Mobilize Your Mobile Healthcare Marketing Strategy
John G. Baresky
Mobilize Healthcare Marketing And Sales ROI…
With much of the globe accessing the Internet for information from mobile devices, mobile marketing is a critical element to consider in effectively engaging customers and driving sales. Clinicians (nurses, doctors, pharmacists, researchers, KOLs, etc.), healthcare administrators, risk management, purchasing professionals, patients and consumers rely on mobile devices to readily access information.
…According To Google…
- 1 out of 20 searches is related to healthcare
- More searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 nations including the U.S. and Japan
- 49% of B2B researchers using mobile devices for product research do so while at work
- About 50% of B2B queries today are made on smartphones
Effective mobile marketing is never fixed in place, it is readily responsive to customers, marketplace and your company’s changes. It is a component of your overall brand, social media and healthcare digital marketing strategy to generate sales. The world is more likely to have a mobile device immediately accessible to them instead of a computer; aligning and exploiting mobile venues can directly contribute to larger profits and brand stability. These are key elements in an effective mobile healthcare marketing strategy to generate sales…
Start 3ith Regulatory, Legal, IT to align your mobile marketing enhancements
During the initial phases of a mobile healthcare marketing initiative or with established, ongoing mobile marketing activities, consistently consult your medical / regulatory and legal units. Their input is critical. They can provide you with the guidance / boundaries needed and help you avoid developing / changing something they cannot approve of. As new initiatives are being developed, they can be on the lookout for recent clinical or legal changes impacting them.
IT is just as critical especially if you are partnering with outside vendors. Mobile marketing content and associated digital assets need to be assessed by IT to be certain they can be optimally supported and as secure as possible. Across the board, mobile marketing endeavors must conform to regulatory, legal and technical requirements.
KPIs, Goals and Objectives must be defined not only for overall digital marketing standards but specifically mobile as well
Define your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), goals and objectives from the start, they need to be scaled and planned according to budget, staff and technology resources. If your organization is trying to break into wider scale mobile marketing initiatives and / or experiencing significant challenges with specific brands or market sectors, these sales gaps are a great place to focus. Consider addressing the gaps with specific mobile-friendly initiatives to sharply focus resources and strategically engage customers to generate sales. For new or established offerings supported by mobile initiatives, be certain you have a duration point in mind to support them financially / technically for short or long term deployment based on the agreed-upon your KPIs, sales goals and objectives.
Define, target and embrace the necessary features to optimize mobile attributes
It is important to determine from the onset how to individualize and prioritize customer sectors so you can focus your resources accordingly. Determine which sectors best align with a mobile marketing initiative that your organization can solidly deliver for maximum ROI. There are numerous audience / customer stakeholders in healthcare; the most basic considerations include patients, consumers, nurses, doctors, pharmacists; then there are payers (MCOs, PBMs), hospitals / health systems, GPOs, distributors, wholesalers, etc. — which ones will deliver the greatest ROI via mobile marketing? Defining the target provides the focus through which to deploy resources. It will also help determine what social media venues and mobile technical features you may use to engage them effectively.
Critically assess your website and its alignment with mobile
…Google has announced its mobile-first index will be active in 2018…
It sounds backward in a mobile-focused strategy but it’s an important basic early first step. If your website isn’t aligned with mobile; your overall digital marketing will suffer in two ways. First, instead of engaging patients / consumers, your website via mobile will irritate them and perhaps steer them to your competitors with mobile-friendly sites. Second, it is assumed Google will favor websites with mobile-endearing attributes so if your website isn’t mobile lovable, Google will eventually get around to giving it a lower ranking in search results. Brands frequently change landing pages due to new product or service launches, lead generation initiatives and website improvements. Be certain the landing pages are identically effective for mobile web users and traditional web users.
Consult customers about their use of mobile
….Based on research from Wolters Kluwer Health…
- 72% of doctors access drug information from smartphones
- 63% of doctors access medical research by tablet
- 44% of physicians communicate with nurses and other associates from smartphones
…Research by Boston Consulting Group ( BCG ) reveals B2B customers are seeking the same digital experience they encounter as consumers and that mobile can accelerate time to purchase by 20%…
Consult your patient / B2C, HCP and B2B customers about their mobile engagement. Learn as much as you can from them whether you are building something new or evaluating how to make improvements to an existing mobile resource. Monitor their feedback to identify new trends and learn how their particular mobile engagement differs from others within and outside of their segment. They can tell you what was or is successful and what they deem to be valuable in moving forward.
Use competitor mobile marketing initiatives as part of your R&D
Strategically assess what competitors are doing in mobile and determine if it is successful or not. Competitors are key elements of your mobile / digital marketing research and development program. If they have something successful, evaluate it and determine if you can develop something better. Be certain what they have is not only useful but has legs to go the distance. In mobile and other aspects of technology, there can be an upward, vertical trajectory quickly followed by a downward landslide of abandonment. Customer, technology, competitor, regulatory and other changes can propel engagement forward or backward quickly; be certain what you are investing in has a lifecycle long enough to generate more than enough sales to reach ROI goals.
Evaluate mobile marketing initiatives in other industries
While the healthcare sector has plenty of innovation underway in the mobile space, don’t confine your mobile approach to it. Look into multiple industry sectors and assess their mobile-driven marketing initiatives. Transfer their ideas, knowledge and approaches to the healthcare sector as appropriate. Commonplace strategies in one industry can be overlooked in another; transferring a proven utility customized for healthcare stakeholders can set your mobile initiatives part from the competition to generate more sales.
….Results Of An Indegene Physician Marketing Study Reveal…
- In 2016, preferred channels were brand promotional emails, KOL webinars, HCP portals
- By 2018, preferred channels will be social media, mobile apps and HCP portals
- Life science digital marketing spend will exceed $14 billion by 2018
Interactive calls to action help complete your connection to your targeted mobile customer audience
Take special advantage of the mobile platform and its touch screen attributes. Utilize these to develop and cultivate mobile-friendly calls-to-action and lead generation. On a computer, these are not clickable; on a mobile device, the ability to click a phone number, engage an email or link is a great way to measure customer engagement and drive sales. Be certain your mobile marketing initiative pivots on these features rather than just one-way communications to cultivate more ROI-driven interactions and sales.
To app or not to app; when is a custom app an asset and when is it clutter and overkill which mobile customers ignore?
…Based on a mHealth Economics 2017 study that surveyed over 2,000 mobile health stakeholders, there are about 84,000 health app publishers — with about 325,000 health apps available through the leading app stores…
…26% of consumers start mobile research with a branded app according to data from Smart Insights…
Be careful in what you invest in when it comes to app development. Be certain it not only works flawlessly but is also widely embraced and used by your customers. Dozens of healthcare mobile marketing initiatives pivot on apps without demonstrating meaningful or even traceable ROI performance.
The average person has 60–90 apps on their phone and regularly use up to ten. Avoid the embarrassment and waste of developing a wonderful app which your organization anticipates as the pivotal edge of digital marketing and then is panned by customers. If this happens, good luck in fighting for more digital marketing dollars in next year’s budget exercise. As for your customers, they will eventually delete your app and perhaps be less receptive to downloading another one from your company.
Apps must download quickly, have a high utility in their use and operate consistently at high speed. They require their own marketing campaign (be sure to plan this in your budget) to launch them and then ongoing promotional support to remind existing users of their presence and gain new subscribers. Apps need to be enhanced / updated periodically; be prepared technically and financially to execute this.
Mobile-friendly email marketing
Email marketing is one option to consider. Email marketing is a widely used strategy / tactic but has not become fully mobile-friendly yet. Adaptations to traditional approaches like e-mail marketing must be made so customers have mobile-friendly versions with clickable links. These links should direct the customer mobile journey to access your website, converting emails into engagement / transaction pathways through the marketing / sales funnel. Maximize quality design to minimize clicks, optimize messaging so the process is convenient for the customer which will be reflected in sales generation and ROI.
SMS/MMS text subscription options
Texting can be touchy. Make sure in advance your targeted customers are receptive to it otherwise you may be spewing a lot of messages but still miss your ROI goals. While primary messaging is delivered very efficiently, it can be annoying. If you choose to text in your mobile strategy, do not be cryptic in the greeting / messaging; be certain your company, brand and nature of the communication is clear upfront. If your customer is interested, they will engage it; if not, they will delete it. What you want to avoid is leading the customer on and ultimately wasting their time in determining who sent the text and what the exact nature of it is.
Video booming in popularity on mobile venues
Video has multiple communication attributes and can help effectively share more complex details, features and processes. With video, it is critically important that it is seamlessly functional and fast. If it takes too long to load or tends to have intermittent pauses on user devices, it will be abandoned by the user in short order.
…A study from Cisco predicts mobile video traffic will account for 75% of total mobile data traffic by 2020…
…Data from Blue Corona reveals more than half of all YouTube views are on mobile devices…
Video can augment the overall communication you are introducing to viewers; getting their attention and emphasizing key aspects to encourage them to further engage the content you have provided. As with the other features noted, be certain its use contributes to ROI performance.
Voice is coming on strong and will soon be a staple part of mobile engagement
Quietly progressing forward, voice recognition is coming into its own as error rates continue to drop and user adoption consistently increases. Voice search is hands-free -why bother pecking out alpha characters especially when you are in a hurry?
…Search Engine Land says 20% of search queries on Google’s mobile app and on Android devices are voice searches…
…43% of mobile voice search users do so because they say it is quicker than going on a website or using an app; 21% of mobile voice search users do so because they say they don’t like typing on their mobile-based on information from Statista…
Technical Alignment
Technology innovation is a friend and a foe. Be certain what you develop takes full advantage of existing technology and is adaptable to future changes. If very significant technological changes are about to occur, pause your initiative and build it around the new standards for optimum performance while competitors scramble to develop re-worked upgrades on older apps. Be wary of seemingly innocuous mobile technical changes, they may impact speed, functionality and display attributes negatively which users will be quick to experience.
Be certain your mobile strategy delivers what it promises as it shares its portion of resources to build revenue and earn its ROI
Good content marketing strategy doesn’t just support customers with information and feel good reinforcement; it influences behavior and encourages customers to definitively take action in your favor and generate sales. Strategic contenting marketing and mobile healthcare marketing initiative KPIs, goals and objectives are not built on the rhetoric of “back-ordered”, “please hold”, “not available at this time”, “check back with us” or “maybe next month”. Be certain whatever is being promised can be provided to your customers. Customers engaging mobile to prioritize and value immediacy; if your company is not prepared to provide them what they have requested based on the content you have shared with them, they will be disappointed and likely disregard the content you share with them in the future. Depending on what your mobile marketing initiative involves; these considerations may include care, service and product deliverables:
- account management
- appointment times
- clinicians / care providers
- customer service
- product inventory
- proficient order processing
- reliable data / reporting
- technical support
Continually evaluate and refine
Keep your healthcare mobile marketing initiatives on the move:
- Be certain to develop quality content with a mobile perspective and sales performance in mind
- Leverage data insights platforms and analytics; simplify your reporting so you are consistently assessing progress according to your KPIs, goals and objectives
- Whenever possible, fortify your mobile initiatives with two-way engagement attributes to embrace your audience / customers while collecting valuable data from their interactions
- Collaborate unilaterally with your expanded teams (sales, brand management, digital marketing, product management, marketing communications, IT, outside vendors, etc.) to prioritize aesthetic, technical and UX changes to improve mobile ranking, user experience and ROI
- Both mobile and desktop are essential so do not abandon desktop; a great deal of mobile engagement leads to the desktop in the buyer / user journey
Don’t stand still, mobile will continue its growth as a strategic customer engagement venue
Just like the healthcare industry, mobile runs on perpetual innovation. It is important to continually assess mobile marketing and sales effectiveness as change is always underway. Be certain your KPIs are still relevant and accurately measuring your progress towards meeting the goals and objectives you defined. Monitor managed care, clinical, technical, financial, legal, competitive and user factors in the effectiveness of your mobile marketing actions. By keeping your healthcare mobile marketing initiatives aligned and ahead of changes; it continually optimizes sales performance, ROI and outdistances competitors in the long run.
Thank you for reading this story
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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