Healthcare's Digital Prescription for Marketing Success 

Marketing plays a very important role in helping healthcare professionals connect with and provide value to their target audience. Nowadays, unlike the past, modern marketers prioritize the audiences over their products or services. They aim to build lasting relationships rather than just completing one-time interactions. The goal is to satisfy audiences to such an extent that they keep coming back.

Similar to other businesses, healthcare requires a solid marketing plan. This is true because today's informed users are especially relying on the internet to discover and select medical services year by year as the technology evolves, updates rapidly.

Compared to non-optimized results, stronger search engine results for healthcare providers can help them reach a wider audience. Ads on social media can be used to target particular patients and healthcare professionals and send specific messages to the right audience. Healthcare marketing methods may assist in raising awareness of these services, while advancements in telehealth and mobile health can expand access to medical treatment in regions that previously lacked adequate coverage.

What is Healthcare Marketing

According to ‘The impact of marketing strategies in healthcare systems’ article, healthcare marketing is a unique interdisciplinary field that combines concepts, methods, and techniques from both traditional and social marketing. What sets healthcare marketing apart is that it deals with services and markets, rather than monetary transactions. Its effectiveness is measured by factors like the overall health of the population, identifying and supporting individuals with chronic illnesses, ensuring comprehensive treatment and rehabilitation, professional and social reintegration of patients, and more. Due to public health issues, the necessity for healthcare marketing evolved. 

Furthermore, this shift raises the crucial question of how to align the healthcare provider-patient relationship with the evolving demands for health. The ongoing structural changes in healthcare systems necessitate a rapid move towards the future, taking into account the present requirements. Developing a viable future strategy is contingent on the effective utilization of both management and marketing skills (Popa F, Purcarea Th, Purcarea VL, Ratiu M, "Healthcare Services Marketing," 2007, Carol Davila University Press).

Purcarea VL, "Healthcare Marketing - University Course," 2017, Carol Davila University Press: A successful marketing strategy involves a thorough examination of patients' needs, including identifying unspoken or hidden needs, and introducing new healthcare services that patients may not have specifically requested.

Challenges in Healthcare Marketing 

Healthcare marketing is different because people don't always choose healthcare services like they do other products. Instead, doctors often decide what healthcare you get and when you get it. 

Secondly, the target audience for healthcare marketing campaigns may not always be the patients; often, it's the physician or dietitian, or pharmacist who decides what, where, when, and how much of a specific service will be provided. The decision-maker could be the doctor, a representative from a health plan, or even a family member.

Healthcare services can be difficult for the average person to understand because they often involve complex procedures, especially those that use advanced technology. To someone who isn't an expert in the medical profession, these procedures might be complex and challenging to explain.

In healthcare, a big challenge for service providers is that not everyone is seen as a good fit for certain services. Even though healthcare providers must offer services to everyone, no matter their ability to pay, there are some types of patients that marketers may not actively promote to use a particular service. Striking a balance between attracting customers to healthcare organizations and not overwhelming the system with patients who might struggle to pay presents a unique marketing challenge.

Key points of the marketing strategy:

There are three important key points in healthcare marketing strategy. 

1. Earning and growing a trusting patient audience
2. Satisfaction in patients and audiences
3. Hiring or Recruiting high quality professionals 

These are the top 3 points for productive healthcare marketing plan that can increase healthcare's effectiveness and accessibility.

In healthcare marketing, the main focus is on educating and giving information to users, patients, or clients about medical services, options, and health concerns. The strategies employed to achieve this include sharing valuable information to targeted healthcare audiences, and these strategies encompass:

1. Paid advertising
2. Email campaigns
3. Social media engagement
4. Video content
5. Search engine optimization (SEO)

They also prefer traditional media, such as television, radio, and newspaper publications that are necessary. These platforms reach a group of people who could benefit from the service.

The health field of marketing involves techniques that include contacting and interacting with people in healthcare, supporting them as they navigate the healthcare system, and maintaining their engagement with people.  

In order to increase that and support the growth of the healthcare company, effective marketing techniques should combine online and offline (such as traditional marketing) with multichannel techniques that are highly individualized and targeted. 

By monitoring particular metrics that are associated with key performance indicators (KPIs) and marketing return on investment (ROI), health systems evaluate the success of their marketing operations.

As the healthcare industry becomes more competitive, the demand for digital marketing platforms and market analytics tools is on the rise. So there should be improvements, and new strategies must be applied. Moreover, it's crucial for everyone in healthcare, not just those in marketing departments, to adopt a patient-centric approach and acquire fundamental marketing skills suited for the digital era. The purpose of healthcare marketing is to increase public awareness of the goods and services that are offered as well as to educate people about their advantages. Marketers have traditionally used methods like market research, product design, distribution, pricing, advertising, promotions, and sales management. However, they now need to incorporate new approaches, leveraging technology and fresh concepts to attract customers through messages and offers.Healthcare is a rapidly evolving field, making it essential to stay informed about the latest developments. 

While consumers often learn about products through advertising, the most important information comes from experts. These two sources serve different purposes. Commercial media informs consumers, while personal or expert advice validates or enhances the evaluation process. For instance, doctors may initially hear about new drugs through advertisements but rely on other medical professionals for trusted opinions or a nutritionist / dietitian may come across a new probiotic on the market but will mostly conduct research from trustworthy and dependable sources before considering it for their patients.

The primary goal of any healthcare organization should be to ensure patient satisfaction, which necessitates a deep understanding of their needs and expectations. Delivering high-quality healthcare services involves meeting specific criteria to achieve the level of quality desired by the patient. To earn the trust of healthcare consumers, the healthcare organization's specialized staff must actively listen to patients' preferences, take their suggestions seriously, address patient complaints, and be attuned to their concerns.

The success of this approach is based on effective communication with patients, portraying an accurate image of the healthcare service, delivering the promised care effectively, and maintaining a continuous commitment to improving services to surpass patient expectations. (Ciurea AV, Cooper CL, Avram E. (coord). Managementul sistemelor şi organizaţiilor sănătăţii, 2010, Editura Universitară “Carol Davila”, Bucureşti).

Essential Components of Effective Healthcare Marketing

A good healthcare marketing plan is built around the level of quality of the services offered. Agents in the healthcare sector that are effective have clear plans that enable them to adapt to the sector's changing conditions. A healthcare company's marketing strategy essentially shows how it deals with the marketing environment and where it places itself within that environment.

Patients have many options when it comes to healthcare services and providers in the modern world. Healthcare practices need to offer a distinctive and memorable concept to stand out in this competitive marketplace. They also require a marketing plan that is appropriate for the digital era. These are the five rules that every health marketer should apply:

1. Authenticity
2. Superior value compared to the competition
3. Relevance to the target audience
4. Memorable and easy to recall
5. Difficult for competitors to replicate.

According to a Harvard Business Review article, 64% of consumers consider "genuine common values" as the primary influence on their relationship with a brand.

In today's digital age, leading healthcare companies place a high emphasis on content to build their online presence. Content marketing strategies in healthcare go beyond content creation; they aim to deliver concrete results. Given the close relationship between hospitals, patients, and physicians, digital marketing takes this connection to a whole new level. Adopting innovative digital marketing methods is essential if you want to take full advantage of the money you spend on marketing and get greater results. Organizations can strengthen their positioning and services for customers by incorporating modern healthcare marketing principles into their campaigns.

Social media sites' educational blogs and articles can help healthcare providers stay current with their patients. A marketing advantage can be gained by including targeted keywords in content.

Choosing the appropriate digital platforms, effectively segmenting the target demographic, and creating customized marketing messages that connect with them are all essential to effective organizational marketing.

Figure 1:

Marketing strategies for marketing a healthcare practice in the healthcare field. Source: Hirsch Healthcare Consulting, https://hirschhealthconsulting.com/8-important-marketing-strategies-healthcare-practice-part-1/.

Almost everything in the world of digital marketing can be monitored and analyzed. Healthcare companies and experts no longer have to make reasonable assumptions on what works and what doesn't. In order to improve their efforts and continually track and evaluate them, they can use marketing performance statistics. 

The healthcare sector has a lot of potential for reaching new patients, and clients and successfully using digital marketing techniques.

As marketing practices evolve, organizations are increasingly shifting towards digital approaches to stay relevant to consumers. Digital marketing expenditures have reached historic highs, with healthcare companies investing over $2.5 billion, expected to grow to $4 billion by 2020 (source: Health Works Collective, "Digital Marketing Dominates Healthcare Advertising," October 20, 2018).

Furthermore, a well-thought-out marketing mix strategy is essential for success in medical companies, and marketers. This strategy significantly influences medical marketers, impacting their performance, particularly measured by patient satisfaction. Coordinating marketing efforts to align with organizational performance is paramount.

Consequently, implementing marketing strategies in healthcare brings several benefits.

Healthcare marketing factors 

When designing a healthcare marketing strategy, healthcare organizations should examine multiple marketing factors, including target audience, strategic positioning, and customer segmentation.

Target audience

It's critical to take your target audience into account when developing a healthcare marketing plan. This audience can include a wide range of people, such as following or current patients, healthcare professionals, government officials, educators, or other professions who could gain from the use of the products and resources. For instance, a pharmaceutical company might target doctors to urge patients to use their novel medicinal therapy. Or a probiotic or a functional food company might also target nutritionist for their patients to use or eat it. 

1. Good questions to ask when conducting market research on a prospective healthcare audience such as:
2. What does the audience need? How are their needs currently being met?
3. What are their lifestyles? 
4. What do they value in their healthcare services, providers, and treatments?  
5. How do they seek answers to medical questions? What sources do they rely on for information? 
6. How frequently do they seek services?

With Kuasar video, it analyzes the competitors and also your data and find the right target audience. Finding the most suitable content to publish for the target audience is a difficult aspect of content creation that agents, influencers, businesses, and marketers frequently face. With the use of AI-powered tools, the process of selecting the suitable audience and customizing material for them becomes incredibly easy. With AI, Kuasar video helps users pinpoint their target audience more accurately and come up with content ideas that will connect with them. 

Costs:

The cost of healthcare, especially in the world., can be a significant factor for potential patients and providers. Finding ways to reduce the expense of treatments or improve the efficiency of service delivery can enhance access to essential healthcare. Setting a fair price and effectively communicating the value of the healthcare service or product to the target audience should be an integral part of any impactful healthcare marketing campaign.

Kuasar also saves marketers the budget, time and effort while also making sure that their content is more likely to catch the attention of their audience, which, in turn, leads to better marketing results.

Service

Campaigns in the healthcare industry that promote inadequate goods or services will experience long-term difficulties. Therefore, it's essential to improve the particular good or service offered. Leaders in the healthcare industry can accomplish this through performing assessments, paying attention to reviews, and seriously considering comments. This method is used whether they are increasing local physicians' services or perfecting a particular treatment.

Advertising

Advertising is an essential element of any successful healthcare marketing strategy. It needs to effectively reach the target market. To improve their message and create a network of contact with their audience, healthcare organizations should employ a range of techniques, including SEO, social media, or rebranding.In a 2023 research study, 73% of American marketers said that their companies had preferred using chatbots and other generative AI technologies in their field of work, according to Statista. You can use AI tools aswell, which is the modern worlds digital marketing technology. As I previously said before, in the healthsector and the marketing world, it is important to catch the new updates since the world changes so fast. With AI, you can analyze data and identify your target audience by comparing your content with that of competitor companies, allowing you to refine your marketing strategies and better connect with your desired audience. Wanna know who does that? Kuasar video.

 Location

Last but not least, healthcare marketing plans need to take "place" into account. By "place," we mean the geographic area where the target market can reach the organization, the products, or the services. Even in the marketing itself, the idea of "place" can be emphasized. In Kuasar video, you can see which country prefers to see more of your content or which region is interested in your content more with the AI Tools. 

FAQ:

• Will Artificial Intelligence conquer the content creation world? 

Since day 1, it’s the question on everyone’s mind. The difference between artificial intelligence and humans is feelings, empathy skills. AI will help you to create contents: for example, blog posts or movie scripts but it can’t be the same as the one that you write since you add your beliefs, taste, emotions and culture in your creation. It’s like watching a tv series that's scripted from your favorite book. It won’t give you the same taste. 

• Can you give an example of a product that uses AI for digital marketing strategy especially for the video?

I can give Kuasar Video as an example for content creation using AI. Kuasar analyzes data and identifies your target audience by comparing your content with that of competitor companies, allowing you to refine your marketing strategies and better connect with your desired audience.

• In what ways can AI assist the process of producing content?
• Artificial Intelligence is enhancing the process of content production by utilizing data and information about audience preferences, likes, and behavior gleaned from insights, and identifying popular keywords. It helps content gain more visibility, receive more clicks, and, most importantly, provides valuable information to the target users and audience through algorithms