As we covered on Tuesday, there are a number of things to consider when determining the audience for your healthcare marketing. In that post, we focused specifically on healthcare marketing aimed at organizations. Today, we’re taking a deeper dive into what that looks like in healthcare marketing to individuals.
When you’re looking to reach individual consumers with your healthcare message, you’ll first have to consider who is most likely to need your services. But think broadly: healthcare decisions are often made by families together, not just individuals. Depending on the services you market, the parents, adult children, spouses and siblings of the people needing care may be as much or more involved in decision-making as those receiving care. You may also wish to impact doctors and other healthcare professionals who serve as trusted advisors to the individuals who need care.
Consider what the most impactful messaging for each group will be. This is where robust buyer personas come into play, and why they are a key component of your strategic plan. An experienced healthcare marketing firm will help you craft realistic personas that cover a range of audience segments and address how each will play a role in healthcare decisions.
Think about how you would choose a hospital or healthcare provider. Most consumer healthcare decisions have to do with location and convenience, as well as insurance coverage. But another major factor is reputation. Successful healthcare marketing is built on a foundation of reputation-building and thought leadership. For example, think of the hospital systems that are well-known far beyond their areas of service, like the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins. They have established themselves as leading research centers and hubs for cutting-edge-treatment, not only because of their expertise in these areas but because they have also excelled in spreading the message that they excel in those areas.
Your healthcare marketing needs to reach people long before they need your services. Your organization is building a base of potential customers, whether they are ready for your solution or not. With your marketing firm, discuss the messages that will most resonate with your audience in the awareness phase, because that’s what will matter when member of that audience finds themselves suddenly in need of your offerings in the future.
Once you’ve identified your audience members and crafted meaningful personas to shape your marketing, it’s time to put your marketing plan into action.
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