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Healthcare Marketing Trends for 2013

The healthcare industry, much like the marketing industry, is continuously evolving and changing to meet and exceed current and potential customer’s needs, build relationships and promote themselves in a positive light. With that in mind we can begin to look at marketing trends that can help to promote healthcare professionals and their businesses in 2013.

2013: The Year You Need to Step into Mobile
In 2012, smartphone owners outnumbered non-smartphone owners, Morgan Stanley reported 91% of all smartphone users keep their phones beside them 24 hours a day and most people check their smartphones for calls, texts, and emails at least once an hour. So how does your professional office reach a current and prospective patient?

Mobile Applications
According to the 2nd Annual HIMSS Mobile Technology Survey, healthcare professional usage of apps has increased in the following areas over the past year (some by 15%!): data collection at the bedside, using a bar code reader on mobile device, data monitoring on medical devices and capturing visual representation of patient date. With these numbers only expected to rise as more people become acquainted with smatphones and mobile devices, it is important that you create an application that both is user-friendly, gives an accurate portrayal of your office and supplies your patients with information that is both helpful and engaging.

Create and Build Upon Existing Relationships Digitally
It is worth noting in all businesses and industry that you are more often than not going to do business with a company or business that you trust, and this can expand to friendships, connections and so forth. So why not create or help nurture that existing trust into your presence into the online world? With the various social media networks and review sites available for use today it is important that you create a brand presence among the sites and share, interact and recommend stories, businesses or people that you trust. By creating and sharing content that speaks directly to clients, you can help to build a relationship with clients that show them your office is not above them, and that you care about what they think. Current and potential clients are looking for help online, and what better way to reach them then by sharing relevant content to them on these networks that they already regularly use?

Clients Using a More “Hand Up” Approach to Health Questions
With the internet at your fingertips and the ability to “anonymously” post questions and concerns online via medical communities and forums, it is important that offices branch out into how they attract new clients to their websites and offices. Videos, surveys and blogs, as well as mobile applications, will allow healthcare professionals the ability to help clients indirectly, while also helping to build the legitimacy of their office, website and services. A simple way to reach these clients is to create a video, infographic or whitepaper explaining common symptoms or diseases, and how they can, or should be treated and post it to your website and your social media profiles for easy share ability.

Although these are just a few marketing trends that are part of 2013 for healthcare, it is important to remember that without the proper feedback from clients via in person meetings and interactions, all of these marketing trends could go to the wayside. Whether it be through office visits, blog or Facebook comments or tweets, it is important that every office listen to their clients and find out how they feel about your services and what you could offer or do to ensure that their next office visit is better and more enjoyable than the last.