The health & fitness industry is constantly changing. There’s always a new diet, a new exercise routine, a new supplement to write about. People are always looking for the latest and most effective answers to their health issues and businesses need to work alongside those needs.
These sudden changes in consumer behavior and expectations can make marketing messy. The most important thing to do is to stay on top of the latest digital trends in order to to keep drawing people to your brand. According to Digital Authority, by tailoring your media campaigns to the target customer and current healthcare trends, you can get the most out of the year to come and boost your healthcare marketing.
January is the biggest month for healthcare as many try to look after themselves a little more after Christmas. To get prepare for 2019 early, follow these five tips to get a good start to the New Year and increase your digital business.
1. Optimize your marketing campaigns for voice search
With the rise of Amazon’s Alexa and other voice search engines such as Cortana and Google Home, more people are searching by voice than ever before. Not only is it the quick and easy option, the software sifts through millions of internet results to find exactly what the searcher wants.
As a marketer you should aim to be the information read out.
Most people searching for healthcare solutions want to find somewhere nearby. No one wants a gym that’s two hours from home and no one wants to go for acupuncture at a clinic in another country.
This means your digital strategy should be optimized for local searches, so as soon as someone mentions a location to a voice search platform, yours is the top result. Use SEO to keep your local brand’s landing pages and marketing campaigns up there with the best to use healthcare technologies effectively.
Geotagging your business in all social media posts and connecting these platforms to your website is another great way to boost local interaction. Content should be created to be location specific to connect to your potential clients effectively. Consider using location specific Facebook and Instagram advertisements which use your money in the best possible way to target the audience you’re looking for the most.
2. Use analytics to get the best out of your social media platforms
Using basic, one-size-fits-all Facebook posts is no longer good enough to attract potential clients to your brand.
Brands now have to keep up with the times by following analytics, trends and the online behavior of digital users to get the most out of healthcare marketing. The best way to do this is analyse the audience base that you already have, then find the customers you’d like to reach out to in the New Year to get the most business.
The New Year will often bring in an audience that is looking for a healthcare change, whether it be to lose weight, fix an injury or eat better.
Build campaigns that are specifically target to this audience, and spread them across as many platforms as possible, whether that be social media advertisements or SEO articles on websites.
Instagram stories and adverts are a great place to start as the app continues to become more popular at a global level.
Lifestyle healthcare brands do particularly well on social media, so if this is you, take advantage of it. Plastic surgery and dental brands are best at healthcare marketing online and it is a good idea to look out for influencers that will fully support your brand.
Getting influencers involved is a great marketing technique to get your company’s message out to a much larger audience that maybe wouldn’t see it otherwise. Make sure to do your research, look at how many users see the influencers posts daily and how many react & engage with their content. This will give you a good idea of how much this form of advertising is worth to your brand.
3. Use video to promote your brand
Uploading videos to your social media platforms or websites is a great way to immediately create a connection with customers and boost your healthcare marketing strategies.
When a potential client sees a video of your staff, a connection is immediately made between brands and consumers. Clients who watch such videos feel they can trust the business more and can rely on the company to provide good customer service as the brand will seem more human.
Realistically, videos should be no longer than 40 seconds to keep the attention of your audience. Use subtitles for those who wish to watch without sound to get the most out of your media, and try to avoid simple, long interviews as the viewer may lost interest.
Use overlays of your products or pictures of happy customers to keep the video engaging. It is estimated that by 2019, 8% of mobile traffic will be video.
4. Control your online reputation
Remember that your online reputation is very important to your brand. Consumers rely on relevant reviews now more than ever.
On average, customers read 10 reviews of a local company and 89% read responses to these reviews. This means that your online presence really does need to be top notch. Keep on top of this by controlling your own narration.
Respond to all online reviews, whether good or bad. This will aid your healthcare marketing massively as potential clients will see that, although some of your reviews may not be great, you have contacted the customer and offered to make amends.
Customer service should always be at the heart of your brand, even digitally. Only you can control the way clients see you online and it important to regularly check your status online.
Make sure social media comments are moderated too, respond to people who want to have their say on your brand to keep your company from seeming robotic.
5. Keep up with the year’s trends
A big trend for the coming year is wellness, which is good news for all brands as it can be easily tailored to any subject. By keeping your business in line with what clients care about most, you can optimize sales massively.
Run campaigns which tell your customers exactly how your brand will improve their wellness and encourage them to jump on the bandwagon to a healthier and better lifestyle
This post comes from Digital Authority Partners, a premier Chicago-based healthcare marketing agency.
