Covid-19 has changed the business world forever, making the importance of marketing in healthcare increasingly obvious to medical practices and digital marketers. According to Pew Research, three-in-ten Americans report being online nearly all of the time. Many internet users spend that time searching for health-related information.

Health brands can grow their businesses and help their communities by enhancing their healthcare marketing processes and strategies. Expanding their digital options through website enhancements, social media marketing, search ads, and email allows medical businesses to reach patients who need care.

Marketing is an investment, but the pandemic has taken an economic toll. While it may seem better to slash your marketing budget, we think now is the time to strengthen your digital marketing solutions. If you’re on the fence, keep reading to uncover results-driven proof of the importance of marketing in healthcare.

Benefits of healthcare marketing

Healthcare marketing promotes a medical brand’s products or service lines to meet its business goals while supporting its patients’ health outcomes. The most effective healthcare marketing strategy will take an omnichannel approach, using social media, search, email, websites, and more to reach healthcare consumers.

The benefits make the importance of marketing in healthcare clear. Healthcare marketing delivers the following results:

  • Enhanced lead-quality
  • Increased patient connections
  • Successful patient engagement
  • Patient loyalty and better retention
  • Improved brand recognition and reputation

The truth is that healthcare marketing is a long-term investment. When done well, healthcare brands experience a positive marketing ROI. The entire community benefits when healthcare organizations reach a wider audience, recruit better physicians and partners and retain more patients.

The importance of marketing in healthcare to brand awareness

Nearly all patients rely on the internet to get healthcare. In fact, 90% of patients use online reviews to evaluate their physicians before scheduling an appointment. If you aren’t actively using digital marketing strategies to improve your branding, you are missing out on patients who want your services.

Healthcare marketing is essential because it allows medical experts to reach their target market—patients with the conditions physicians and hospitals have the expertise, equipment, and medicine to treat.

Instead of promoting the brand and running a medical practice, healthcare organizations can outsource their communications needs to agencies that understand the importance of marketing in healthcare.

Patient retention

Improving patient loyalty is nuanced. On the one hand, healthcare practices need patients to keep coming back to support their business goals. On the other, the best healthcare organizations make people healthy. In other words, good doctors work themselves out of business.

This apparent paradox underscores the importance of marketing in healthcare. Without proper communication, healthcare organizations will struggle to recruit new patients or benefit from the successes of former patients.

The best healthcare marketing strategies create processes that leverage patient reviews to attract high-quality leads and build patient loyalty (without depending on people to stay sick).

The importance of marketing in healthcare for patient communication

According to a Gallup Poll, patient loyalty depends on two areas of healthcare: patient perception of quality and processes. Healthcare marketing is essential to both of these areas.

A well-designed website helps patients find the resources they need. Mobile-friendly apps allow patients to engage meaningfully from their smartphones. Follow-up emails containing surveys give patients a chance to communicate unmet needs or provide positive reviews.

An omnichannel healthcare marketing strategy is foundational for patient communication, and that’s vital for patient loyalty.

Educate your patients

Modern healthcare consumers have an enormous wealth of information available at their fingertips. For many people, this bank of knowledge is overwhelming. Your prospective patients want credible information from industry leaders, but they don’t know who to trust. That’s where you come in!

Connecting patients to educational healthcare information drives home the importance of marketing in healthcare. Your healthcare organization is comprised of personnel, technology, medicine, and research. Creating high-quality content showcasing your expertise educates patients and boosts your website’s SEO quality.

Patients who see and experience your content will feel safe trusting their health in your hands. Think of your patients as brand ambassadors who might share your content (and your brand) if your materials excite them.

Scale the reach of your healthcare brand

If you identify with the following statements, you innately sense the importance of marketing in healthcare:

  • You don’t have an in-house marketing team.
  • Your marketing efforts are unplanned, absent, or incohesive.
  • You’re ready to launch a new healthcare service line or medical product.
  • Your target market has changed, but you aren’t sure how to change your message.
  • You know there are more patients in your area, but you don’t know how to find them.

If you want to reach more patients, you need a healthcare marketing strategy that communicates the best message to a targeted audience through the most strategic channels.

You’re a medical expert. Using your time learning how to become a marketing expert trades off with time better spent with your patients, fine-tuning your services, and researching and developing your medical care.

FAQs about the importance of marketing in healthcare

Today’s patients have more choices and information than ever. Your healthcare organization needs a long-term healthcare marketing strategy to guide them to your brand. We’re here to help you learn how to do it. Read on to get answers to your questions about the importance of marketing in healthcare.

How can doctors benefit from a digital marketing plan?

Doctors who work with a healthcare marketing agency can see the following benefits:

  • Established authority among peers
  • Improved online reputation
  • More engagement from patients
  • Increased community recognition

Ultimately, the importance of marketing in healthcare for doctors comes down to building patient loyalty. When doctors invest in a digital marketing campaign, they make the best they have to offer visible to patients looking for care.

What marketing services are available for doctors?

Doctors can engage the following marketing services from healthcare marketers:

  • Web design and development
  • Planning and consultation
  • Digital marketing
  • Brand development

Each of these broad healthcare marketing strategies incorporates an array of tactics, including inbound marketing, SEO, content creation, email, and more.

By outsourcing their marketing needs to a healthcare marketer, doctors recognize the importance of marketing in healthcare without diverting time from their patients.

How can having a physician liaison benefit my practice?

A physician liaison is a professional with marketing or sales experience who builds and nurtures long-term strategic partnerships. Physician liaisons connect healthcare businesses to pharmaceutical companies, specialized medical clinics, urgent care facilities, and other healthcare organizations.

Recruiting a physician liaison is a smart way to outsource the necessary work of building business relationships, so you can focus on your patients. The importance of marketing in healthcare is too significant to neglect, and a physician liaison can help you reap its benefits.

What is the significance of medical SEO?

The following medical SEO statistics reveal the importance of marketing in healthcare:

  • One in ten Americans uses the internet to find health information.
  • 69% of millennials consult the internet instead of a doctor for medical advice.
  • Patients conduct twice as many health-related searches two weeks before heading to the emergency department.

Here’s the story that data tells us about the significance of medical SEO: most Americans use the internet to learn about their conditions and symptoms. When health practices improve their SEO, they help patients get better answers faster (before their health condition becomes an emergency).

Let’s talk about the importance of marketing in healthcare

Healthcare marketing can drive high-quality leads, increase conversions, and improve patient retention. But the fundamental importance of marketing in healthcare transcends business goals.

When you optimize your communications, you make it easier for patients to find care. Outdated and difficult-to-use websites impede patients from getting the information they need to learn about their conditions and your services.

Relying on manual systems rather than automation puts unnecessary pressure on your team. An irregular or absent presence on social media neglects the most popular communication platforms your patients use.

You can see the importance of marketing in healthcare by considering how it improves public health. If you’re ready to improve your business and community, invest in a healthcare marketer who will build a proven healthcare marketing strategy customized for your brand and audience.

Get results-driven healthcare marketing

Do you need help executing social media marketing that increases brand exposure and patient interaction? Look at how we improved the contact-to-patient rate by 62.9% for the Indiana Hand to Shoulder Center.

Are you ready to launch a paid ad campaign with a positive marketing ROI? Explore the results we brought to the Illinois Bone and Joint Institute, including a cost-per-click $0.56 lower than the industry standard and an average 4% click-thru rate.

Maybe you’re ready to redesign your website and launch apps that better serve your patients’ needs. See how we delivered a modern website with integrated apps for the Lindner Research Center at The Christ Hospital.