Health care providers are constantly looking for ways to attract consumers to their services or products. This has resulted in a shift in the thought process of marketing strategists who are constantly trying to sway consumer sentiment through slow and subtle branding. Inbound and outbound healthcare marketing has its own set of advantages that need to be weighed when designing an effective marketing strategy.
Healthcare Outbound Marketing
Social media marketing has completely revolutionized the healthcare marketing scene. Traditional forms of marketing have and continue to be outbound in their operation. Outbound healthcare marketing involves pushing your products or services towards your target segment or potential patients using various mediums. They are mostly unidirectional and involve a considerable investment.
Some examples of outbound marketing initiatives include:
1. Mass mailings
2. Print media
3. Radio ads
4. TV commercials
Healthcare inbound marketing
Healthcare marketing strategy has undergone a tremendous change in its execution. In recent years, a change in perspective has been observed as much emphasis is placed on healthcare inbound marketing strategies. Similarly, healthcare outbound marketing strategies are slowly declining. The reason for this decline in outbound marketing practices is that people are now selective about the means by which they receive healthcare information. Compared to traditional media, patients are now proactively seeking information and are no longer dependent on traditional advertising media to gain their knowledge.
About 80% of consumers tend to trust suggestions provided by a friend or colleague compared to 16% of patients who trust information contained in an advertisement. Patients tend to exchange information about their doctors, hospital details, illnesses, product experiences, and other information they might find useful on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, and many other social networking platforms.
The focus of inbound marketing strategy is to get information about your products, your practice, or your service in front of your target audience in a place they frequently visit online or choose to use the information provided.
Some examples of inbound marketing strategies include:
1. podcast
2. blogging
3. social platforms
Once you’ve managed to produce content that is useful, you need to combine this effectively with a strong online presence. This greatly increases the visibility of the products and services you offer. The focus of inbound marketing is to enlist the help of your target segment to share and spread your content through their networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.
