Healthcare Digital Marketing / Social Media Marketing Course Correction Strategies
John G. Baresky
Healthcare digital marketing and social media marketing strategies need an ongoing course correction to maintain and accelerate sales momentum
They require close alignment of staff, financial and technical resources to achieve maximum ROI. Upon reaching the prime level of performance, the new challenge is maintaining productive results, breaking through plateaus and cultivating further growth. By carefully accounting for close and distant key elements in your digital / social media marketing strategy and tactics, you can avoid running aground and keep your sales initiatives productively underway.
…HubSpot data indicates 61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing organic presence is a pivotal inbound marketing priority…
…According to Ascend2, 40% of marketers say the main challenge to search engine optimization success is changing search algorithms…
… Google says B2B researchers do 12 searches on average prior to engaging on a specific brand’s site….
Amazingly, just one variance across the balance and execution of resources and / or the marketplace can trigger efficiency leaks leading to a downturn of performance:
- Consumer / patient / clinician social media preferences change
- Competitors launch assertive, novel strategies temporarily or permanently disrupting established success
- Provider, regulatory, payer positions pivot in another direction
- New and established products in the market rise or descend as threats
- Seemingly minor adjustments in brand strategy
- SEO / SEM / Google algorithm variations
These and other changes can always be expected to occur. Even the most well-planned and successful initiatives can flourish and then flame out. They can be impacted by a singular, seemingly small-scale development that turns into a series of consecutive unmet challenges impacting sales.
…Only about 22% of businesses are satisfied with their present conversion rates according to details shared by Econsultancy…
By identifying changes as they occur and assessing what their ripple effect can be, course correction strategies can be developed and executed to remedy issues and sustain lead generation / sales momentum.
…Based on research from HubSpot, the top corporate digital marketing challenges are…
- Generating quality sales leads / traffic
- Measuring / proving ROI based on marketing activities
- Obtaining sufficient budget for digital initiatives
- Identifying the right technologies to operate with
- Ongoing management of the website and associated digital assets
Check your bearings, is your digital marketing strategy consistently achieving KPI goals or is its performance peaking and troughing?
As changes occur in various sectors, this digital / social media marketing strategy cross-reference funnel is a helpful compass. It is important to anticipate changes accordingly and respond quickly to unexpected ones. By identifying what to realign in digital marketing strategies and tactics, along with the complete brand strategy, you will stay on course in your marketplace and with customers:
- Sustain and continue marketing / sales momentum
- Unbalance competitors with a quick and effective response to their threats
- Maintain steerage of digital marketing / social media effectiveness to remain in constant contact with pivotal customer segments
- Continue alignment, leadership position of responsiveness as marketplace changes continue to occur
Chart your course and maintain steady control over the direction needed to be steered to successfully engage customers as change occurs
By cross-referencing key elements in your healthcare digital / social media strategy in a depth chart, you can move up and down the funnel to determine which will need to be maintained, changed or monitored more closely as changes occur. Depending on your healthcare enterprise, these elements can be used for pharmaceuticals, medical devices, clinical programs / health services and other offerings or you can develop your own matrix:
Brand Elements
- indications / therapeutic area(s)
- product / service features, benefits
- primary, secondary, tertiary salesforces connected to product / service
- non-digital / social media marketing initiatives (print, broadcast, etc.)
- annual plan goals / objectives / pricing / contracting strategy
- budget
- brand / product life cycle phase (launch, 2–3 years old, established, mature, approaching generic status or obsolescence )
- competitive threats
Marketplace Channel Elements
- targeted patients / consumers
- targeted clinicians (nurses, physicians, pharmacists)
- advanced medical specialties
- conventional primary care
- hospital / health system
- ancillary sectors (behavioral, dialysis, home infusion, long term care, surgery centers, large / specialized practice groups, etc.)
- pharmacy (retail, mail order, compounding, institutional, specialty)
- distributors, wholesalers, medical suppliers
…42% of individuals viewing health information on social media look at health-related consumer reviews based on research from PWC…
…Details from Pew Research show 74% of internet users engage social media with 80% of those users focusing on specific health information -plus nearly half of them are searching for information about a specific physician or other types of clinician...
Managed Care / Market Access Elements
- reimbursement
- pharmacy benefit / medical benefit coverage
- DHA / TRICARE
- GPO
- MCO (BCBS, health insurance plans, etc.)
- Medicaid
- Medicare
- PBM
- 340B
Digital / Social Media Marketing Elements
- website
- social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, Yahoo, YouTube, etc.)
- dark social (especially link sharing pathways)
- mobile marketing / lead generation
- email marketing / lead generation
- inbound / outbound content marketing strategies
- consumer / patient / advocacy group disease-focused venues
- healthcare professional dedicated venues / medical specialty — focused associations
- audience social media and app migration trends
- SEO / search engine optimization, SEM / search engine marketing tuneups
- technical developments (Google search algorithm variations, smartphone platform changes, new apps, etc.)
…On average, healthcare marketers spend 23% of the total marketing budget on content marketing initiatives, compared to 31% percent for all marketers according to the Content Marketing Institute…
Depending on which element(s) change, move up and down the funnel to assess the overlapping effect and filter what adjustments can be made strategically, technically, financially to correct your course as they reach the digital marketing / social media marketing elements.
Are the changes only in your Digital Marketing / Social Media Marketing Elements or in one of the upper tiers and rolling down into them?
Too often, corrective actions are taken within the scope of the immediate challenge and address only one element and not others. Although it is not immediately perceived and it is presumed core strategies remain intact, effectiveness begins to erode:
- Digital /social media marketing effectiveness is less effective as it has not been adjusted although key elements below it have been
- Digital / social media marketing effectiveness is less effective as it has been adjusted but one or more of the contributing elements has not
Sailing ahead to better digital marketing performance based on fluid strategy and relentless focus on marketplace changes that impact your customer
…Good advice from McKinsey & Company on digital marketing initiatives and assertive engagement personalization, “ Focus on the processes and technology that really help teams work faster”…
Healthcare digital / social media strategies and tactics perform in a fluid environment. If they are not swimming in the currents customers are in to generate sales, they will eventually be sailing away from them unless accurate and quick corrections are made. Using cross-reference funnel methods as a compass to maintain your healthcare digital / social media marketing initiatives helps them stay on course now and over the horizon to achieve optimum marketing / sales performance and ROI.
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Learn more about the healthcare industry; read my articles about its medical and business trends, content marketing and digital strategy, brand and product management, mergers and acquisitions, consumer wellness, managed care and market access strategy.
About me
Hi, my name is John Baresky ( pronounced “ buh — ress — key “) and I have over 25 years of experience in healthcare.
Throughout my career, I have been writing about healthcare while developing and sharing important information with physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other clinicians plus consumers, patients, healthcare business professionals, investors and other stakeholders.
Healthcare is a vast industry. I organize its clinical, business, academic, technical and consumer topics into precise messages and stories that are easily understood and immediately useful. The content I write resonates across audiences with objective accuracy and clarity.
Visit my website and connect with me via LinkedIn and Twitter
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