As healthcare deals with a very complex and sensitive subject matter, marketers in this domain deal with many healthcare marketing challenges.
Healthcare industry marketers face unique challenges in achieving their goals. Due to regulations and restrictions such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), healthcare marketers find limitations in reaching their target audience. This is due to privacy concerns regarding health information. Thus, it is essential for all healthcare marketers to clearly understand HIPAA restrictions and their impact on healthcare marketing strategies.
Public perception and Political interests also put healthcare marketers under pressure. It makes it difficult for them to develop new marketing strategies and convince their value to prospective patients.
Healthcare marketers are often overwhelmed when these challenges are combined with resistance to change, tight marketing budgets, and the complexity of insurance companies.
Here are the top healthcare marketing challenges and solutions to overcome them for driving new business.
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HIPAA, a Hindrance to Personalization
Personalization is essential in marketing. Consumers do not want to provide sensitive and personal information to people. But, everyone wants marketing specifically to goods they are interested in. HIPAA privacy policies significantly limit healthcare marketer access and ability to use consumers’ information. This put them at a significant disadvantage in going ahead with their creative healthcare marketing strategies and ideas.
All can benefit from preventative care regardless of family healthcare history or individual health status. This crucial area allows healthcare marketers to reach prospects with relevant messages without compromising privacy. Statistics around disease and prevention, reminders to schedule annual physicals, and showcasing the unique value the healthcare organization offers can make new patients sign up and schedule appointments. This can solve healthcare marketing challenges due to HIPAA privacy issues.
Losing the Trust of the Public in Healthcare
In recent years, there has been an increasing sense of dissatisfaction and ambivalence related to the healthcare system. The healthcare industry has been highly politicized, even with prescription drug prices and healthcare coverage. Thus, these organizations are forced to tackle trust-related issues and the overall perception of healthcare by the public.
Healthcare providers have to build trust with prospective customers by effectively conveying the value they offer. Online reviews, thought leadership campaigns, humanization of the organization, and testimonials would help improve patient perception. Healthcare companies have to show their employees how to focus on patient care. Also, the healthcare marketer can have testimonials from current patients in the content marketing efforts.
Providers can collect patient feedback using automatic surveys and request them for reviews. To show authority and position providers as trusted resources, providers can portray themselves as thought leaders. It will help keep the provider at the top of the patient’s mind when they need service. When patients have some service, their experience should be significant with every interaction. Positive reviews and word of mouth are powerful tools for boosting referrals. Due to the possibility of negative reviews, some providers do not allow patients to do online reviews. However, offering solutions to the problem and effectively addressing negative reviews will convey a focus on patient satisfaction.
HIPAA Restrictions on Targeting
In digital marketing, retargeting is a common tactic. As part of this strategy, an advertisement is shown to the visitors of the websites when they leave to urge them to return. HIPAA does not allow healthcare marketers to retarget website viewers with advertisements. This is to protect patient privacy and information.
Healthcare marketers can focus on an inbound marketing strategy. It will significantly improve the ability to get new patients without violating HIPAA regulations. Engaging, educational, and valuable content should have been given importance and focus as part of optimizing for search. Healthcare providers always target local communities. So, a heavy focus should be given to local search engine optimization (SEO). This allows healthcare marketers to target potential patients in their vicinity when optimizing their websites.
Another option healthcare marketer has with digital marketing to solve this healthcare marketing challenge is to target the audience using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising with compelling and clear calls to action. Social media advertising or Google Ads allow marketers to do it.
Limited Marketing Investments
Healthcare professionals often do not release the value of marketing to potential healthcare clients. Due to this, marketing investment can be limited. Moreover, resistance to initiatives and new technology is common. Thus, healthcare marketers have to do more with less investment.
Healthcare marketers have to focus on making data-driven decisions and start tracking return on investment (ROI). Understanding various sources of traffic to the websites and different areas of sites people visit allows healthcare marketers to prioritize content creation and optimization.
Marketers can improve the performance of their marketing campaigns by performing adequate keyword research. They can also use different digital marketing tools to understand how potential clients navigate the site and the areas where the emphasis should be placed. A tool like Google Analytics helps marketers understand which pages get the most and most minor visitors. This information allows people to make an informed decision about the pages on which they should spend more time. Tracking conversions and other goals as part of their digital marketing strategy are possible using Google analytics.
Moreover, marketing automation allows marketers to have more time on other essential activities as part of their marketing activities while continuing lead generation activities. Other benefits of marketing automation are:
- More efficient spending
- Measurable impacts
- A clear view of sales and marketing funnels
- Streamlined efforts
Through performing all these affordable digital marketing tactics, healthcare companies and marketers can confront the healthcare marketing challenges with less investment in marketing.
Although there are these healthcare marketing challenges, marketers have more tools than ever to target their clients and convert them. Paid advertising, social media, and research tools enable healthcare marketers to stay connected to potential clients and address ever-increasing industry demands.
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A conversion-focused strategy can have a different and unique value proposition and precisely communicate it through various channels. Understanding these challenges, experienced healthcare marketers with knowledge of medical marketing can design a healthcare marketing strategy and excel in their marketing efforts.
CMOs in healthcare organizations can take these challenges seriously and fame an effective marketing strategy for marketers as a team. Knowing these challenges and creating a marketing strategy will surely bring results.
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