Incorporate These 3 Direct to Patient Marketing Campaigns Strategies For More Patients

By David M. Williams | Chief Strategy Officer, LEVO Health

As patients turn to digital channels for information, the effectiveness of traditional advertising and referral sources are on a downward decline.  Instead, targeted direct to patient marketing campaigns create a personalized conversation with the patient and physicians and/or medical practices. With nearly every website crowded with some form of promotion, consumers have begun to quickly ignore these endless ads that have little relevance to their medical conditions.

In order for a healthcare brand to more easily nurture and attract new patients, the messaging needs to be personalized and tailored to the stage of the patients care decision-making process.

Here are a few methods that can help you develop a scalable and effective direct to patient marketing campaign:

Speak the Patient’s Language

To achieve a successful direct to patient marketing campaign, you need to be able to communicate the purpose of your procedure or service to the healthcare consumer. In order to accomplish a favorable outcome, you must know and understand your target audience and the type of content they’re searching for and consuming. When a campaign resonates with the patient, they’ll likely choose your brand over the competition.

Ways to familiarize yourself with your target audience:

• Create a relationship with the consumers through online community engagement.
• Get customers involved on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
• Analyze your patient demographics including age, gender, socioeconomics, etc.

Get Patients Engaged with Direct to Patient Marketing

Once you have developed a relationship with the customer base, it’s time to leverage this bond. The modern patient wants to be involved in their healthcare planning. Allowing space for patient inclusion in the decision-making process makes them feel proactive in their experience.

Ways to utilize patient involvement:

• Let the consumer decide. Consumers like to feel like they are actively involved in staying healthy. Get them engaged by making multiple options and having them select the best. Not only will the patients get involved, but you can ensure your audience wants what you are giving.
• Leverage brand ambassadors. Developing a relationship with a new consumer can be one of the toughest aspects of marketing. Millennials are more likely to take advice from a third party, rather than brands. Employing brand ambassadors will give patients a person to relate to. It creates a human connection to your brand that will keep the customer coming back.
• Provide incentives. People need a reason to choose your brand. Incentives can be used to increase engagement. For example, a discounted co-pay for the next appointment for patients who fill out a survey.

Utilize Your Mailing List

According to Ad Age, the preferred way patients of all age groups like to be contacted is email. When using an email marketing campaign, the patient opt-in guarantees that your audience is truly interested. It is essential to leverage this method for marketing.

How to ensure email marketing campaigns are successful:

• Tailor your campaign to each targeted list. Sending out diversified campaigns to each email list ensures that you are correctly communicating with each audience.
• Automate your campaign to reduce the long term work. Make sure that you send a follow-up email to increase open rates.
• Track success through analytics. The results will allow you to make effective changes to future campaigns.

It is essential for healthcare brands to captivate their audience. The new patient is reeled in by brands that resonate with them. Understanding these key objectives will boost engagement and make every direct patient campaign a success.

If you are interested in creating a scalable direct to patient marketing campaigns, contact LEVO Health.