According to a Mercer report, demand for healthcare workers will outpace supply in just three years. How can you focus all of your B2B healthcare marketing on the right experts for your team? By executing target marketing in healthcare.
In this article, we’ll explore how you can use targeted marketing to reach healthcare professionals who perfectly align with your clinic’s goals (and are already looking for a workplace just like yours).
What is target marketing in healthcare?
Target marketing in healthcare is a communications strategy designed to reach a specific medical audience. B2B medical audiences include physicians, nurses, pharmaceutical companies, medical SaaS developers, etc.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for target marketing in healthcare. Keep reading to form an effective targeted marketing strategy for your healthcare practice.
8 essential steps to identify your B2B medical target audience
To define your B2B medical target audience, you’ll need to take a multifaceted approach involving data mining, customer persona development, metric analysis, etc.
Focus on one step at a time to get the reward you’re after: a crystal clear picture of the medical audience you want to reach and a data-driven method for achieving them.
Develop a stellar data strategy
You don’t have to invent a picture of your ideal medical B2B partner to execute target marketing in healthcare. You already have data you can use to determine the types of candidates you want to reach.
Survey your team to isolate commonalities among your top performers. You can also study industry reports releasing data on healthcare professional expectations and experiences.
Segment your audience based on commonalities
To execute a highly personalized target marketing in healthcare strategy, you’ll need to segment your market. Segment your audience using these categories:
- Geographic location (specific cities, ZIP codes)
- Demographic characteristics (age, income, gender, employment)
- Psychographic traits (hobbies, lifestyles, beliefs)
- Behavioral patterns (online activities)
Use this data to communicate with your prospects in ways that match their unique stage in the customer journey mapping.
Define your target audience
Use the data you collected in step one to draft audience personas and sketches of your ideal customer (or, in this case, employee or partner).
Precision is crucial. It’s not enough to define your target audience as “pediatricians.” “Bilingual pediatric audiologists in central Indiana” is a more precise target.
Measure success with provable methods
How do you know if targeted marketing is working for your medical practice? You measure the results. There are many ways to analyze your website’s data, but these are good metrics to monitor:
- Referral traffic
- Landing page visits
- Bounce rates
- Conversion rates
Your healthcare practice campaign has unique goals. Ultimately, if your targeted marketing strategy is reaching those goals.
Choose the right influencers or partners
A one-size-fits-all approach cannot capture the results you’ll get from target marketing in healthcare. You need to work with influencers and partners who appeal to the specific segment you’re after.
For example, a well-known mommy blogger is likely to be a more relatable influencer for an audience of women interested in maternal care than a male obstetrician might be, no matter how impressive his awards are.
Build a strategic contact plan
To build a strategic contact plan for your targeted marketing strategy, you need to combine the information you’ve collected in steps one through five.
You should have a clear picture of your ideal audience, strategic influencer partnerships, and a way to measure your healthcare marketing goals. Use those pieces to outline the communications methods you will use to contact your prospects through all relevant channels.
Research competitor strategies
You’ve got iterations of ad copy for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. You’re ready to release a blog series targeting your ideal audience. But unless you’ve analyzed your competitors, you haven’t done all you can to get the highest yields for your efforts.
What marketing messages are your competitors using? On what social media channels are they engaging with patients?
Use this information to distinguish yourself and outperform the competition.
Experiment with targeting techniques
B2B target marketing in healthcare answers questions unique to your medical practice like, “what dermatology specialty is in highest demand for the patients I serve” or “what part of the state is generating the most unreached nurses?”
Once you have these answers, you can start deploying personalized marketing content on your prospects’ most commonly used channels.
What is the difference between a market and a target market?
The term “market” refers to the pool of people interested in a specific industry. In healthcare, the market consists of patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, etc.
Targeted marketing in healthcare narrows the focus. Instead of marketing to anyone who might be interested in the healthcare industry, targeted healthcare marketing attempts to reach a specific type of customer.
Personalized, educational content is the key to success in healthcare marketing
Target marketing in healthcare is the key to attracting the best leads. The following statistics support healthcare marketing teams taking a targeted approach:
- “Near me” searches have doubled since 2015. Targeting people by geography aligns with your market’s demand for location convenience.
- Targeted outreach performs up to 96% better than randomized outreach. Using a targeted marketing approach for educational initiatives can save hospital healthcare systems millions.
- Audience targeting and ad placements are the most popular optimization tactics. Your competitors are probably targeting your audience, whether you are or aren’t.
If you want to reach the niche B2B healthcare market for your medical practice, you’ll need a targeted marketing strategy that focuses on its unique needs.
Highly-targeted campaigns will yield higher engagement
As a healthcare marketing agency with over 15 years of experience, we’ve seen the power of targeted marketing firsthand. Here are some of the results our healthcare clients have experienced through targeting healthcare marketing:
- 23% more website visitors within the first year of site launch
- 62.9% increased contact-to-patient rate, 95% increase in website visitors, 1,190% increase in appointment requests since social media launch
- 33% increase in local website visitors and 21% decrease in bounce rate
The more targeted your audience, the more qualified your leads will become. That means you get what you want from your market (because they get what they want from you).
FAQs about target marketing in healthcare
Healthcare marketing is complex, and there’s always more to learn! Find more answers to your questions about target marketing in healthcare below.
How do you select a target audience for healthcare?
To select a target audience for healthcare, marketing teams segment their audience demographically, psychographically, geographically, and behaviorally. For example, you can target women between 25 and 45 years old in your region with Facebook and Instagram ads about your maternity care.
What is an example of target marketing in healthcare?
An example of target marketing in healthcare is creating a content marketing strategy that supports a niche market segment. For example, a blog series exploring ways to help parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing targets pediatric audiologists.
What is the concept of target marketing?
Target marketing in healthcare is a strategy that personalizes marketing efforts to appeal to a unique market segment. Targeted marketing brings businesses highly qualified leads and creates a more personalized and helpful user experience.
Do you want to execute a successful healthcare marketing campaign?
According to a 2018 BMC Health Services Research report, long-term target marketing in healthcare can turn a medical practice with a 10% market share into an industry leader with more to offer its patients.
All it takes is asking the right questions and creating high-quality marketing assets to reach the people who are already interested in working with you.
Healthcare marketing begins with proper targeting
More than ever, hospitals and clinics need help attracting top-rated professionals to build their teams. Learning effective target marketing in healthcare strategies is the first step to making the right connections.
Whether it’s a private practice partner looking to merge or a hospital healthcare worker who wants to join your clinic, the targeted approach is customized for your success.
