Top 5 Things You Should Be Considering When Advertising For Companies In The Healthcare Industry

Last week we talked about the top five things you should be avoiding when advertising for companies within the healthcare industry and looked at healthcare data, privacy, legal policies and other aspects. While healthcare marketing can be a unique challenge for marketers around the world, it’s not impossible and can prove to be very rewarding. Now that you know a few things to avoid, what about the things you should be doing?

Of course, there isn’t a certain recipe for success when it comes to marketing, each brand has a specific target audience, with different behaviours and consumer profiles and even though businesses within the healthcare industry have some things in common, they don’t all have the same business goals that they’re trying to achieve through marketing. That is why each brand should define its identity, purpose, goals and mission before assuming it should be executing the same strategy as its competitors in the market.

With that in mind, here are five ways in which you can improve your brand visibility, raise awareness and market your business if you are active in the healthcare sector:

Your Visual Identity

When it comes to your brand identity, all creatives related to your brand are tangible assets that represent your business online, as well as in real life. It is, most of the time, the first impression your brand will make on your target audience so, of course, you want that to have a positive impact. The healthcare industry has been historically going for a specific set of colours that seem popular amongst such companies and that includes:

Purple

This colour reflects elegance and reminds us of royalty.

Blue

Blue elements have been perceived as trustworthy and secure. The feeling of being safe and in good hands is a crucial sentiment that your audience needs to have towards your healthcare company.

Orange

Quite vibrant and lively, orange screams vitality. It is exuberant and can act as an accent colour for your palette.

White

I don’t think this comes as a big surprise as we all associate white with cleanliness and purity in all aspects of our lives, not just healthcare.

The list isn’t exhaustive as there are many companies within the healthcare space that use a multitude of colours or accents, however, these are some of the most popular. In general, anything related to the medical environment shouldn’t be using very strong or aggressive tones such as bright red or black. Even though these are common colours for other industries (PR or Media, as an example) due to their ability to attract attention and stand out from the rest, there is a need for calm and security in healthcare which can only be represented by certain colours.

I am sure many of us also expect green to be on that list, right? Green is actually a more common colour for environment-related companies or natural health/remedies services and products, not as much as healthcare specifically.

Be easy to contact

You might think this is very obvious, however, it is surprising how many companies in the healthcare sector miss this opportunity. By making your contact details available at all times, you improve the chances of converting. It is not enough though to have an email address or a phone number on your website, in a forgotten corner on your contact page. While that is a must-have, there are other ways in which you can make your contact details readily available that your competitors might already be using with their marketing campaigns.

Setting Up A Call Extension

And not only that! Also, look into the location and sitelink extensions, make sure you amplify the results of your marketing efforts by linking your contact page to all active campaigns. If you think this is too much, trust me, it’s not.

Especially available for healthcare companies, the audience is always going to be more susceptible, doubtful, worried and cautious about how they share their data, what forms they fill out and what they click on. By ensuring that they can reach you through all possible channels every time they’re being targeted, you are adding an element of credibility to your campaigns and encourage the audience to take action.

This doesn’t apply just to your ads, your landing pages also need to be updated with the correct contact information that needs to be made available on every landing page. This is part of the customer touch-points that you want to consider in your marketing strategy as you are taking multi-channel initiatives, as your customers are present on multiple channels which means so should you. “From online chatting, to contact forms and a prominent display of business phone numbers, healthcare marketers must reduce friction online and encourage patients to get in touch with healthcare businesses through all available channels.” (Michael Reddy, Top Healthcare Marketing Tips for 2021)

Is Everything Mobile-Optimised?

According to Google, if you’re not optimising everything for mobile users, you are losing over half of the healthcare administrators who use their mobiles when they make any purchase decisions and you don’t want to be losing over 50% of your potential target audience.

Keeping that in mind, ensure everything is mobile-optimised to maximise your campaigns’ results and get the most out of your marketing strategy.

Video Marketing

Speaking of strategy, recent studies have shown that healthcare brands should focus theirs on video marketing. Videos of very high quality convert better and that is exactly what you are looking for.

It is a more interactive type of content and it can also offer more information than one static. This means you can explain things in a more appealing and credible way without having to deal with an incredibly text-heavy ad, which we all know is a big no-no.

Brand Ambassador

There isn’t anyone in the marketing world who hasn’t heard of the expression ‘humanise your brand’ and while some need it more than others, it is quite an important factor to consider for your business in the healthcare space. It is an area that requires a bit more effort than other industries to inspire trust, credibility, confidence and safety and this is not an easy task.

In fact, it is probably one of the most difficult challenges for any healthcare business to overcome, especially if we’re referring to start-ups or businesses at the beginning of their journey. Using a brand ambassador can definitely contribute to the process of humanising your brand if you are using an appropriate one. This ambassador needs to have credibility and expertise in the field, with vast knowledge and experience, someone whom your audience trusts and listens to and who can become the face of your brand.

There are, of course, many other techniques and tricks that you can use to maximise your marketing efforts when advertising for a company in the healthcare industry that would probably require many more articles. However, if you are just beginning to explore marketing possibilities for your brand, this should be a good starting point.

If you would like to speak to our team about your marketing needs, please do not hesitate to contact us at hello@socialgamma.com and we will be happy to discuss it.