As more people turn to the internet to find medical and wellness information, it becomes even more important for health organizations to go digital with their marketing efforts.
And simply jumping from one trending tactic to the next isn’t going to cut it.
Planning out and measuring your marketing activities will help you uncover what works best for your healthcare brand, and ultimately drive revenue growth.
It can be a bit of a challenge to craft messages that reach and resonate with the right people at the right time, especially with so many other businesses trying to do the very same thing.
This is where digital media planning can help and why it should be factored into every marketing strategy.
What exactly is media planning?
It’s the process of determining the best advertisement methods and tactics needed to implement a marketing or advertising campaign over a period of time.
So, in an industry where audiences usually can’t purchase what’s being offered digitally, how can you ensure that your digital media plan gets results?
Here are some things to consider when developing your organization’s campaign:
Align your strategy
Just like any other part of your business strategy, you want to start with the basics: budget, objectives, audience, and geographic range.
Budgeting for advertising efforts can seem difficult at first, but identifying how much you can put toward media will help when evaluating various options.
Once you’ve gathered some data from your efforts, you’ll be able to reallocate funds as needed.
Your campaign objectives need to be clearly defined and measurable. They will set the stage for your plan and be used to evaluate performance.
For example:
- If you work for a medical device company or a provider's office, your objective might be to bring in X number of new clients/patients within the next three months.
- If you work for a health insurance or pharmaceutical company, your objective might be to close X number of new contracts in 6 months.
Next, you’ll want to define your target audience for each campaign.
While this might sound straightforward, make sure you gather as much information about your customers as possible. To define your target audience, it will be helpful to review information including customer feedback and behaviors, your website traffic, industry news and trends, etc.
Creating buyer personas will also help make sure all of your demographic and psychographic bases are covered - income level, age, location, purchasing behaviors, health-related interests, etc. - as well as help determine which media platforms your target audience uses.
Geographic targeting can also work well for your campaign, especially if you are working with a smaller media budget. All major digital media platforms will allow you to show your content or advertisements to consumers based on their geographic locations.
Tailor your messaging
This is where your content marketing skills will come in handy.
A well-crafted message will persuade people to visit your website, learn more about your organization, and contact your office.
Your messaging should align with your campaign’s design assets and resonate with your buyer personas.
Every message needs to have a concise call to action (CTA). Without it, you might as well be throwing money out the window.
Below are two ads Mindgrub helped create as part of a larger marketing and website project for Brain Balance Achievement Centers.
Our targeted, customized approach to reaching this audience resulted in a 400% increase in lead generation, over 100% increase in web traffic year over year, and a 50% increase in revenue. Additionally, this campaign won runner-up for the American Marketing Association’s Integrated Campaign of the Year award in the Mid-Atlantic.
Choose channels that fit
It almost goes without saying that having a well-structured, optimized website is a must these days.
In fact, Stanford’s Web Credibility Research shows that 75% of users base an organization’s credibility on its web design.
Your site plays a crucial role in connecting and engaging users that discover your organization through online search and ads. It provides them with more information about your organization and their health or wellness topics of interest.
While there are numerous ways to achieve your campaign objectives, let’s take a look at three channels that work well for health and wellness brands:
Display ads reach users across the internet through banner ads, which can be targeted through a wide variety of methods (e.g., remarketing, third party data aggregators).
Display ads can:
- Target users or placements depending on what will achieve objectives more effectively
- Be used for both direct response as well as branding
- Be easily measured and optimized (which is rare for marketing at the brand level)
Paid social media allows businesses to pay to have their content, images, and videos displayed on social media channels (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc.).
With paid social media you’ll be able to:
- Leverage social media databases
- Disperse content that promotes user engagement
- Increase visibility of brand-forward materials
- Reach larger and more targeted audiences
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a paid media tactic that leverages sponsored ads in search engine results pages (SERPs).
The benefits of adding SEM to your media plan include:
- A faster turnaround time than search engine optimization (SEO) for visibility in SERPs
- More control over when ads are shown and which landing pages are leveraged
- More robust insights into what does and does not work
- Shorter time frame for messaging/strategy testing
Mindgrub recently worked with TalkingTree Creative to execute a paid-search campaign to drive conversions. By strategically incorporating industry-specific keywords, conversions increased by 7.36%, and the click-through rate increased by 3.84% in just two and a half weeks.
TalkingTree Creative's Chief Creative Officer had this to say about the project, "Running paid ads with Mindgrub's guidance has been very effective in bringing in and closing the clients we wanted. Mindgrub's efforts throughout the process to connect the message with the leads has been key in that success."
Once you’ve selected your media channels, determine how often you want your ads to run on each platform.
To help determine the right frequency, consider three common methods: consistent, intermittent, and pulsing.
Consistent - ads run on a regular schedule, reinforcing brand awareness and keeping your organization top of mind (e.g., one ad per week)
Intermittent - ads run for a period of time, stop, and then pick up again (helpful when media funds are limited)
Pulsing - a combination of consistent and intermittent advertising
Evaluate the results and make adjustments
Now for the most important part of media planning: analyzing your efforts.
This is where you’ll compare your advertising results (impressions and clicks) to your original campaign objectives (conversions and net new engagements).
You’ll be able to determine the biggest drivers of engagement and revenue to help make decisions about where to focus your efforts for future campaigns.
Conclusion
In order to grow a sustainable healthcare business, you need a strong digital marketing strategy.
Online media planning is one aspect of your overall approach that can boost brand awareness and increase sales.
When developing or evaluating your media plan, remember these four steps:
- Align your strategy - budget, objectives, audience, geography
- Tailor your message - language, design assets, CTAs
- Choose channels that fit - website, display ads, paid social media, SEM, frequency
- Evaluate the results and make adjustments - data analytics, reallocate funds
An effective media plan will have you delivering relevant content to the right people at the right time.
