Adams & Knight Marketing Blog
POSTED BY: Reem Nouh and Denis Gendreau

Five tips for more strategic digital marketing

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Digital media is where it’s at for marketers.

According to a recent ComScore report (2014), total time spent with U.S. digital media jumped 24 percent in the past year. And in another survey conducted by Adobe and Econsultancy, marketers said they will be “experimenting heavily with digital” this year.”

But simply doing more isn’t always the script for success. Instead, today’s healthcare marketers need to find ways to do digital more strategically. Here are five tips that can help.

• Align your digital efforts with relevant content — at the right time, at the right place. For healthcare marketers, this means tapping into when and where target audiences, like patients, caregivers and physicians, will be most receptive to your message. A couple of ways to do this:

Use search advertising. Getting your text ads to appear above and at the right of  organic results when someone types in a word or phrase relevant to your brand is the first (basic) step to making strategic use of digital. Next. . .

Make display ads contextually relevant. When people are consuming content on a specific diagnosis, procedure or medical treatment that relates to your brand, that’s the time to get your message in front of them. So target “buys” based on demographics or behaviors of your audiences. For example, if a patient is searching for information on afib or irregular heartbeats on WebMD or Medscape, consider serving up display ads promoting cardiac care services or procedures at your hospital . . . on the same page . . . that can drive to more information. Don’t forget to include a clear CTA to capture their email addresses, so you can “nurture” them with regular, ongoing communications.

• Look for opportunities to stand out. And make them count. Although potentially costly, “taking over” all banner slots on an entire page or section of a site that is relevant to your target audiences can help you stand out more. For instance, you could promote cardiac screenings for women on Valentine’s day (February) in every ad spot available on a women’s health online publication. And after targets leave the site, you can use re-targeting to display your ads again to them.

• Get mobile in your mix. Research with our clients has shown that 25 to 50 percent of traffic to healthcare websites is from a mobile device. So making sure your website takes advantage of mobile-responsive best practices is key. Another tip? Place mobile display ads. Best-performing ones typically feature click-to-call or download-a-free-app offers.

• Don’t forget video. Video is particularly important for many different audiences. In a market research study we conducted earlier this year, 85 percent of consumers said getting a link to watch a video was the most appealing call-to-action in a marketing campaign. And when asked what they would prefer as a free offer to get more information, 45 percent said access to an online video library on a topic they were interested in.

Video is equally appealing to physicians and surgeons as well. Although they have very limited time to meet with sales reps, they can spare a minute or two to watch a quick video on how a new piece of surgical equipment, for example, can help them operate on patients more effectively and, in some cases, less invasively. Short product demo videos optimized for mobile could drive to a landing page with a clear CTA so docs can contact a local rep for more details.

• Update websites and landing pages with fresh content. Remember, an all-out digital media strategy will direct targets to your online properties. So best to make sure your landing page or website is updated with the latest and greatest about your products, services or brand image that’s being featured in your digital campaign.

For hospital marketers, this is especially important for physician profile pages. On a regular basis, this area of your site should be reviewed and updated to reflect doctors who leave, new ones who join, and those that have reached capacity to accept new patients.

One more thing to keep in mind. When your digital display ad drives to your website, you also need to be sure that there’s consistent branding from one platform to the next. By creating a simple, responsive landing page with a clear CTA (whether that is to book an appointment or collect an email address) you can gain a quick, efficient and trackable solution to achieve this.

Ready to do digital . . . strategically?

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Reem Nouh
Chief Strategy Officer
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Denis Gendreau
Connection Planning and Analytics Manager
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