the future.

Your marketing strategy should be centered on your audience—not just the product or service you sell, but also how they get their care and what they want from it. The best way to do this is through a comprehensive approach that includes all aspects of healthcare: patient-centered care, employee engagement, collaboration with other providers and health plans…and more!

One way of doing this is by asking patients what they would like from their healthcare experience—and then working hard on making those things happen for them. One way we’ve done this is by creating an easy-to-navigate app that allows users access to all of our resources at any time (including live chat).

Be consistently present

It’s not enough to be present on social media, on your website and blog, or even in the community, you serve. You’ll need to show up everywhere people look for you—and that means showing up every day for at least a few hours each week (or month). This can become a challenge if you’re working full-time and have kids who need your attention too! But it’s worth it: The more people see you around town or online, the more likely they are to find out about what else is happening at your company.

But consistency also comes in the form of branding and reputation management. You want your healthcare practice or organization to be immediately recognizable to those who know of it. Using consistent branding allows you to establish yourself in the mind of the patient and be their first choice when it comes to a healthcare provider.

Create a plan to manage reviews

You should have a plan in place to manage reviews after the fact. When you get customer feedback, be sure to use it as an opportunity to improve your business and service. If someone leaves a negative review, take action immediately—but remember that most customers are looking for reasons why they should stay loyal and continue using your service.

If someone does leave a positive review, send them an email thanking them for their feedback and letting them know how much it means to you that they chose us over other companies in their area or country (or whatever country is relevant). Remember: every little bit helps!

Conclusion

Healthcare marketing is a business and there are rules to follow. Marketing strategies that work for many companies might not work for yours. But by following these tips you can ensure that your marketing strategy is successful, even if healthcare consumers are difficult to reach.

BraveLabs helps healthcare professionals create the best marketing strategies for their clinics and hospitals. From online patient experience management to social media marketing, contact us today to start marketing to today’s healthcare consumers.