Choose Digital for Your Marketing Mix Because of Its Capabilities

Our cultural adoption of digital platforms has forever transformed the way marketing and advertising is delivered.  (See my earlier two posts regarding Crossing the Digital Divide)  Fortunately, we’re only seeing the start of something bigger.  Online marketing seems to be outgrowing traditional mindsets and means of advertising. New technologies and platforms for communication place an increased focus on deliberate, value-adding services, accessibility and social interaction, creating and environment in which your service line messaging can thrive.

In this perspective, digital will and should become the most important interface between your services and consumers.  Your willingness to increase investment in these new opportunities should be inevitable.  The service line marketing opportunities that digital affords is undeniably valuable.  And the reason is its unique abilities.

Sharing is Caring

As stated before, digital is all around us.  It has fused with our everyday lives.  At every instance, there is opportunity to add value to any situation – if the participant initiates it.  Think of it like this: your service lines are automatically valuable because they are curators of enormous amounts of content.  Consumers want access to that content!

The traditional means of gaining awareness is becoming increasingly expensive and less effective.   Technology’s immersion into our everyday lives has given us unprecedented access to people in a completely personal way.  Your service line can forge critical touch points if you allow open access to your content.

Almost 80 percent of Internet users have searched for health care content online.  If you want to be accessible to this audience, consider creating an organic search engine optimization strategy for your web properties coupled with a paid search campaign for your service lines.  Use commonly searched keywords and phrases in your paid search ads and web content, and pay close attention to trending condition-related topics. Enhance and optimize your web properties as needed. 

Give them what they want, where they want it

Digital is not about getting people from A to B to C.  It’s about creating valuable experiences without being intrusive.  Your messaging must blend seamlessly with consumers’ everyday life.  Where traditional media is about creating opportunities, digital marketing is about finding them.  Opportunities in the digital realm can be granularly focused, allowing your service line messaging to be more targeted, and subsequently, more valuable.  

Digital has created a new paradigm in the marketing world.   Instead of interest in passive mass media, consumers have come to expect meaningful participation.  This means that every screen, interface or object is an opportunity for interaction.  Your service lines will want to explore new levels of interaction with the consumer in context, rather than just telling your story to the masses.

As we alluded to earlier, insight into your customer’s motivations will determine where your digital executions will receive the most value.  It’s important to place your media where the user can view your execution in context with the content they are looking for.  For instance, consider placing a rich-media ad on a series of websites that promote content relevant to the particular service line you are promoting.  A rich-media execution allows the user to interact with your focused service line content in a manner that is adding value while being non-intrusive.  It’s applicable content delivered in an engaging experience, promoting dialogue, interaction, collaboration and (most importantly) response.

Direct communication is key to any strong relationship.

Social platforms have infinitely expanded opportunities to personally connect with consumers.  In this respect, we are not delivering messaging, we are communicating directly.  We are using real conversations and interactions to build strong relationships with our customers.  For your service lines, there is a distinct opportunity to ignite conversations between like-minded individuals or groups who are experiencing the same health issues. It’s much more than telling your story to a community.  It’s handing over the conversation to participants so that they can tell their own story and help yours grow.

Simply having a presence on social media is not social media.  There must be a consistent effort to talk, discover and engage with your audience.  It’s the nature of your activity that is important, not the technology du jour (ie. Twitter, Facebook).  While your participation in social media is imperative, it’s more about giving participants something to talk about with each other.  There is a big difference between how you choose to communicate to the entire community about your services compared to how one participant with a given health issue chooses to communicate to others with the same issue.  So, the thought becomes, how can I add value to the existing conversation rather than interrupting it?  In doing so, you accomplish two things.  You build lasting relationships by spending quality time with your participants, and you give them the attention they deserve by adding value to their conversations.

Now, how can your service lines utilize social media?  There’s a natural fear associated with social media, as you’ll be forfeiting control of your service line messaging.  But bear in mind, building meaningful relationships requires a leap of faith.  Using a few simple techniques, you can get the conversation started.

Keep listening.  Your campaign is trying to tell you something.

Unlike traditional media, one of the inherent abilities of digital is the ability to record data.  Any form of digital can record and collect data for future enhancement and innovation.  Executing an integrated campaign with digital as the centerpiece allows you to gather results for every avenue of communication.  For your service line marketing efforts, where return on investment and results are paramount, the analysis of recorded digital data may become your hospital’s most important data set.

When dissecting data, analysts tend to only concentrate on the number of clickthroughs or page views a specific digital execution receives to determine its success.  This data is important for optimization purposes, but we must remember that digital should not be solely judged on its ability to move a user from one point to another.  For example, in the case of rich media ads, it’s important to understand the amount of quality time the user spent interacting with the ad, what content is being searched for and how your applications are being utilized.  For social media endeavors, you’ll want to listen and learn first. Acknowledge ideas and feedback.  Observe when participants say what they feel, then engage.

Digital analytics can be gathered using a multitude of tools; however, measurement is more than number crunching. Since you are selling a service, it comes down to measuring interactions, both physically and socially.  You’ll need to get inside the situation, examine the value of the digital experience and adapt accordingly.

Conclusion

For health care marketers, digital is a slowly adopted medium.  It’s intimidating and complicated.  It takes time to master, but in the end, it’s well worth the effort because what its capabale of doing for your organization.