Healthcare & Digital Marketing

The healthcare industry is coming up to speed in digital marketing by focusing on direct communication for a more personal relationship between the doctor and patient. The priorities of patients are changing and doctors, other medical professionals and marketing professionals are starting to pick up on that. These are some trends for healthcare professionals to look for in 2017 to help their business thrive:

Live Video Streaming

Whether it’s YouTube Live, Periscope, Facebook live stream or Instagram live stream, video is more effective than text at grabbing people’s attention. In fact, click through rate is 41 percent higher than text and 50 percent of online mobile traffic is generated by video. Doctors could live stream anything from a Q&A session to a medical procedure. These videos could serve as both educational purposes and as a way for patients to get instant responses to feel more involved and in control of their health.

User Friendly Website

Healthcare websites in 2017 should be developed with mobile users in mind. If the mobile version of a website is taking too long to load or is hard to navigate, chances are you could lose some potential patients since 80 percent of Internet users own a smartphone. Especially with Google’s new mobile-first algorithm, it’s important to make your website mobile friendly to rank higher in search results to gain customers instead of losing them.

Blogging

Some doctors are beginning to consistently post informational blogs on their websites and social media platforms about various diseases, treatments and more. This is a great way to engage and inform your patients before they even step foot in your office. Consumers like to do their own research before just accepting information, even if it’s from a doctor. According to Pew Research Center, one in three American adults have done online research to figure out a medical condition. In addition to appealing to existing patients, blogging is a great way to boost your organic search results.

Location-Based Marketing

Location services on smartphones give marketing professionals the ability to target users by their locations. Since we live in a time where a patient is more concerned with the quality of the doctor and their practice more than the proximity of the office itself, marketers can use location to alert consumers of nearby medical services. This would help to increase awareness for your practice.

Bottom line, for medical professionals to reach their target audience in 2017 on a personalized level, they have to come up to speed on the digital world and all digital marketing has to offer. If you are a medical professional or in the healthcare field and this sounds like services your business needs, contact us at AVX Digital.