Hospital Marketing

A New Approach to Healthcare Marketing

March 28, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

As a Healthcare Provider Are You Confident Your Current Marketing Strategy Is Reaching Your Target Audience?

New Patients Are Online And Ready To Be Engaged

On March 9th DaBrian Marketing Group, a Certified Google Partner Agency hosted a live webcast to explore the impact ever-changing consumer search behaviors have on Healthcare Marketing. The consumer search data trends compiled by Google was presented by Ben Tyson, Head of Sales Enablement for SEM and Directories Partners at Google and Brendan Jacobson, Google’s Channel Partnerships Team member. Understanding the evidence-based approach to medicine that is practiced, it is clear that the Healthcare Marketing strategies need to change. Here are a few points we found particularly eye-opening. We would love to hear your takeaways as well.

Why Healthcare Marketing Needs a New Approach

The Internet Is A Go-To Source For Health & Wellness Information

People Spend More Time Online Than Any Other Medium

77% of People Search the Internet First For Healthcare Information

90% of Patients Begin Searching for Conditions, Symptoms & Treatments

Patients WILL Go Online To Verify Doctor’s Diagnosis

Where they are searching has also changed. It almost goes without saying that the utilization of mobile devices has been rising and consumers use them everywhere, including 16% who are using them while in a doctor’s office!

16% of Patients Use Mobile Phone While In Doctor’s Office!

Implications of Not Changing Your Marketing Approach

So you may be asking why is it so important to be online at this point? Perhaps these findings from Google will answer that:

At time of decision, nearly half of all consumer research ends on an a Branded Ad.

28% visited the website of a hospital that was advertised

50% search for health information because it is quick

77% will switch to another site if it's not easy to find what they were looking for.

And don’t forget the 16% who might be reading a competitor's Ad while sitting in your waiting room!

These few points alone might not convince you to change your approach, but hopefully it has gotten you to think about your current marketing strategies. Healthcare Marketing has been lagging behind other industries in terms of effective digital marketing initiatives, which can be complex in an already challenging field to begin with. So keep it simple and just ask yourself a question: Are you reaching the right people, with the right message, at the right time? If you aren’t, or you’re not sure, DaBrian Marketing Group would be more than happy to talk with you, so give us a call at 610-743-5602.

I encourage you to check out the full Google Partners Connect – Healthcare video. It dives much deeper into the story.

Hospitality Marketing That’s Actually “Hospitable”

April 16, 2014 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Digital channels sometimes get a bad rap when it comes to the hospitality industry (i.e. local restaurants, hotels, travel, and the like). It doesn’t take too much effort to search for an article criticizing companies that participate in what is deemed “empty” social media engagement or “stale” brand messaging.

It’s high-time to rise up from the sea of bandwagoners and gun-jumpers and use digital to both differentiate and stand out in the eyes of your customers. It’s not as hard as you might think, and this week, we’re gonna show you how.

Construct a Policy for Managing Online Reviews

First off, let’s revisit those brands that completely miss the boat when it comes to their more (ahem) vocal customers on the web. Whether you’re at the helm of a locally-lauded restaurant or a national hotel chain, you should never ignore your clientele (online or off). Review websites like Yelp, Trip Advisor, and Google Reviews have eliminated the gap between a single user’s opinion and every brand serving him.

The great part about setting up review profiles is that it’s relatively easy. The downside is that few businesses take the time to reply and/or respond when the digital flood gates are opened. With dedicated resources and a feedback management/issue resolution policy, you can assure one isolated incident doesn’t spin out of control. Here are a few high-level tips to get you started:

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst: You never know how your customers will react to the equivalent of an open forum
The ol’ strategic stand-by’s: test, measure, optimize: Make plans to re-evaluate your process and define your success in plain, measurable terms
Use the feedback you’ll inevitably receive: Address your customers’ major concerns in your next budget meeting or planning session and develop action items

Tap into the Digital Community

Don’t you worry. With your customers’ newfound agency, they’ll definitely be in touch. But these conversations shouldn’t be reduced to one-way streets. One of the best ways hospitality marketers can make the most of digital channels is to play an active role in the community they’ve just entered. The best part? Gauging your customers’ opinions online can yield far better results than a printed survey on their receipt.

On a local level, a restaurant may post its daily specials to an official Twitter account. With a single hashtag, a hotel chain can collect honest, concise reviews from its visitors. A theme park debuting a new ride can have fans and followers vote on its name, logo, or color scheme. In short, a business can participate in existing digital communities while, at the same time, work to create one of its own.

By embracing the digital environment, you’ve empowered your customers to reach out when they have a positive (or not-so-positive) experience. In short, you’ve given them a voice. Just make sure you’re always listening.

Is there a business that absolutely sets the bar high online? Share it with us in the comments!

A Prognosis for Healthcare Digital Advertising

April 10, 2014 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Some Background

More often than not, our team members‘ inboxes are flooded with newsletters and other subscriptions as a way to remain in the proverbial industry loop. This information gives us the ability to spot trends and generally provide more informed recommendations for the businesses with which we work. Some of the DMG crew subscribes to information about the pharmaceutical and life science industry (which is convenient, considering we have custom solutions specifically for those folks). Chief among these resources is PM360, which recently featured these articles in its publication:

This week, we’re going to offer our input among these articles, one by one. Feel free to click the links above, read each article, and come back for our thoughts.

Ready? Let’s get started!

Getting and Analyzing Big Data: How Pharma and Med Device Marketers Benefit

If you’re fully subscribed to the hot topic of big data, that means you’re talking about information from online advertising, traditional marketing, patients, electronic medical records (EMR), caregivers, medical devices, vendors, and healthcare professionals (HCP). Certainly there’s no question that pharma marketers can benefit from big data or any “real” data. But let’s be realistic. In most cases, “big data” is subject to interpretation. Everyone seems to be talking about “crunching” this information to make it usable, but no one’s talking about how it’s acquired or, more importantly, how to analyze it and derive action from it. Getting valid data and analyzing it within a specific context (such as among certain target audience segments) is a missed opportunity and a neglected part of the larger analytical picture.

Can We Define Digital That Delivers?

We talk about design and creation, placement and targeting, and measuring for success, but so rarely do we discuss this success in the context of a high-level business goal. It seems we’re more concerned with “delivering success,” but we miss opportunities to test, optimize, and determine why a digital tactic delivered a desired result. I think all of the comments in this piece are valid, but to continue delivering in this manner, we need to examine not only the “why,” but what individual tactics or channels contributed to the goal behavior (via a measurement tactic like attribution modeling, for example).

Social Media Gone Bad: How Lack of Engagement Can Ruin Your Business

The purpose of social media is to share, communicate, and engage with people. And that includes patients, caregivers, and HCPs. In our experience, people with medical conditions have a strong sense of community among themselves and want to protect each other. They’re going to talk and share their experiences, but the question is: “Are you listening and engaging in the conversation?” Pharmaceutical companies have ad agencies, compliance, the FDA, and other regulatory issues to contend with. You would think companies would have guidelines and internal procedures to address issues when they arise (notice we didn’t say “if” there). If you’re not engaging, you’re not communicating with the same people for which you spent millions to develop your products and services. Without that communication, you’re at a disadvantage to make you products and services better to the people that matter most.

And Now, To Sum Everything Up

A dissatisfied patient can certainly ruin your business, but only if you let their concerns go unanswered by not listening or communicating with them. Gaining valid data and analyzing it will help to a degree, but the data needs to be tied to action to have the greatest impact. And finally, you can only give your brand(s) a true prognosis when you listen to your patients, analyze the available information, optimize digital tactics to yield favorable behaviors, and understand why it all worked to inform future initiatives.