Patient-First Marketing Understanding the Anatomy of a Successful Strategy

The Anatomy of a Successful Marketing Strategy: 4 Vital ComponentsThe human body is an amazing piece of work. Perhaps the most wondrous aspect is its anatomy and the artful way in which each component works together to sustain life—much like an integrated healthcare marketing strategy.

In today’s digital world, the healthcare industry is experiencing a major shift in how their organizations deliver care and how that care is valued. In addition, consumers are becoming more active in managing their health, using the Internet and mobile devices to research conditions, find doctors and seek treatment. In fact, one in 20 Google searches (Google Blog) is for health-related information.

As a result, healthcare marketers need to build integrated digital marketing strategies that aim to put the patient first—using a myriad of tactics that all work together to provide value and engage their audience. But while every digital marketing strategy is unique, like the human body, there are essential components that are its lifeblood. Components that are vital to ensuring that all pieces are working together in harmony.

If you’re ready to discover the anatomy of a successful patient-first healthcare marketing strategy, allow us to show you the four must-have components, tactics that you can use to support those components, and inspirational stories from other healthcare marketers using digital marketing to connect with their audience and reach their goals.

Audience Knowledge = Brain PowerOur brains are the masters of our bodies. They’re always working—even while we’re sleeping. In fact, it’s estimated that an average person can have anywhere between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts each day. For healthcare marketers, tapping into your audience’s brains is absolutely necessary if you want to reach them in a meaningful way and build the foundation of your patient-first digital strategy.

Knowledge is power. When you truly understand your audience, you have the power to create a user experience and content that gives them the information they want, need and search for.

Look to the following digital marketing tactics and tools to feed your brain and guide your digital strategy:• Keyword research• Competitive analysis• Website data and analytics• Customer surveys• Online discussion forums

Engaging Patients Early on for Self-CareWe recently developed three online, self-care planners as a simple—and cost effective—method to begin to engage consumers.

Consumers first fill out a short interactive questionnaire, which assesses risks and causes of their condition and its impact on quality of life. At the end, they’re asked if they’d like to register for the Self-Care Plan, which they’ll have unlimited access to on desktop or mobile. The planner makes recommendations such as exercise or other interventions that are unique to each individual. After six weeks, the consumer decides to either continue with the Self-Care Plan or schedule an office visit if the symptoms haven’t improved.

While measuring the impact continues to evolve, early indication is engaged users of the self-care planners can improve their symptoms and improve their quality of life.

Pamela MaasChief Business Development and

Marketing Officer, Gundersen Health System

“A cost effective way to engage consumers is creating online, self-care planners.”

Content Strategy = Strong HeartbeatThe heart is at the center of our being. It’s our physical core. In the world of digital marketing, content is at the heart of everything we do. In order to keep it beating strong, healthcare marketers need to create a content strategy that provides their audience with the best possible answer—whenever and wherever they’re searching for it.

When you strive to be the best answer for your audience, not only do you provide the information they need and seek, you’re also nurturing a relationship by showing your audience you’re a trusted resource.

Your content strategy is where your heart and brain collide. Use your audience knowledge to build your content strategy to include:• A variety of content types that serve your audience’s

information needs at every stage of the funnel• Content that is relevant, useful and in demand by your audience• Content that is optimized for both humans and search engines

Embracing System Integrations to Improve the Digital Journey The biggest challenges we face are around integration with large or disparate systems. Lack of integration leaves the patient or consumer with a fragmented experience, where continuity and consistency are impossible. Where we can get our arms around the entirety of a “digital patient journey,” we can deliver a superior experience.

Our greatest successes have been examples of organizational and technical integrations. One example of that has been the release of our physician ratings and reviews on Inova.org. It represented a truly coordinated effort and generated a truly differentiated and valuable tool for consumers looking for data to help them choose the right physicians.

Rob BirgfeldAVP and Chief Digital Marketing

Officer, Inova

“Avoid a fragmented patient experience by creating organizational & technical integrations.”

Quality User Experience = Easy Breathing Lungs

Our lungs have a very important job. They draw in the fresh oxygen our bodies need to thrive, and expel suffocating carbon dioxide. But they can only do their job when air passages are free of obstruction. For marketers, creating a quality user experience allows their audience to easily navigate content—regardless of the device they’re using—while also providing consistency between all marketing channels.

If marketers truly want to create a patient-first digital marketing strategy, everything from an organization’s website to social media to print brochures need to have a consistent feel.

Improve your audience’s user experience with some of the following tactics and tools:• Offer interactive tools so consumers can actively manage

their own health• Make sure your website and any apps are compatible

across devices• Use a consistent voice and imagery to foster brand

recognition and awareness• Personalize content for the different audiences you’re trying

to reach

Engaging Employees & the Public With Curated ContentDigital marketing in healthcare is more than just bringing new patients through the doors. It’s about ensuring that their experience—from the first touchpoint on—meets or even exceeds expectations. Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone and putting the patient first is the only way we’re going to deliver the experience that patients expect.

Our employee advocacy program is one way we’re engaging our team members and the public. We use Bambu to curate content, which is mostly our own, and then our advocacy team shares that content with their social media followers.

The advocacy team includes most of our execs, a board member, a doctor and several director and lower-level team members. We’ve intentionally started small and are growing gradually but the double benefit of keeping execs informed as well as exposure for our content is a win-win for us. We’re able to track active users, the stories that are shared and the impressions, and we’ve seen a steady growth.

Adam LeeWeb/Digital Marketing Manager,

Adventist Health

“Exceed patient expectations by pushing outside your comfort zone & putting the patient first.”

Reach = Free Flowing Circulatory SystemThe circulatory system is tasked with ensuring that blood, oxygen and nutrients are effectively reaching every vital organ in your body. For healthcare marketers, reaching their audience no matter where they are, offline or online, is an essential component of their patient-first digital marketing strategy.

Blending your digital and real-world efforts together will help you ensure you’re hitting your audience at multiple touch points, building brand awareness and giving your audience more access to your resources.

Consider some of the following ideas for intertwining your digital and real-world marketing efforts:• Sponsor or participate in community events such as 5Ks or

community festivals, and use mobile devices to showcase online tools and resources while at the event

• Form partnerships with local businesses and organizations, or community and industry influencers to co-create content that can be promoted via digital or print

• Use social media to promote your partnerships and sponsorships to your digital community, and encourage them to engage with you in the real-world

“To reach a highly competitive market, create a multi-channel campaign with tailored messages.”

Reaching Millennial Moms Through “We Deliver Dreams” CampaignTo reach prospective OB patients in the highly competitive North Texas market, we created a multi-channel campaign targeted at discerning, digital-native millennial moms. We developed modern, striking, aspirational creative content to educate prospective patients about our offerings, centered on the message that at our hospitals, we don’t just deliver babies, “We Deliver Dreams.”

We tailored our messages for the channels our target audience already engaged with including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pandora, email, search and display, and syndicated sites, as well as targeted print publications.

Everything was directed back to our mobile-responsive website, which was filled with fresh content including blogs from real life moms, the ability to create a customized Spotify playlist for their childbirth experience, physician Q&As and parenting videos.

We continue to measure and refine the campaign based on our results, and we’ve been able to scale and share with other markets within our organization.

Laura Boyd DeSmethDirector of Digital

Communications, HCA - North Texas Division

Join us for a webinar event that will dive deeper into creating a patient-first digital marketing strategy.

Date: June 29, 2016Time: 1 p.m. CDT

Why attend? TopRank Marketing and Medicom Health Interactive, along with healthcare marketer Pamela Maas, will tell the story of how each of these four components can be integrated into your healthcare digital marketing program. We’ll share our own experiences and advice, and also invite attendees to ask questions and discuss the obstacles they’re working to overcome.

Register Now!