Healthcare marketing can be a daunting task due to the nature of the industry, which includes regulations, implications and the inherent goal of ensuring the marketing message remains authentic and patient-centric.
As a result, it is important to develop a sound marketing strategy with healthcare marketing professionals, before launching any campaigns or tactics. To do so, form a marketing committee within your medical practice that will be the primary interface to your marketing agency. This committee will likely be comprised of an office manager, a business partner and someone in an ancillary staff position.
Once this committee is formed, your marketing agency can begin to engage with your practice, to develop a strategic plan and implement marketing tactics that authentically represent your practice.
Below are 3 ways that your marketing agency will ensure authentic marketing for your practice.
- Determine what your ideal patient looks like.
While it is likely that as a medical practice you will not turn patients away, having an ideal patient in mind will help you to define the type of patient your marketing efforts speak to. Your marketing agency can help you to define specific patient characteristics such as, financial situation, lifestyle, age, health insurance, geography, etc. - Define your organization’s philosophy and main messages.
Determine what key messages and differentiators you want to communicate to your ideal patient base that make you stand out. Your marketing agency can help you to define your unique value proposition through competitive research and discovery methods. - Understand which marketing channels your patients are most likely to access.
Patients will look for medical education and treatment options on a variety of different marketing channels based on their specific needs. Determine where your patients are getting their information from – is it on educational websites, news outlets, seminars, blogs, books, or social media? Your marketing agency can conduct market research to find this out, and then gear your subsequent marketing strategies towards them.
For healthcare marketing and other full-service integrated marketing, please contact Sagefrog Marketing Group at 215-230-9024 or visit sagefrog.com.
