With new healthcare marketing trends rising this year, your team is going to have to make some changes to your strategy. Evolving your marketing practices will help you reach more patients as their behaviors change, leaving your non-evolving competition in the dust. Last year, we saw a huge spike in patients turning to the internet for health information and that is a trend that is certainly not going away, so let’s take a look at some of the mistakes you might have made in regards to your internet marketing efforts so you can improve this year.

1. Massive Marketing Collateral

Gone are the days of successful E-books. They take far too much time to create on your end and now patients are being drawn to more bite-sized content pieces. Smith & Jones calls them “info snacks,” giving patients with decreased attention spans the opportunity to easily consume the most important information you can provide.

TIP: Buzzfeed has become wildly popular because of their funny and topical content, but also because of the way they display their content with easily consumed lists and quizzes.

2. Data Overload

Last year the most consumed forms of content were videos and infographics. Due to the short attention spans of online readers, healthcare marketers have to be able to deliver important data in a concise and easily consumed way. Showcasing medical data in infographic format is proven to make it more memorable and more impactful.

TIP: Canva has some great infographic templates which you can easily import into a simple video format.

3. Website's That Aren't Mobile Optimization

People are using their smartphones and tablets more and more to search online for services, so if your website isn't mobile responsive you could be losing valuable leads. Your marketing team needs to focus on how your website content appears on phones and whether or not your content is driving potential patients to connect with you. You should also keep mobile optimization in mind when it comes to your email campaigns.

TIP: Squarespace websites include free mobile optimization and you can preview and test your web pages and mobile sites with the click of a button.

4. Unemotional Messaging

With healthcare marketing it can be scary to show too much emotion and be disruptively different, but if your marketing is too general and surface level, you'll go unnoticed. It is a huge mistake to avoid using personality in your marketing or to be too clinical. Some of the best doctors are the ones that get personal with their patients, share stories and can be seen as a shoulder to lean on; as opposed to those that are detached and unemotional. Let your content marketing reflect the kind of care you want to deliver to your patients.

TIP: Connect with patients by sharing information about your staff or physicians on your pages. Go beyond where they got their training; focus on the parts of their personalities that patients can connect with, like favorite movies or inspiration quotes.

5. Blah Branding

There are few industries where brand loyalty is more imperative than health care but it is often over-looked. Let your brand speak to the kind of care your organization delivers and be sure to focus on branding in your social media content, blog posts and advertising efforts. This is your chance to stand out from the competition and in medical marketing, people are often afraid to deviate from the norm. Be the one who isn't afraid to switch things up!

TIP: Run a social media campaign or contest to get your patients and community involved with your brand by asking them to come up with a new tagline for you.

Health care professionals can be stereotypically stuck in their ways, but are those habits and practices leading them down a path to extinction? Ask yourself the hard questions about where you stand and you are already taking your first steps towards evolution.

- Not marketing your value to patients directly

With a more significant weight being placed on practices’ and hospitals’ quality metrics, patients are paying more attention to the way health care providers treat their patients. Of course, patients experience a lot of emotions, so helping them see your true value can help them make more educated decisions about their care. Remember to think like them, not like yourself.

- Not tracking the ROI of your advertisement efforts

Here is a funny little cave-dog. Just for fun.

Avoid the spray, pay and pray methods a lot of health care institutions adopt when it comes to their advertising efforts. Internet marketing can be significantly more effective than plastering up a billboard, plus you are able to point to the effectiveness of your efforts.

- Not helping to relieve referring physician work load with unique efforts

The relationship your practice has with referring physician offices is a delicate thing that you must constantly be working to improve and foster. By assisting their practices in unique ways, helping them to save time and become more efficient is utterly invaluable to them. Think out of the box.

- Not using pricing as a marketing component

Patients are becoming more accustomed to shopping around for health care procedures, especially more expensive out-of-pocket services. Using your price to market to patients is helpful, even if you don’t have the lowest price in town. It is better to be a part of the conversation than be left out entirely.

- Not showing differentiation between yourself and your competition

It is okay to show patients what sets your practice apart when it comes to quality of service. Of course your mother told you, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, and we are not giving you license to bash your competition but a little differentiation never hurt anyone.

- Passive approach to cancellations and no-shows

Every practice suffers the frustrations that come along with last minute cancellations and no-shows. It leaves a hole in your schedule and keeps you from helping as many patients as you could have if you had a system for filling those empty time slots with a capacity exchange program.

- Crossing your fingers and hoping transparency trends will end

Bad news kids, this whole price transparency epidemic is not going anywhere so it’s time to jump on board. Like we said before, it is better to have a seat at the table than to be on the table. Your patients and referring offices will appreciate that you are taking steps towards transparency and innovation within the industry.

Where are you? Do you need help? Besides if this guy can do it, you can too.