Reallocating Your Media Budget

Adjusting media spend to maximize hospital marketing results

Due to these owned and earned media trends, many organizations are reducing their reliance on paid media and increasing their reliance on inbound and brand journalism. Hospitals and physician practices should consider doing the same by hiring an agency for content creation and SEO, or hiring internal journalists and copywriters to publish a steady flow of content.

To balance out this movement of money to owned and earned media, it’s more important than ever for healthcare organizations to plan their paid media strategically. Focus on highly targeted, low-cost media channels, such as paid search, mobile advertising, and social ads. These media channels can make a big impact on niche audiences and provide measurable results.

As the Pew Research Study from 2012 reported, news consumption in newspapers, radio, and television are on the decline. In response to this, allocate print media dollars to online news sources and native advertising. Talk with your local papers about sponsoring a health column written by your physicians or a wellness education event.

While television news consumption is on the decline, television viewership overall remains strong. Rethink your television buy by focusing on popular, prime time shows, sporting events, and cherry picking cable programming that appeals to the target demo in lieu of local news programming. Also consider taking a portion of your television buy and putting it towards online television streaming and pre-roll video to catch members of your audience across multiple platforms.

Whatever media mix you deem most appropriate for any given campaign, it’s important to make sure the creative is integrated across channels. Integrated offline and online campaigns help keep your brand top of mind as people move about their days.

Healthcare Media Of The New Generation

The days of local television news and print newspapers will soon be behind us. The savvy patients of today are searching for health information on their own time, and they’re looking for authoritative and trustworthy sources for their second and third opinions.

A heavier reliance on owned and earned media will help healthcare organizations to position themselves as thought leaders in their communities and improve their brand. Partnered with low-cost media channels that target specific audiences in the market for healthcare services, media budgets will stretch further and increase opportunity for campaign integration across multiple platforms. Are you planning your media with the healthcare consumer in mind?

Download the white paper, The New Media Paradigm, here.