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Demand Marketing in Healthcare: What It Really Means

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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.

5 Key Elements of a Patient-Centric Clinically Integrated Supply Chain

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Hospitals will soon have to examine their supply chain management with a renewed focus. A clinically integrated supply chain will help medical suppliers and manufacturers assist clinicians with providing better healthcare all around. 

A recent study found that hospitals could save more than $25 billion annually by eliminating unnecessary costs in the healthcare supply chains within each hospital. This system ultimately improves care for patients and keeps them safe from harmful drugs or devices.

These medical supplies include clinical inventories such as catheters, stents, and syringes in operating rooms or other procedural areas. Some medical providers rarely take advantage of modern supply chain techniques that can reduce excess and shortages.

Hospitals achieve greater visibility and cost reduction from clinical supplies while also improving safety. Hospitals can take necessary steps to advance a supply chain that is clinically integrated, patient-oriented, and safe for all involved.

Key Takeaways:

  • What fields are impacted by integrated health care supply chains.
  • How to have a patient-centric clinical supply chain
  • Why you should implement a transformation in healthcare with better supply chain management.

The Intricate Network of the Healthcare Supply Chain

Supply management in the medical field is unique and comprises several supply chains, each with specific challenges, such as the high demand for medical supplies from patients that are often at risk to themselves or others due to their condition. 

These clinically integrated supply chains impact the following areas of patient care:

  • Medical/surgical
  • Pharmacy
  • Surgical Trays
  • Prosthetics
  • Medical supplies

For the ultimate benefits, healthcare must eventually administer these matters holistically by working together in a more streamlined and efficient way using the proficiency of inventory directors.

A Patient-Centric Clinically Integrated Supply Chain

By having an integrated supply chain, hospitals and clinics can offer patient-centric care. A healthcare system will fail to improve patient safety if they do not invest in its supply chain. 

Patients receive better treatments when physicians procure supplies by moving from a contracts approach to a formulary model approach. Here’s how:

1. Focus on Clinical Outcomes

Providers can shift the focus of their supply chain from maintaining stock to strategies that impact outcomes. The formulary model for authorized suppliers, such as pharmacy benefit managers and prescription drug plan providers, enables them to become deliberate collaborators. 

Therefore, products become grouped into functionally comparable categories. Within these groups of classification items, evaluations on efficacy, safety, patient outcomes, and cost-effectiveness determine which to authorize for use based on the particular treatment needs at hand.

2. Incorporate Procedural Transformation  

With evolving technology, providers have a chance to rethink how they maintain inventory by incorporating procedural transformation. This new approach will be more sustainable and less expensive.

There are three phases in supply chain transformation:

  • Foundational
  • Optimization
  • Transformational

At the foundational level, there is a priority on departmental materials management. 

However, at an optimization level of hospital-wide supply chain strategies, efficiency and collaboration between departments will be increased to introduce new approaches that balance cost controls with patient outcome improvements. These phases represent vast opportunities for introducing new demand planning methods. These phases also reduce waste and excess throughout all levels of medicine.

The transformational phase can only happen when you acknowledge how complicated this problem has become. Therefore, it requires commitment from all hospitals involved.

3. Connect Clinical Systems to Manufacturer Data

In most industries, a company relies on enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain systems to manage inventories with complete histories of obtaining, receiving, status changes in movement, and utilization. 

The trouble in healthcare is that an item may be procured by ERP then expensed into clinical departments. There it becomes impossible for any system to trace its history or provide pertinent information about inventory levels.

Physicians find innovative ways to protect patient records while obtaining vital device data by connecting clinical systems to manufacturer data. Clinically integrated supply chains provide the means to do that for medical professionals.  

4. Adapt Techniques for Inventory Forecasting

Demand planning is a complex process that uses statistics, historical data, and experience to predict how much inventory you need. Forecasting methods have been used for many years across numerous industries to maximize efficiency by carrying the proper amount of stock at any given time.

These demand-planning tools are essential for any modern organization and provide statistical models that help make calculations more accurate. An automated collaboration capability enables you to get the best possible forecast and safety stock recommendations, providing organizations with the ability to ensure that supply is in line with demand to reduce excess inventories, primarily when used across many facilities. 

5. Facilitate Patient Safety, Traceability, and Recall Efficiency  

When looking at factors like price transparency or population aging, it becomes clear how essential supply management is. Also, it is essential for hospitals and health care providers to identify what devices are in use if there is a recall. 

A recall in more than 18,000 medical devices occurred over the past five years. In case of a device recall, most healthcare facilities will often struggle with identifying which patients may be affected by faulty equipment.

The fundamental goal continues to have a patient-centric supply chain, starting with ensuring the safety of human life. You can create a complete history for a medical device to facilitate patient safety by linking all inventory transactions to that item and its unique identifier (UDI.)

Clinical Supply Chain Management for Healthcare Transformation 

Hospitals are facing pressure to control costs and improve the safety of their patients, meaning that hospitals need an overhaul in their supply chain business model as soon as possible. 

They must give increased attention to their supply chain strategies, as the need for safety is paramount in today’s health care system. 

Are you looking for better ways to make your healthcare supply chain more patient-centric? Contact us today to see how Share Moving Media can help. 

Maximizing Healthcare Supply Chain Visibility Through Content and Ad Campaigns

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The global digital market is growing relentlessly. Securing consumers and audiences is increasingly tough. Businesses in the healthcare supply chain are not exempt from this. 

As a healthcare supplier, you need to maximize your healthcare supply chain visibility not just by providing high-end products and services, but by marketing medical distributions and medical sales through campaigns that appeal to your customers. 

In this digital era, there are various ways to market your business. Seeing that the healthcare industry expends three trillion dollars per year, it is essential for you to stand out in the competition.

Now and then, a healthcare organization succeeds in providing stellar campaigns that reach its audience. They attribute it to good content and ad campaigns. 

But what exactly are these two components?

Content Campaign vs. Ad Campaign

A well-defined marketing strategy can have positive long-lasting effects on a company, but this includes properly planning and executing content and ad campaigns. 

Healthcare marketing can be tricky, but through these two strategies, you might just start your new campaign. 

Content Campaign               

A content campaign is an aspect of a digital marketing initiative. It is a goal-oriented content strategy that creates and distributes valuable content through blog posts and videos. 

Chart, funnel chart Description automatically generated

Alt-Text Infographic showing the content marketing pyramid
Source: Curata.com

It is important to note that a content campaign differs from a content strategy.  A content strategy is an overall plan for all the marketing efforts in a business. Implementing a content campaign without a content strategy will never help you reach your goal. 

A content campaign with a good content strategy can be launched over a period of a few months, depending on its scope.

Blog posts and videos are not the only examples of a content campaign. In fact, the strategy can be as big as creating and maintaining eBooks, webinars, best practices guides, and online tools for a variety of topics such as a lab, the flu,  a diagnostic test, physician office supplies, and more in the healthcare industry.

It is quite easy to develop your content marketing campaign with a solid framework.

Here are a couple of quick steps in formulating your content campaign:

  1. Find Your Goal: It is vital to starting the campaign that you lay down the groundwork for why you are creating it. The key to finding and defining your goal is to make it specific by putting context around the reason.
  2. Identify Your Audience: You must determine whether your audiences are prospects or current customers. Through good research, you can root out the factors that influence your audience’s buying behavior and maintain a connection with them. 
  3. Choose Relevant Topics and Identify Keywords: There are a lot of tools you can use in choosing relevant topics such as Google Alerts and Quora. Identifying keywords that are connected to your chosen topic can help the audience find your content. Keyword clustering can be used in a content campaign by selecting a group of keywords that are all related to the pain point you are addressing. 
  4. Distribute Your Content Campaign: Content is a common resource but when handled creatively and properly, it can be a very powerful part of your marketing strategy. One effective promotion plan that yields results is integrating the PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned Media) model in your campaign.

Ad Campaign        

Advertisement campaigns, in its simplest definition, are specifically designed strategies distributed in a form of paid media.  

It is a digital marketing strategy that aims to promote content, increase brand awareness, boost sales, and improve communication within a specific market.

Online ad campaigns are one of the most effective ways for marketers, especially for businesses in the healthcare industry, to expand their reach, find a new audience, and branch out their revenue streams. 

Ad campaigns are part of the digital market strategies, and it is built around the content marketing campaign and strategy. Therefore, the steps for launching your ad campaign are pretty similar to developing a content campaign—except for tweaking designs and communication to appeal to your customers. 

There are a ton of options to launch your online ad campaign on and here are a few of those: 

  1. Pay-per-click Advertising: Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC), also known as Paid Search, is one of the most effective types of online advertising. Search engines such as Google and Bing allow marketers to advertise on the search engine results page (SERPs). PPC works on a bidding system wherein you select target keywords and compete with other marketers to advertise on the SERP. An advantage of this option is that, as the name suggests, you only pay when users click on your advertisement thus giving you a controllable and measurable channel.
  2. Social Media Marketing: Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are growing by the minute. These sites present a range of opportunities for marketers to reach their target audience efficiently. Advertisers can modify their ad campaigns to fit their required demographics, from age to location, and maximize results. According to B2B marketers, 50% find social media to be a cost-effective option for launching online ad campaigns due to its relatively low price.
  3. Email Marketing: This is one of the most common and oldest elements of online advertising. Marketers engage in email marketing to sometimes launch email-only campaigns that highlight time-sensitive offers or content and in other times for complementing digital marketing channels.

Why You Need Both to Succeed in Healthcare Marketing

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Source: Neil Patel 

Content marketing strategies are at the heart of a good healthcare supply chain. 

Whether you are in group contracting, a medical distribution rep, or a healthcare supplier, the digital world is ever-growing, and understanding content and ad campaigns ensure visibility. 

Content campaigns help you meet your audience in their journey and encourage actions. Ad campaigns help deliver these messages to such an audience and ensure that you are visible to them. 

If you are looking to expand your reach and increase your patient connections, you must implement both campaigns in your content strategy. Moreover, you can also promote significant medical services and enhance the patient experience from valuable content. 

Implement Content and Ad Campaign in Your Healthcare Business 

Behind great healthcare marketing, is a wealth of valuable resources, through content and ad campaigning that connects companies to their audiences. It is essential to keep up with the trends of technology and digital marketing. 

Share Moving Media is dedicated to assisting healthcare suppliers in understanding the marketplace of the healthcare industry.  

Contact us today to know more about implementing content marketing strategies for maximum visibility and results. 

Why Trade Publishers and the Industry Need to Join Hands to Revive Sales in Healthcare

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The healthcare industry has seen big shifts in recent years. Legal, compliance, and regulatory changes have impacted how healthcare suppliers operate. Technological advancements are changing the face of healthcare procedures, but possibly the greatest impact on the healthcare industry is the advancement of the internet.

Now, people have access to infinite information. They can do their own medical research and are less dependent on medical salespeople. As a result, healthcare sales are on a downward trend. Industry professionals, like hospital suppliers and those in medical distribution, need to rethink their marketing strategy and find new ways to reconnect with their audience and reach them with meaningful information. 

The answer may lie in trade publications. It’s time for trade publishers and the industry to work together to revive sales in healthcare.

Why Trade Publications are an Invaluable Marketing Tool

Trade publications are a reliable source of information, and people trust their authority and reputation. These magazines provide education, expert knowledge, and thought leadership to keep readers informed and knowledgeable while helping to solve business challenges. From industry announcements and press releases to case study findings and opinion columns, trade publications offer multiple benefits to their readers.

With the vast accessibility of the internet, many people prefer to read their information online. Trade publications have been able to remain current by adapting to meet consumer’s needs and deliver the same useful resources through digital distribution. 

Some readers will dispute that paper publications are a dying breed and continue to prefer hard copy formats. In any case, trade publications are an invaluable marketing tool in many ways.

To connect with your audience, you need to understand them. Identify the challenges they face, find out what answers they’re seeking, and see where their interests lie. An effective way to gain this knowledge is to read the same materials they’re reading. See what they’re learning about and use that information to create effective marketing campaigns that address their concerns and pique their interests.

More than content distribution, trade publications facilitate engagement among the healthcare community. They provide online forums, content libraries, virtual networking opportunities, and downloadable resources. Industry workers who become involved with these things themselves can build a relationship with their audience while gaining a deeper understanding of their needs and wants. All of this can help generate leads and increase sales growth. 

4 Reasons Why Trade Publishers and the Industry Should Join Forces

Trade publications are especially beneficial to the industry because they raise awareness, boost name recognition, increase visibility, and help to gain credibility. Not only should industry leaders read these publications, but they should also consider contributing articles, editorials, and purchasing ad space in them. Here are 4 reasons why trade publishers and the industry should join forces to revive sales in healthcare.

1. Lead Generation 

Trade publishers are distributing their materials to a highly targeted audience. By contributing to these publications, you’re getting your company name in front of new viewers you haven’t yet reached. With the information you’ve gained from following what readers are discussing in forums, you can develop authoritative content that answers their questions meets their needs.

Not only will you broaden your reach, but you may also have readers contact you on other platforms to connect and discuss your thoughts further. This kind of engagement enables you to develop a relationship with your new-found audience and helps with lead generation.

2. Position Yourself as an Industry Expert

By nature, trade publications are reputable sources delivering trustworthy information. When industry professionals develop content that appears in these publications, readers perceive them to be equally trustworthy. The more meaningful and useful content you get published, the more you position yourself as an industry expert. As people begin to associate you with valuable, knowledgeable information, they’ll begin to look to you for answers and insight.

Company decision-makers read these articles. As they see your name more and more as a trusted resource, they’ll be inclined to contact you directly for possible business opportunities.

Additionally, your trade association may take notice of your content and consider you for in-person opportunities. Serving as a discussion panelist, a forum monitor, or even a keynote presenter would get you in front of more people for even further brand awareness. All of this leads to potential sales opportunities.

3. Stand Apart from the Competition 

Trade publishers are always looking for content to fill their pages. Through articles and advertising, they provide several opportunities to set yourself apart from your competition. After all, if you’re not appearing in these magazines as a contributor, chances are that your competition is. Even if you don’t have research findings or editorial content to contribute, consider taking out an ad. 

Publications provide opportunities for heightened visibility. Do what you can to get your name in front of readers and attract prospects before they turn to your industry competitors. By standing apart from your competition, you increase the chance of gaining new customers and boosting sales.

4. Drive Company Efforts

Trade publications provide a means to highlight your team’s achievements and industry successes. Not only does that strengthen readers’ perception of your organization and drive traffic to your team—it gives a morale boost to the people in your company and solidifies the trust of your stakeholders. When people are proud of the work they’re doing and believe in the company they work for, they have more drive to continue to succeed.

Publicizing your company’s leadership is good for business development and provides materials that are helpful for sales efforts. When you can present prospects with featured industry articles touting your company’s strengths, you build credibility with your client base and earn their trust for purchase power.

Share Moving Media Can Help You Join Hands

Healthcare professionals that want to revive sales in the industry should partner with trade publishers to develop quality content that’s visible, targeted, and generates leads. Share Moving Media is a full-service content company that helps healthcare professionals increase market-share through articles, blog posts, and publications. We understand the importance of developing meaningful content and providing training and educational opportunities to help businesses grow. 

To learn more about how we can help you revive healthcare sales, contact us today.