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Digital Marketing Budgets: A Channel-Wise Digital Marketing in Healthcare E-Guide

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As the COVID-19 pandemic rolled across the globe, the healthcare industry came away forever changed.

One of the biggest adjustments from the pandemic came in the form of virtual health options. With this push for online access to doctors and other health services, health marketers have had to adjust their strategies as well.

If you, as a health marketer, are looking for innovative ways to create a digital marketing budget for healthcare, we are here to help. Read through this digital marketing in healthcare e-guide to help steer your marketing department in the right direction.

Key Takeaways

  • Healthcare marketers need to understand their marketing goals to adjust their budgets to the new digital landscape in the healthcare industry.
  • Focus your marketing budget on the channels where you can most effectively reach your customers. This may include email, blogs, and social media.
  • Make sure your company’s website loads quickly and is optimized for mobile users.

Define Your Marketing Goals

While you may wish you had an unlimited budget for your digital marketing, you must be realistic about how much you can spend and where to spend it. To make sure you choose the right channels, you should ask yourself these questions:

1. Where Do My Potential Customers Spend Their Time Online? 

Depending on the type of healthcare organization you work for, your customers might be individual patients, doctors, hospitals, or even large healthcare conglomerates. Focus on your customer demographic and figure out how to reach them online.

You can brainstorm ideas and talk with other team members. You will likely be able to connect with customers on social media, but you must choose the right platforms. If your customers are other businesses, can you reach them through email or other types of messaging?

2. How Can I Generate More Leads? 

Once you know where to reach your potential customers and how to communicate with them, look for ways to generate leads from those channels. Do you already have marketing on these channels? If not, can you start? If so, is there room to do more?

3. Where Can I Invest If My Marketing Budget Increases? 

As we travel into the post-COVID world, many healthcare marketers may see an increase in the amount of digital marketing money allotted to them. The pandemic showed the healthcare industry that it can connect with people virtually, and that method is here to stay. If your marketing budget increases, focus on your company’s goals to spend your money strategically.

4. Where Will I Get the Best ROI? 

The simple answer to this question is that you will get the best ROI on the most popular channels used by your customers. However, you have to use the right kind of marketing on those channels. Different platforms require different types of content. Make sure you have a solid overall marketing strategy.

For even more things to consider, this video from Philip VanDusen has some great digital marketing tips.

Where to Spend Your Digital Marketing Budget for Healthcare?

The pandemic drastically shifted the healthcare industry toward digital resources, whether it wanted to it not. Many healthcare marketers are adjusting their marketing goals and spending patterns based on the effects of the pandemic.

In a recent survey, healthcare marketers indicated that one of the top marketing goals for 2021 was to build brand awareness. Respondents also said they were increasing marketing investments in search engine optimization and paid social media, among others.

top digital marketing investments healthcare organizations are making in 2021

Now, you get to figure out the best way to use these digital channels to connect with your customers and get successful returns. We recommend these key digital channels to maximize your marketing budget.

1. Create Bold Brand Messaging Through Your Website

The most important digital channel to focus on is your company’s website. This is the place where most customers will ultimately connect with you. You want it to look sharp, have an easy-to-understand layout, and load quickly. In fact, a website that takes too long to load may cost you a sale.

According to Neil Patel, the longer a site takes to load, the higher the chance a visitor will abandon your site.

Finally, don’t forget to optimize your site for mobile use, as about half of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices.

2. Trust Email Marketing to Reach Businesses 

Email marketing is a highly effective way to reach potential customers. It also offers an incredible ROI with an average return of $38 for every $1 spent. Email is an easily customizable channel you can use to communicate directly with your customers. 

You can use email to gradually convert a lead, offer new solutions to current customers, and even reactivate old customers. Email is one of the most personalized methods of connecting with customers. However, you must have a good email marketing strategy, so you don’t waste your marketing dollars.

3. Use Social Media Marketing to Engage with Customers 

Our modern world is connected through social media. More and more often, businesses use social media to connect with and find customers. With so many social media platforms available, your company can find the ones best suited to you.

While the main goal of social media is to share information about your company brand, it is also an effective tool for monitoring the activity of your customers. You can use relevant hashtags to draw attention to your industry. For example, if your company sells mammogram machines, you can join in the conversation with hashtags during breast cancer awareness month in October. 

4. Share Your Expertise Through a Blog 

You know your company and industry well. Share that expertise with others through a company blog. When you set up your blog, you should plan on publishing something new at least once a month, but once a week is even better. Focus on creating quality content with good SEO value that will attract more customers in your market.

Share Moving Media Can Help You Maximize Your Digital Marketing Budget

At Share Moving Media, we’re experts in creating high-quality content for the healthcare industry. We work with healthcare marketers along with distributors and manufacturers in the healthcare industry. If you want to put our expertise to work for your healthcare company, we are ready to help.

Contact us today to learn more about our company.

What is the Real Cost of Stopping Your Healthcare Marketing Campaigns?

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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many businesses to reconsider their 2021 budget and growth strategies. In doing so, it’s easy to look at your marketing campaign expenses and wonder if it’s worth investing in.

Healthcare marketing campaigns, digital platforms, and technology costs often quickly add up and cause serious sticker shock. How can you guarantee a return on investment (ROI) and growth? What are the consequences of cutting marketing out?

Once you take a closer look at those numbers, it’s clear to see why marketing is one of the smartest investments medical suppliers can make. Without consistent and effective marketing, you’re unable to reach your distributors and end-users to increase sales. However, running healthcare marketing campaigns for the sake of doing it isn’t effective. The key is finding a balance between driving results and allocating your budget. 

Many marketers plan to increase their budgets by 7.6% on average in 2021. What would happen if you stopped all healthcare marketing campaigns right now? Let’s dive into what it would cost you long-term and quick tips on how to cut expenses without hurting your business growth. 

The Cost of Stopping Your Healthcare Marketing Campaigns

If your marketing campaigns are running up your budget without impressive results, you may consider throwing in the towel altogether. However, healthcare marketing campaigns encompass many aspects of business growth including brand awareness, lead generation, customer insights, and more. 

Without marketing, your company would have to rely solely on the merit of your products and services, along with word-of-mouth referrals from past customers. Ultimately, this would lead to a decrease in sales, engagement, and overall brand awareness — costing your business thousands and thousands of dollars.

Where Your Healthcare Campaign Went Wrong

Depending on your products and services, healthcare suppliers are spending anywhere from thousands to millions of dollars on marketing expenses. With endless marketing channels and technology to test, it’s easy for many businesses to quickly overload themselves. If your marketing campaigns are underperforming, ask yourself the following questions before cutting your budget:

  • Are you targeting the right audience?
  • Have you built out buyer personas from research?
  • Did you develop realistic success metrics?
  • Is your messaging not resonating with your audience?
  • Do you understand the customer journey?

3 Ways to Reduce Healthcare Marketing Campaign Expenses Without Hurting Your Business

While marketing is paramount to your overall business growth, you can still cut down your budget without sacrificing the quality of your results. Here are a few steps you can take to optimize your healthcare marketing campaigns and expenses:

1.Conduct a Full Marketing Audit

You need to conduct a full marketing audit to determine how much you’re spending on marketing activities, active marketing channels, and measurable results. You’ll need to quantify how much you’re spending on each channel and include any software, fees, materials, etc. 

After you’re finished, you’ll most likely be surprised which areas you’re overspending and where gaps exist. You can either decide to limit the number of active channels you’re investing in or reduce your spend on underperforming campaigns. 

2.Improve Audience Targeting

The key to a successful marketing campaign is targeting the right customer, at the right time, on their preferred platform. However, 60% of marketers agree that their customer acquisition cost (CAC) has increased in the past three years. Focusing your budget on prospects who aren’t in your ideal market jams up your lead pipeline and is an ineffective use of your budget. 

Instead, build comprehensive buyer personas through quantitative and qualitative research so you can better understand your customer’s needs and pain points. Use these profiles to arm your marketing strategy and better use your budget for the right audience.

3.Use Marketing Automation Tools

While the idea of investing in new technology may seem daunting, it can help you cut back on resources and not spread yourself too thin. Marketing automation will help free up your time and ensure your team can focus on different tasks.

Common marketing automation tools include:

  • Chatbots
  • Email autoresponder and journeys
  • Customer relationship managers

Build Comprehensive Healthcare Marketing Campaigns that Drive Results

Budget cuts are never easy. However, completely stopping your healthcare marketing campaigns can have serious consequences for your overall business growth. Without marketing, you’ll be unable to attract and engage with your customers on a larger scale. If you’re concerned about your budget, consider analyzing your expenses, budget, and data to make smarter campaign decisions that propel your medical supply company forward.

Ready to develop marketing campaigns that amplify your growth? Contact Share Moving Media for more information.