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Demand Marketing in Healthcare: What It Really Means

June 22, 2022 By Scott Adams

Demand marketing in healthcare is an essential aspect of a successful business strategy to stand out from your competition and generate more traffic to your site.

Whether you’re in hospital purchasing or medical sales, today’s marketplace is more competitive than ever. Because consumers can now conduct their own research and find solutions to their problems online, people are more discerning and selective in their purchases. Demand marketing in healthcare helps engage your audience and channel more people through your sales funnel. This attracts prospects, drives traffic, and increases the likelihood of conversions.

Keep reading to learn what demand marketing in healthcare really means and how to use it to your advantage. 

Key Takeaways

  • Demand marketing in healthcare is the process of raising awareness and generating excitement about a brand and products that provide relevant solutions to healthcare suppliers.
  • Incentivize your audience to create interest and stand apart from the competition. 
  • Follow the five pillars of demand marketing to increase the likelihood of a successful marketing strategy.

What Exactly Is Demand Marketing?

Demand marketing uses your marketing efforts to create interest in and generate demand for your products. First, you must make buyers aware of your brand and the particular solutions you provide. Then, you must pique consumer interest and provide valid reasons why they should purchase your product. Finally, through positioning relevance, you persuade consumers to buy your goods and continue to build customer loyalty for future purchases.

Demand marketing uses a multi-channel approach that combines marketing education with the persuasion of sales. Demand marketing in healthcare can include:

  • Free trials: You build trust and potential lasting relationships by giving people a low-risk opportunity to try your products.
  • Incentives: Free apps or tools with an in-purchase option might convince someone to buy from your company and become a loyal customer.
  • Expert content: E-books and podcasts can be valuable tools that increase engagement and position you as a leader in your industry.
  • Email campaigns: Customers receive special offers or discounts via email that entice them to buy, and you obtain useful contact information for future campaigns.

Demand marketing focuses on building customer engagement while channeling people through your sales funnel. The following video explains how to create demand for your products and succeed in the marketplace:

5 Pillars of Demand Marketing

The healthcare supply chain is a $2.14 billion industry and growing. It’s essential to generate demand for your products to set yourself apart from the competition and gain the business of the medical distribution sector. You can achieve this by following the five pillars of demand marketing in healthcare.

1. Know Your Audience

For marketing to be successful, you have to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. The only way to do this is to truly understand who your audience is, their needs, and their preferences. A basic understanding of their demographics like gender, age, and job can be a terrific starting point in realizing what information would resonate with them. Dive deeper by learning pain points, frustrations, and motivators to deliver messaging compelling them to buy.

Imagine your ideal customer and create a buyer persona to identify their needs and wants. Look at existing customers as well as hypothetical prospects. All of this information can help you build an effective strategy that enables you to deliver relevant content through the most impactful channels at the right time. This helps to boost conversion rates and increase sales for continued success.

Build a buyer persona to identify the needs and wants of your ideal customer.

Source: marketinginsidergroup.com

2. Engage Your Audience

Although delivering relevant content is a big part of a successful marketing strategy, you must engage with your audience to develop deeper relationships that last. This is important because existing customers are responsible for 65% of a business’s purchases. Audience engagement contributes to customer loyalty and helps spread the word about your brand. Engaged people are more likely to share your information with their contacts and become ambassadors for your brand. This helps broaden your reach and gains you more recognition.

Audience engagement also helps give you more insight into your customers’ needs and wants. People who interact with your brand are more likely to give candid feedback you can use to improve your products and processes. All of this works in your favor as you continue to delight customers and create demand for your products.

3. Give Added Value

One way to educate people about your brand and create interest in your products is to establish yourself as a thought leader and expert in your industry. Become the company people look to for reliable information and helpful tools and resources. Provide useful content that helps people make informed decisions about their purchases. Stand out from competitors by offering an added value. 

From e-books and webinars to whitepapers and research findings, the more value you can offer your customers, the more likely they’ll engage, convert, and return. Demand marketing in healthcare aims to generate interest in your company and your products, so anything you can do to create excitement will benefit you in the long run.

4. Integrate Marketing for a Consistent Message

Demand marketing typically uses several channels for the most impact. Whether you use social media, email campaigns, digital ads, or blog articles, everything you publish should deliver a consistent message. Make sure web content is SEO friendly to earn you higher SERPs for greater visibility. Share valuable information on your social network platforms to increase engagement and reach. Whatever you do, be sure to integrate your marketing efforts into a powerful campaign that excites your audience and spreads the word about your brand and your products.

An integrated marketing strategy ensures that you align all of your efforts for maximum impact.

Source: boscoanthony.com

Consider implementing marketing automation tools to help streamline your efforts, increase efficiency, and boost productivity. This can save you time while allowing you to reach your audience with impactful messaging that resonates and converts.

5. Track Data

It’s important to track data and measure your performance to determine your demand marketing campaign’s overall effectiveness and success. Data can reveal:

  • Whether people are sharing your content and commenting on your posts.
  • If people can find you on search engines.
  • Your site’s searchability on social media platforms.

Metrics can show engagement and click-through rates to help you realize whether your messages are striking a chord with your audience. Website traffic will show if your content generates interest and demand. Tracking data provides invaluable clues into what’s working well in your marketing efforts and what needs to be changed. All of this helps to ensure your demand marketing strategy is creating buzz, helping you reach your goals, and making the most of your advertising budget.

Develop an Effective Demand Marketing Strategy 

Share Moving Media is a full-service media and content company that provides resources to companies in the healthcare industry. Reach your group purchasing network with valuable content that resonates, generates demand and sets you apart from the competition. Contact us today to learn how we can help you create an effective demand marketing strategy.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Minute Tagged With: group purchasing network, healthcare suppliers, healthcare supply chain, hospital purchasing, medical distribution, medical sales

Lean Marketing in Healthcare: 5 Strategies to Help Small Suppliers Beat Big Brands

May 31, 2022 By Scott Adams

The healthcare industry is a highly competitive market. In the United States alone, 784,626 healthcare companies are vying for consumers. Small healthcare suppliers have a big challenge ahead of them when competing with big brands. They don’t typically have the marketing budget that large companies do, so they don’t have the same brand recognition and visibility. But that doesn’t mean that small suppliers can’t compete in the industry.

Through lean marketing in healthcare, smaller companies can maximize their budgets to earn more success with potentially smaller funds. Lean marketing allows room for adaptability, allowing small suppliers to adjust their efforts along the way for more impactful results and a higher ROI. 

While big brands have several advantages when it comes to marketing, they’re not unbeatable. To compete with big brands, small healthcare suppliers must develop lean marketing strategies that yield big results.

What is Lean Marketing in Healthcare?

The lean philosophy began in the automobile industry with Toyota Manufacturing Systems (TMS). They believed that, through a framework of efficiency, repetition, testing, and quantifying metrics, they could outperform their competitors. 

Although the lean philosophy was initially used in terms of manufacturing, businesses in other industries began adopting it into their marketing plans. It’s especially helpful in the healthcare industry, where multiple departments often have to work together on complex projects with a shared budget. 

Lean marketing allows for departments to work seamlessly together, helps to simplify complicated projects, and provides flexibility for a smooth project workflow of continuous improvement.

With lean marketing, small businesses in the healthcare industry can:

  • Improve delivery time: Larger tasks are broken up into smaller pieces that are easier to manage. This lets you test and launch campaigns more quickly, seeing results sooner. Additionally, by performing a task repeatedly, you can make improvements each time for a more efficient and effective marketing plan.
  • Better connect with members of their team: To become lean, staff must meet daily to give status updates on the projects they’re working on. Such transparency not only keeps everyone on the same page. It helps identify potential pitfalls and provides an arena for peer-to-peer problem solving, continual learning, and growth. 
  • Narrow their focus on single tasks: Multitasking takes focus away from several projects at once. In lean marketing, people are encouraged to focus on one thing at a time. This helps people work more efficiently and yields a higher rate of productivity.
  • Pivot their strategy mid-stride: By constantly measuring your efforts, you can see what parts of your plan are working and what needs improvement. Workers are encouraged to make data-driven adjustments to ensure they’re working as proficiently and effectively as possible. Pivoting a strategy mid-stride helps to reduce waste of time and resources on a plan that simply isn’t working.

5 Lean Marketing Strategies for Small Healthcare Suppliers

Through careful strategy, small companies in the healthcare supply chain can gain a foothold in the industry’s marketplace. Whether you’re a hospital distributor, a member of a group purchasing organization, or in charge of purchasing physician office supplies, here are five lean marketing strategies that can help you beat big brands.

1. Set SMART Goals 

To function more efficiently, it’s important to know what you’re aiming for and how well that plan is working. By setting measurable goals at the onset of a project, you can stay on track while adhering to your budget. SMART goals help define your intentions and keep you driven toward success.

SMART goals are:

  • Specific: A narrowed scope yields higher rates of efficiency.
  • Measurable: Metrics and their reassessment will reveal areas of accomplishment.
  • Attainable: A series of smaller goals gain more success and propel you forward to more rewards.
  • Relevant: Objectives should be in line with your long-term plans.
  • Timely: A realistic deadline helps prioritize your course of action.

Setting manageable and achievable targets will launch you and your team toward success while maximizing your work efficiency.

2. Amplify Your Strengths 

It’s common for companies to invest marketing dollars into a campaign that just doesn’t work. They try to capitalize on too many products, services, and promises. This leads to wasted money, time, and effort, and that’s not what the lean philosophy is all about. When developing your marketing strategy, think about the things your business does well. Focus on those aspects and use them to create your marketing plan. 

With lean marketing, quality is more important than quantity. Invest your resources into whatever will make the most impact. Avoid tactics that aren’t performing and focus on what yields results. It’s better to focus on a few things and be exceptional than several things and be mediocre.

3. Leave Room in Your Marketing Plan for Adjustments 

From acquisitions and medical research to government policies and technological advancements, the healthcare industry is constantly changing. That’s why flexibility is so important to a marketing campaign. Through constant evaluation, you’ll know which of your marketing tactics is underperforming. With lean marketing, small suppliers have the opportunity to adjust as necessary. 

When you set your marketing plan, remember it isn’t chiseled in stone. Allow opportunities for creative solutions and new directions so you can pivot freely without hesitation.

4. Constantly Review Your Budget 

Lean marketing encourages constant assessment of what is and isn’t working in your marketing plan. This should also apply to your marketing budget. Set long-term goals for the year, but make frequent assessments as you determine the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. Find areas in your budget that need to be adjusted, eliminated, or reconfigured to meet the needs of your flexible marketing goals.

5. Outsource Projects to Save Resources 

It’s not always most efficient to do your own marketing. If you don’t have a dedicated promotional team, balancing those responsibilities can take time and focus away from other projects that need your attention. This goes against the lean philosophy. Consider outsourcing some of your projects to a medical manufacturer marketing agency.

Hiring an outside expert can sometimes be more efficient and cost effective than trying to manage it all yourself.

Rely on Experts for Lean Marketing in Healthcare

Lean marketing can give small healthcare suppliers the competitive edge they need to surpass big brands. Share Moving Media is a full-service media and content company that specifically helps businesses in the healthcare industry meet their marketing goals.Contact us today to develop a lean marketing strategy that can help increase your market share.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Minute Tagged With: group purchasing organizations, healthcare suppliers, healthcare supply chain, hospital distributors, physician office supplies

Why Choose the Journal of Healthcare Contracting for Healthcare Marketing?

May 9, 2022 By John Pritchard

The B2B healthcare sales process is much longer than the average sales process, making many of your healthcare marketing strategies challenging to navigate. Newly available technology in marketing and sales also means the industry is changing, adding another challenge to your process. When you stay on top of the latest changes in marketing and healthcare, you can speed up the sales process and see greater returns.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is a publication created for the healthcare supply chain and offers solutions for your marketing team to handle the above challenges and more. Learn five ways you can benefit from the publication.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is Share Moving Media’s publication devoted to the healthcare supply chain.
  • The insights from the magazine will help you create quality, relevant marketing content for your audience.
  • The publication offers advertising options that place your brand before leaders in the healthcare supply chain.

What Is the Journal of Healthcare Contracting?

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is a publication by Share Moving Media covering news and updates from the healthcare supply chain. The content provides industry insights from healthcare experts to help marketers and purchasers find new opportunities and make data-backed decisions.

Over 12,400 critical stakeholders in the healthcare supply chain receive the publication. It specifically addresses four primary positions within the supply chain:

  • Healthcare systems
  • Healthcare suppliers and manufacturers
  • Hospital distribution
  • Group purchasing networks

How the Journal of Healthcare Contracting Helps Marketers

Marketers can gain unique value from The Journal of Healthcare Contracting because of its targeted content and industry updates, which are foundational to a successful healthcare marketing strategy.

Here are five specific reasons why marketers should use The Journal of Healthcare Contracting as part of their research and marketing efforts.

1. Provides Information You Can Use to Create Quality Content

The information and reports you receive in the publication help you create quality healthcare marketing content that adds value for your clients. About 55% of marketers saw their greatest marketing success from creating quality content.

Quality content is content that:

  • Answers your audience’s questions
  • Is easy to read and understand
  • Dives deeper into a topic
  • Shares valuable insights
  • Provides actionable content your audience can use

Many of the articles and content you read in The Journal of Healthcare Contracting are more in-depth than what you would find through a Google search. You can also find statistics and case studies you could reference in your marketing content to support your claims and add greater value to your audience.

If you are new to healthcare content marketing strategy, the following video outlines some of the best methods for creating quality content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l84ETfVheOM

2. Helps You Build a Customer-Centric Strategy

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is the only publication dedicated to the healthcare supply chain. It contains the latest industry data, client behaviors, hospital purchasing trends, and marketing insights specific to your industry. These insights will help you create relevant content for your audience.

Relevant content connects with your readers by showing you understand who they are and their most significant challenges. For example, a supplier needs to know what healthcare workers face daily before offering solutions that resonate with the facilities they market to.

Since the pandemic hit, empathy has been a driving force for many marketers. An empathetic marketer builds authentic relationships with their customers, acknowledges challenges, and pushes sales to the backseat of their marketing efforts. However, you can’t empathize with your audience if you don’t understand where they are today, so audience insights from the industry are vital for a customer-centric marketing strategy.

3. Supports a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

How do you make your healthcare marketing decisions? If you have been in the business for several years, you might pattern your current efforts off past results. However, times are changing quickly, and what worked last year might not be as effective this year or in five years.

Staying on top of industry trends doesn’t just mean changing as the industry changes. It means predicting where it is heading in the next few years and preparing for that change in advance so that when it arrives, you aren’t left blind-sided and scrambling to catch up with your competition.

A data-driven marketing strategy uses insights from the past and present to predict future trends so that you can have proactive marketing efforts. However, the data from your company only paints half a picture. When you also incorporate predictions and insights from other experts and businesses, like what you can find in The Journal of Healthcare Contracting, you can see the larger picture of where your industry is headed for more accurate marketing predictions.

4. Connects You to Your Target Audience

About 79% of marketers say generating quality leads is their top priority. To attract valuable prospects, you have to place your content in front of the right people. The healthcare supply chain sprawls across various marketing channels. The few channels that contain all your target leads also have thousands of other readers that aren’t prospective buyers.

Advertising through The Journal of Healthcare Contracting puts your content in front of leaders in the healthcare supply chain, which ensures most readers are also quality leads, increasing the return of your marketing efforts.

Some of the readers in the healthcare supply chain you will reach with your content include:

  • 4,200 executives in healthcare contracting for over a thousand health systems
  • 2,500 hospital supply chain executives
  • 700 sales, marketing, logistics, and contracting executives
  • 3,700 suppliers and manufacturers

5. Provides a Greater Return from Your Advertisements

Despite today’s digital advertising and marketing trends, nearly half of U.S. adults still find print advertisements most trustworthy. Marketing campaigns that combine print with digital advertising see a 400% increase in effectiveness.

When you advertise in The Journal of Healthcare Contracting, you can maximize your return by reaching your target audience through one of the most trustworthy mediums for marketing and advertising.

Expand Your Healthcare Marketing Strategy

Share Moving Media has provided valuable training, information, and advertising opportunities for the healthcare supply chain since 1994. You can become a prominent name in healthcare by investing in more significant marketing insights and channels to get you in front of your target audience.

Contact us to learn more about how to market through The Journal of Healthcare Contracting.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Minute Tagged With: group purchasing networks, healthcare suppliers, healthcare supply chain, hospital distribution, hospital purchasing, the journal of healthcare contracting

The Crucial Role of Healthcare Distributors in the Healthcare System

February 10, 2022 By Scott Adams

The role of healthcare distributors in the United States cannot be overstated. Without distribution companies like yours, the healthcare system would likely collapse. Distributors have various critical roles within the medical supply chain in the United States.

According to a 2019 study from Deloitte, healthcare distributors handle 92% of pharmaceutical sales that connect over 1,300 manufacturers to more than 180,000 points of dispensation. In addition, the worldwide distribution market was estimated at $810 billion in 2020 and is expected to surpass $1,380 billion by 2030.

Key Takeaways

  • Healthcare distributors help streamline the medical supply process between manufacturers and healthcare providers.
  • Distributors use their logical expertise to properly manage the shelf life and track the data of their medical supplies.
  • Healthcare distributors can use long-term contracts to help manage the costs of medical supplies.
  • Healthcare distributors become even more important during a health crisis.

Healthcare Distributors Are the Missing Link in the Supply Chain

The main goal of any healthcare distributor is to make sure medications and supplies arrive securely at healthcare facilities when medical professionals need them.

There are over 300,000 hospitals and healthcare providers in the United States. Without distributors, medical manufacturers would have to manage deliveries to each provider creating a complicated, cumbersome delivery network.

For those unfamiliar with the medical supply chain, they may assume that hospitals and pharmacies get their supplies directly from the manufacturer. However, medical distributors are like grocery stores. Instead of having to visit a butcher, a dairy farmer, and a baker to get your groceries, you can get everything you need at the same place. The same applies to healthcare distributors. Hospitals can get all the medical supplies and medications they need from just a few distributors instead of thousands of manufacturers.

Distributors are a critical link in the supply chain that helps streamline the supply process. Healthcare facilities rely on distributors to keep costs down and make the supply chain more efficient. Distributors can order supplies in bulk from manufacturers and store these supplies until healthcare facilities need them.

5 Things Healthcare Distributors Do to Deliver Logistical Expertise

As a healthcare distributor, you offer logistical expertise that most medical facilities are not equipped to deal with on their own. Distributors have five key benefits that make them invaluable to the healthcare industry.

1. Provide Space to Store Medical Supplies 

Healthcare systems require a lot of medical supplies. While hospitals and other facilities may have storage rooms, most do not have the space necessary to store large quantities of long-term supplies. They need to use their space to focus on patient care instead of storing supplies. As a medical distributor, you have the space needed to store bulk supplies and quickly fulfill new orders.

2. Manage Quality and Recalls  

As a distributor, you take pride in ensuring your medical supplies comply with FDA regulations and are vetted for quality. This is a time-intensive process that health providers cannot do. They need to spend their time focused on patients. 

When product recalls occur, your company has the expertise required to precisely track and manage these events. You work closely with your customers, so they know what to expect during the recall process including whether or not a replacement product is available.

3. Monitor Product Shelf Life 

Most medical supplies have a limited shelf life and need to be stored in a specific way. Your distribution company is an expert in managing product rotations and expirations. You have the staff required to monitor your supplies on a full-time basis. Most healthcare providers would need to invest in more staff if they wanted to do this themselves.

4. Track Data 

While healthcare providers are experts in taking care of health needs, your company is an expert in tracking and analyzing data. As you track your medical supplies, you know when it is time to order more to eliminate any possible bottlenecks in the supply chain. Data analytics can also help keep costs under control as you plan certain purchases for certain times of the year.

5. Keep Pricing Stable

By giving healthcare providers multi-year contract options that lock in prices, distributors can form longer-lasting relationships with providers. This can help keep costs under control and keep services and supplies more predictable. Distributors should also be up-front with their customers about any price changes due to shipping difficulties or other circumstances.

Role of Healthcare Distributors During Health Emergencies

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted some of the problems within the medical supply chain and showed how important medical distributors really are to the overall healthcare industry. Distributors are a key part in helping governments and other organizations manage a health crisis. 

Here are some of the ways healthcare distributors can offer services and safeguards during disasters:

  • Sourcing alternative products in the event of shortages.
  • Vetting new suppliers and products for quality.
  • Faster delivery to critical zones.
  • Alternate delivery routes during natural disasters or weather-related incidents.
  • Sequestering specific supplies for customer use during a pandemic.

A recent example of distributors filling this crucial role is during the early rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccines and the necessary supplies to deliver them were in high demand. Distributors worked with government agencies to deliver these lifesaving supplies as efficiently as possible to where they were needed the most.

To learn even more about the details of how medical distributors responded to the pandemic, watch this interview with Matt DiLoreto, Vice President of State Government Affairs for the Healthcare Distributor Alliance.

Share Moving Media Can Help You Emphasize Your Irreplaceable Role

You know how important your role as a healthcare distributor is. To broaden your customer base, you need to share your successes. Share Moving Media can help with that. 

We are experts in helping medical manufacturers and distributors like you with custom omnichannel marketing materials. Not only can we help you reach your customers through digital outlets, but through print publications as well.

Want to learn more about our marketing process? Give us a call or email us today to get started.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Minute Tagged With: healthcare distribution, healthcare supply chain

How to Use Social Media for Audience Targeting in Healthcare

December 28, 2021 By John Pritchard

What if we told you there were a handful of essential strategies on how to use social media for audience targeting in healthcare? And what if these tips help you generate sales and increase revenue?  That’s what we explore in this article.

Social media has changed the way businesses, including healthcare providers, approach digital marketing. Not only is social media affordable, but it is an effective way to reach a very specific audience. Additionally, with nearly 4 billion people actively using these platforms, social media is a great potential for sales. As a healthcare provider, understanding how to maximize its benefits and apply social media to your marketing efforts helps you find (and better understand) your ideal audience.  

Keep reading to learn how to take full advantage of these highly effective tools that helps you deliver focused marketing campaigns that yield results.

Quick Takeaways

  • Audience targeting allows you to understand the needs of your healthcare audience and create custom messaging that resonates.
  • Through audience targeting, you develop meaningful relationships while maximizing your company’s resources.
  • There are five main ways to use social media for audience targeting in healthcare, including assessing your social media audience, learning from the competition, and more.

What is Audience Targeting and Why is It Important?

Audience targeting is segmenting your potential prospect list into similar groups using various criteria. Categories could include demographics, purchase behavior, overall interests, and purchase intent. Audience targeting helps you better understand your audience and gain insight into what sort of messaging would resonate. This enables you to create customized communications that meet the specific needs of your target audience.

Today’s consumers are more discerning, partly because they are empowered by the internet to conduct their own research and find the products and services that they deem beneficial. As a result, contemporary consumers demand more from brands. Today, 66% of customers expect companies to understand their expectations and their unique needs. Delivering personalized messages shows your audience you understand them, and it helps you to connect with them on a deeper level which builds customer trust and loyalty. 

There are nearly 800,000 companies in the U.S. healthcare sector. As a healthcare provider, how do you set yourself apart from your competitors in the healthcare market and supply chain? By targeting your audience and gaining a better understanding of what they expect, need, and demand, you can deliver the right information at the right time through the right channels. This strategy helps you differentiate yourself among healthcare providers and boost your business success.

The following video further explains why it’s important for businesses to identify their target market and suggests ways to do so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeIePgFDAQI

Benefits of Audience Targeting

In addition to building trust and gaining customer loyalty, audience targeting provides numerous benefits to your healthcare business, including: 

  • Saving money: by targeting the right people, you know your advertising dollars are being spent on the right efforts. This ensures your campaigns are cost-effective and productive.
  • Optimizing resources: audience targeting provides invaluable metrics that enable you to measure the success and effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. These numbers help guide your decisions as you build effective strategies.
  • Attracting quality leads: when you know you’re reaching the right people with the right message, you attract customers that are ready to buy. These conversions help boost your bottom line.

By targeting your audience, you develop meaningful relationships that result in repeat business while ensuring you maximize your company’s resources for ultimate success.

5 Ways to Use Social Media for Audience Targeting in Healthcare

Social media provides businesses with several ways to seek out the right target audience. Whether you’re trying to identify the right people in hospital distribution, hospital purchasing, or group purchasing networks, here are five ways to use social media platforms for effective audience targeting in healthcare.

1. Assess Your Current Social Media Audience 

To determine the people most interested in engaging with your company on social media, begin by analyzing the people already interacting with you on these platforms. Consider age, location, spending patterns, pain points, and your customer’s end-user. 

Social media platforms provide analytics that reveal most of this information. By looking through these metrics and learning about the people who are already your health system customers, you develop an idea of your ideal social media audience.

2. Learn Candid Information Through Social Listening  

Monitor social media conversations and threads to learn what people are saying about the healthcare industry, your company in particular, and the products you sell. Conduct searches for keywords and hashtags to find discussions about you and your competitors. These candid reviews and conversations will reveal a wealth of information that you can use to your benefit.

Learn what people like about your company or your products. Discover frustrations and areas of dissatisfaction that you can improve upon. Take advantage of the opportunity to reach out to those people and respond to their comments and engage them in a meaningful conversation. You’ll learn a lot about their needs and ways your business can meet their expectations.

3. Identify Which Social Media Platforms are Used Most

It’s important to reach people where they are, so you must understand which social media platforms are most used by your target audience. Services like Hootsuite Insights and Keyhole.co enable you to search terms and hashtags to find out which platforms are among the most popular for your needs.

Google Analytics enables you to track traffic from certain social media platforms so you can determine which channels are most effective for your needs.

If all else fails, simply review the metrics for your social media posts on various networks. You’ll see what’s effective and what isn’t, and which social media platforms garner the best results.

4. Learn from the Competition 

Nearly every business uses social media to drive traffic and generate sales. Check out your competitors and see what their social media campaign looks like. Observe what seems to be working for them, and what could use some improvement. Learn from their victories and mistakes to help flatten your learning curve. 

5. Understand Customer’s Needs 

Each social network channel has its advantages. Instagram is a great way to share photos and visuals. Healthcare providers who want to see charts and graphs may prefer this platform. Twitter enables people to share links and brief updates. This would be ideal for customers who want to read studies and reviews of healthcare products. YouTube is best for video sharing, where people can see actual demonstrations of how the equipment works. 

Understanding what your customers want can help you determine which social media platform would be the most effective way to reach them.

Utilize Social Media for Audience Targeting in Your Healthcare Business

Social media is more than a way for people to connect online. It’s an effective sales tool for hospitals and health systems to reach the right audience. Using these platforms to identify and understand your target audience helps you create effective campaigns that yield profitable results.

Contact us today to build a social media strategy that identifies your target audience in healthcare for optimal success. 

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Minute Tagged With: healthcare suppliers, healthcare supply chain, hospital distribution, hospital purchasing

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