Top 5 Hospital Marketing Trends of 2015
[UPDATE – 2018]
The 2018 Healthcare Marketing Trends Playbook is available! It goes a step further than previous years, including ways to leverage each trend for quick wins and impactful, lasting influence on your organization. It also includes examples from leading marketers who are leveraging trends for maximum impact.
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Big trends affecting healthcare marketing strategy & implementation
We’re always looking to spot the next big thing in marketing and how we can apply it to benefit our healthcare clients. By staying ahead of the curve, we can consistently deliver fresh and creative campaigns that set our clients apart from competitors. Below, we compiled the top 5 marketing predictions for 2015 and translated them for application to hospitals and physician practices. See all 12 trend predictions in our white paper, 2015 Healthcare Marketing Trends.
1. Even shorter content: “info-snacks”
With shrinking attention spans, content overload and bright red push notifications, it’s hard to hook patients to spend more than thirty seconds with one piece of content. Busy consumers want their information, and they want it fast. Gone are the days where they would spend time with long-form videos or white papers. The average person won’t even scroll through an entire infographic anymore — marketers need to resort to infographic tiles that can be seen in entirety without swiping. In 2015, shorter is better. Focus on short, snack-able, sharable content that provides valuable information up front. No one has time to dig for gems. If long-form content is necessary, make sure text is scannable with bullets or lists, and videos are entertaining.
2. Relevance is the new authenticity
While advertisements have taken over our Facebook Newsfeeds, the average user isn’t upset about it. Is it because we’ve become desensitized? Nope. It’s because Facebook ads are so targeted and so relevant that users actually welcome them. It doesn’t matter that the message isn’t delivered organically; if it’s relevant, users will click through. This can be translated to your content and social marketing strategies. Focus on quality over quantity by creating content that is relatable, timely and helpful. Give it a compelling hook and headline to get your target audience to click through, and create a content brand to build up a loyal following. A content brand is not the same thing as branded content. Branded content speaks of the source, whereas a content brand speaks of the audience, which builds relationships.
3. An even bigger emphasis on brand building
We’ve been talking about brand building for a long time, but in 2015 it will be more relevant than ever due to mergers and acquisitions. In order to deliver a positive patient experience, healthcare systems need a differentiating brand and shared values. An organizational culture is what will build loyalty among patients and help set your organization apart from retailers, such as Walmart and Walgreens, joining the primary care game. Other healthcare providers, such as dentists and ophthalmologists, have used this tactic for years to establish patient preference (think Aspen Dental and LensCrafters). Use branding to give prospective patients a reason to choose you, and current patients a reason to stay with you. Here’s a hint: put the patient experience first.
4. Aim to inspire
Think about the popular non-profit organizations today: TOMS, Charity: Water and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, to name a few. Now think about what makes these charities different from the ASPCA in terms of marketing. The difference is that the ASPCA runs sad TV commercials featuring Sarah McLaughlin and deformed animals that instinctively cause people to reach for the remote and leave them with an uneasy feeling, while the above charities create feel-good marketing materials that show how donations improve the lives of others and inspire viewers to join the movement. This success is based on a simple fact: people share content that makes them feel good. If your hospital can create content that cause patients to laugh, cry happy tears or want to make a difference, they’ll be more likely to share it with others and grow your audience.
5. Mobile is #1
In 2015, digital strategies should be thought of as mobile first, and desktop second, or not at all. Globally, 2.25 billion people access the internet via their cell phones, and according to Ovum, in 2015 one billion people will use mobile as their only form of Internet access. Given these stats, it’s an absolute necessity to have responsive design on your website so it looks great across platforms and caters to user experience. Patients don’t have the time to pinch, zoom and scroll, and the result of that inconvenience will be a drop in traffic. In addition to having a mobile platform, hospitals need to format content for the streams that we live in today. This means that headlines, photos and content need to be tailored to fit the mobile screen in a clean layout. The appearance of an ellipsis should be on purpose, not because your headline is too long.
Download our white paper, 2015 Healthcare Marketing Trends, to see all 12 of our insights for hospital marketing in the coming year. Or dig deeper into the new realities of the ever-changing marketing world with the healthcare marketing book, “In Search of Good Medicine,” written by our very own, Mark Shipley.