Top 8 digital marketing trends for 2019

2019 is just around the corner bringing inevitable changes to healthcare marketing and digital marketing as a whole. Want to get ahead of the curve? Check out our newly released 2019 Healthcare Marketing Trends Playbook. Need a quick rundown? Here’s our top eight digital marketing trends you should be aware of in 2019.

1. Quality over quantity Google and Facebook have turned making ads into a simple process of fill-in-the-blanks. The simplicity of this has caused an explosion in the sheer number of ads that are launched every year. As the quantity of ads goes through the roof, consumers will tune more and more of them out. And that makes quality creative that holds what’s left of our fractured attention incredibly valuable.

2. Reassess your paid search and social goals As you’re evaluating your paid digital mix, make sure you’re crystal clear on the business outcome you want to generate, and choose your media accordingly.

3. Consider eliminating display ads The value of online display advertising has been declining since they were brought into this world. Consider making 2019 the year you eliminate them altogether, reallocating funds toward more engaging experiences.

4. Be careful with direct buys It’s tempting to buy digital advertising on local or regional media outlets, but often they can’t provide the ROI that most marketers want. We’ve found that only the best targeted direct buys measure up to the results delivered by Google and Facebook. That said, the right direct placement can have subtler advantages, like contributing to your brand in ways that may be hard to measure.

5. Start thinking about Millenials Young adults expect digital devices to contribute to their health, so start thinking of ways to add value to their lives through the devices they own. The most obvious approach is through digital electronic health records, but there are other, more creative ways to become an essential part of their digital health such as apps and online tools.

6. When it comes to martech, hang back and test the waters Healthcare usually isn’t a frontrunner in new marketing technology, and there’s good reason for that. It’s best to let big brands in the retail and travel spaces work through the kinks of new martech before we start investing meaningful chunks of our budget. Some of the cutting edge martech platforms allow you to test them out for free to get a sense of the current limitations, and maybe even shake loose an insight or two.

7. Make better content and make MORE content Chances are that the content your organization publishes only represents a small percent of the results for a given search query. The way to grow your share is to publish more content, gradually taking more and more share of the Google results for queries where you have valuable expertise.

8. Publish your content everywhere Facebook and Google are keeping more and more web traffic to themselves, making it much harder for marketers to garner it for their own sites. The most important content your organization has needs to live everywhere. Think hours of operation, key phone numbers, directions, ratings, and interviews with physicians. Each of these things must have a presence on Search, Social and your website.

To learn more about what to expect as we move into 2019, download our Healthcare Marketing Trends Playbook. Need more specialized help? Chat with one of our experts here.

Want more? Check out four digital marketing mistakes to avoid in 2020.