Health Care Marketing Insights

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Four key market insights to consider when formulating your messages – across all media – to your audience.

The shift to value-based care, coupled with ever-increasing access to information by customers, partners and patients, is triggering a shift in marketing strategies for smart health care industry players. Here are four key market insights to consider when formulating your messages
– across all media – to your audience, be they physicians, patients, payers, providers, suppliers, hospital administrators or any other segment.

Responsibility is Paramount

You must always keep in mind that at the end of the day, your marketing is about enhancing health and well-being. People’s lives may literally be at stake, and all marketing efforts should be honest and accurate.

Achieve Motivation Through Education

What are perceived as hard-sell tactics are increasingly rare. In an age where patients are being asked to assume more of the financial burden of their own care via higher copays and deductibles and to be their own advocates, consumers are looking for brands they can trust to give them the information they need to make informed, medically sound decisions. For example, many end users remain unclear on the distinctions between emergency rooms and urgent care or primary care centers. Brands that provide clear, straightforward information will be greatly appreciated.

Communicate the Value of Value

Although the business is shifting more and more to value-based care from fee-based care, customers still need to receive compelling reasons to embrace this shift. Whether you’re helping a hospital system cut costs through improved processes or helping consumers find the treatment that is right for them in the long term – even when it is not necessarily the lowest priced one initially – communicating the importance of value is crucial.

Use a Range of Media

Digital is the fastest growing channel for marketing, but traditional channels including print, outdoor advertising, radio, event booths, direct mail, and sales collateral still remain effective. Digital channelscan offers attractive targeting, with tools including search-engine ads, sponsored social media, and marketing automation technology.

Vital Statistics for Health Care Marketers

U.S. per capita national health expenditures are $9,523 a year.
Source: Centers for Disease Control

62% of smartphone owners use their devices to search for health information.
72% of Internet users search for health info online.
Source: Pew Internet Research

50% of hospital administrators research equipment and vendors online;
82% of hospital administrators compare products.
Source: Clarity Quest

The average marketing budget of health care companies in the United States in 2015 was $11.9M.
Companies above $500 million in revenue spent an average of $24.1M on marketing.
Companies below $500 million in revenue spent an average of $3.3M.
Source: Statista

What channels are health care marketers using to reach the HCPs (health care professionals) they target?
86% are using digital tools, including websites, social media, digital ads and mobile apps.
80% are marketing at meetings or events.
69% are using printed sales materials.
48% are using journal print ads.
47% are using direct marketing/direct mail.
29% are using point-of-care materials.
Source: MM&M’s Healthcare Marketers Trend Report 2016

$3,000,000,000,000 Amount Americans devote per year to health expenditures
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Does Your Health Care Marketing Need a Jolt?

Despite the significant resources devoted by consumers to health every year, health care providers face many economic challenges. Consider the stresses on hospital systems, for example. With shifting reimbursement models and other changes created by the transition from volume- to value-based care, one pressure remains paramount for health care providers: to cut costs even as you improve quality of care.

A Prescription for Improvement

One way to reduce costs: to increase the impact and efficiency of every health care marketing dollar.

SullivanPerkins will see you now.

If you’d like to discuss how SullivanPerkins can inject some life into your healthcare marketing, please contact us at 214.922.9080 or mark.perkins@sullivanperkins.com.

©SullivanPerkins 2018