As health systems continue to transition toward a value-based model of care, so too must their marketing efforts shift from merely highlighting available services to promoting improved patient outcomes.
In 2020 and beyond, that marketing shift will necessitate an even deeper commitment to digital solutions. Here, according to Evariant, are five data-driven, digitally minded trends that will help hospital marketing efforts keep up with an increasingly value-based approach.
1. Video marketing: Hospitals can build trust, encourage patient engagement and seem much less intimidating by sharing narrative videos of patient success stories, Q&A sessions with physicians and demonstrations of their patient-centric care.
2. Local search optimization: Search engine optimization strategy should prioritize not generalized keywords regarding a hospital's care offerings, but rather strings of keywords that include the hospital's location, guaranteeing that its information will be shared with actual potential patients.
3. Real-time data personalization: Taking advantage of existing databases of patient information and interactions will allow hospitals to provide patients with more individualized marketing, which will leave patients feeling more satisfied with and better understood by their providers.
4. Mobile-friendly website and email design: Many healthcare organizations have yet to optimize their website and email design for mobile use, but this optimization is crucial not only to improve patient experience, but also to boost SEO rankings.
5. Chatbots: Implementing an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot into a corner of a hospital's website streamlines scheduling, information gathering and basic troubleshooting. It is an added convenience for both patients and providers: Patients can access the services they need at any hour of the day, while providers no longer have to take time out of their busy days to complete these mundane, repetitive tasks.
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