Why Healthcare Digital Marketing Matters (+5 Helpful Tips)

Healthcare providers and practitioners are businesses facing stiff competition. They need to harness the power of digital marketing to do more than just run ads and provide consumers with their name and location.

This guide explains why healthcare digital marketing matters to companies, organizations, and professionals. It helps them:

• Reach a wider audience.
• Build trust with potential patients.
• Improve patient outcomes.
• Raise awareness.
• Help providers and practitioners make data-driven decisions.
• Decrease cost per acquisition (CPA).

Ready to learn the details of why your healthcare company or practice needs digital marketing? Let’s go!

Are you looking for help with marketing your healthcare business? Watch the video below to learn our approach to healthcare marketing and why 150+ healthcare companies have chosen Digital Authority Partners to help them generate more leads and patient appointments.

1. Reach a Wider Audience

Digital marketing allows healthcare organizations to reach a wider audience than traditional marketing methods, such as print advertising and direct mail. Health care businesses can use digital marketing to target specific groups of people according to factors such as demographics, interests, and health histories.

For example, a health insurance company can use its website to inform patients about doctors and hospitals in their network. People interested in purchasing health insurance can learn about insurance coverage and make intelligent choices. Digital marketing can reach a wider audience by:

• Increasing a website's visibility through optimization tactics such as using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques and creating high-quality content
• Targeting demographics and interests with Google Ads, social media advertising, and display networks
• Creating and sharing valuable content via blogs, articles, videos, infographics, and social media that builds audience trust and attracts healthcare learners.
• Building an email list of interested people, including potential patients, with whom to stay in touch and nurture relationships in order to increase engagement and reach.
• Promoting convenient and accessible telemedicine and virtual consultations to attract online healthcare patients

2. Build Trust with Potential Patients

Patients prefer providers and professionals they can trust in healthcare, and establishing trust is possible with healthcare digital marketing. Through websites, social media, and email marketing, healthcare partners can provide patients with accurate and up-to-date information to build trust.

A pharmaceutical company can inform potential patients about a new medical treatment or drug for asthma through its well-designed website and social media platforms. They can also use online advertising to target patients interested in their products. Digital marketing strategies like the following help inform and promote trust:

• Create and share informative, educational, and valuable content.
• Display positive patient reviews on the company's website, social media, and other relevant online directories.  
• Provide clear and accurate service, qualification, experience, and cost information.
• Provide contact information, office hours, and appointment options.
• Make professional, mobile-friendly, and easy-to-navigate websites to build trust.
• Emphasize patient care, passion for your field, and the practice's or company's unique qualities.
• Respond to comments, answer questions, and provide useful information on social media.
• Secure digital marketing efforts by prioritizing patient privacy and data security, implementing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) regulations, using encrypted communication channels, and following industry best practices.

3. Improve Patient Outcomes

Digital marketing improves patient outcomes by providing patients with access to educational resources, support groups, and other tools to manage their health. It promotes preventive care and healthy behaviors.

A medical practice can use email marketing to remind patients about upcoming appointments and preventive care screenings. Their website also has pages for their services, including detailed patient information to prepare them before a visit or procedure. The following are more ways healthcare digital marketing can help enhance patient outcomes:

• Use blogs, videos, infographics, and social media to educate patients about health conditions, treatment options, preventive care, and lifestyle choices.
• Promote remote patient monitoring (RPM) services to enable them to track their health parameters and share the data with healthcare providers.
• Send patients appointment reminders and follow-ups via email marketing and automated messaging systems to reinforce treatment plans, clarify questions, and improve outcomes.
• Enable personalized provider-patient communication through targeted email campaigns, social media, or patient portals. 
• Encourage patients to adopt healthy habits with persuasive messaging, interactive content, and gamification.
• Facilitate remote patient education and support programs through online support groups, virtual workshops, webinars, and informative resources.

4. Raise Awareness

Healthcare providers and practitioners can use digital marketing to raise awareness of various health issues and concerns. For example, a hospital can use social media to connect with patients and provide them with educational resources about influenza, such as symptoms, self-quarantine measures, vaccinations, and extended flu information.

These digital marketing strategies can help providers and professionals raise awareness:

• Optimize websites with relevant keywords, informative content, and user-friendly design to improve search engine rankings.
• Share engaging content about common health issues, preventive care, and healthcare innovations.
• Use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to promote healthcare services.
• Use Google Ads, social media ads, and display networks to target specific demographics, locations, and interests.
• Collaborate with influencers or healthcare professionals to spread the word about their services, campaigns, or essential health topics.
• Build an email list of interested people and send regular newsletters or updates to raise awareness and inform the audience about healthcare services, events, or educational resources.
• Participate in online healthcare communities and forums to share expertise, provide useful information, and raise awareness among healthcare seekers.
• Create patient-friendly apps such as symptom trackers, medication reminders, and virtual appointment scheduling. 

5. Help Providers and Practitioners Make Data-Driven Decisions

Digital marketing tools such as Google Analytics provide detailed information about website performance, including visitor demographics, traffic sources, popular pages, and user behavior. By analyzing this data, healthcare providers can gain insights into which marketing channels drive the most traffic.

They can also use data to learn how visitors navigate their website and which pages are most engaging. This information helps make data-driven decisions to enhance the user experience. They also use the following strategies to make better marketing decisions:

• Track conversions such as appointment bookings, form submissions, and newsletter sign-ups to identify successful marketing campaigns and allocate resources.
• Enable A/B testing to experiment with different variations of their marketing assets, such as ad copy, landing pages, or call-to-action buttons.
• Gather social media insights about audience engagement, reach, and demographics to optimize posting schedules and make informed social media campaign decisions.
• Analyze open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber behavior to improve email content, segmentation, and engagement.

6. Decrease Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Digital marketing allows healthcare providers to target specific demographics, geographic locations, and interests with advertising campaigns. By narrowing the audience to those interested in their services, providers reduce wasted ad spend and increase the chances of acquiring qualified leads at a lower cost. 

Remember these digital marketing strategies to reduce CPA:

• Optimize landing pages, forms, and website elements to boost digital marketing conversions and increase new patient acquisition efficiency, lowering CPA.
• Remarket or retarget website visitors who did not convert to boost conversion rates and lower CPAs.
• Track and optimize their digital marketing campaigns in real time to eliminate ineffective strategies, reduce wasted ad spend, and increase campaign efficiency.
• Offer a variety of channels with different cost structures and test and analyze other channels to focus on those that deliver the best return on investment (ROI) and lower CPA.

Summing Up

Healthcare digital marketing is critical to reaching a wider audience, building trust with potential patients, improving patient outcomes, and raising awareness for various health issues. It helps providers and practitioners make data-driven decisions and decreases the cost per acquisition (CPA).

By using digital marketing effectively, healthcare organizations can improve the health of their patients and the quality of care they provide. Learn more about how digital marketing can improve your healthcare business or practice. Contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) today.