Healthcare Advertising – 15 Best Practices for 2023

By: Frank DePino | March 23, 2023

Managing healthcare advertising can be challenging since numerous companies can be found worldwide. However, understanding these best practices will help you obtain an edge online and stand out from the crowd.

Healthcare advertising is a customer-centric approach using highly-targeted and multi-channel strategies. Healthcare is a more competitive field than many realize, so multiple medical professionals turn to marketers to stand out. Through proper healthcare advertising, medical professionals can gain more patients for their practice. Various methods exist, from SEO to social media, to help companies succeed in marketing.

In the following, we’ll explore some of the most effective methods of healthcare advertising. Read on to become an expert on healthcare digital marketing today!

What Is Healthcare Advertising?

Healthcare advertising focuses on marketing campaigns while remaining HIPAA compliant. The healthcare field is much more competitive than people realize, so many medical professionals turn to digital marketing professionals.

Digital marketers specializing in the medical field can help you stand out with effective healthcare marketing strategies. Healthcare advertising is a focus on various ways to help your business stand out, such as social media, optimizing your website, and more.

Advertising in Healthcare Examples

Various methods exist to help medical practices stand out. Since the healthcare field is competitive, it’s best to reach out to digital marketers who can give your business a competitive edge.

From optimizing your website to building your buyer persona, there are multiple considerations to factor in. Before you do anything, it’s important to determine your budget and audience as you build trust. As you complete the next steps, keep your audience in your mind.

1.   Optimize Your Website

Optimizing your website is one of the most important things you can do for your business. This comes down to SEO.

SEO is short for search engine optimization and how you’re found in search engines such as Google. It’s an organic way (free) to be found instead of paying for ads. Many businesses will combine paid ads with organic traffic.

For example, say you have the words physician in Danbury on your site. When someone types physician in Danbury on Google, your website might appear in the searches. That’s when potential patients can find you.

The total number of websites continues to grow, and with AI picking up speed, it’s expected to continue. Today, there are over 1.5 billion websites worldwide, and 200 million of these are active.

Another good way to optimize your website is to check out the competition. What are they succeeding in, and what could they do better? Research keywords related to your clinic to take your SEO to the next level.

2.   Build Your Buyer Personas

Before optimizing your site for healthcare advertising, it’s important to think about your target audience. Your buyer persona is the ideal customer who will be most interested in your products or services.

It’s important to consider your customers’ pain points as you develop copy for your site and try to attract traffic. A buyer persona allows you to better understand the needs and wants of your customers.

A buyer persona will help you receive better-quality leads. Remember that it’s not about the amount of traffic but the quality. For example, if you target the keyword puppies in Danbury, you’re not reaching your target audience.

The main goal is to increase conversions. A buyer persona also allows you to understand your ideal customer better.

To determine your potential patients, you’ll want to research. Check out your current patient volume and what they seem to have in common.

Next, conduct market research or consider hiring marketing professionals. Lastly, you’ll want to analyze the competition.

What reviews and copy do they have on their site? How about their social media?

3. Establish a Coherent Tone of Voice

Keep your target audience in mind as you determine a coherent tone of voice. Next, it’s important to consider your current goals, whether that’s increasing conversions, brand awareness, etc.

Voice and tone aren’t to be confused. While your voice is always consistent across social media and websites, your tone can change. This change will depend on the situation. The tone is how you convey messages to have your audience experience certain emotions.

Having a tone of voice with your audience will increase brand loyalty and recognition. It’s also a way to be unique and stand out from the crowd.

First, determine your target audience. Figure out how they communicate, their interests, and other demographics. Consider your goals to determine what to say and how to say it.

Next, think about the core values you’d like to portray in the communication. How do you want others to perceive your clinic?

4. Show Your Brand’s Benefits

What makes you unique? Think about all the services and products that your company offers.

Benefits also include what your brand does for your customers. This could include reliability, ease of use, flexibility, etc. Check out competitors, their offerings, and how to set yourself apart.

5. Prepare Outstanding Offers for Healthcare Advertising

Think of offers that’ll help you stand out. For example, if it’s a brand new potential patient, you’ll want to offer risk reversal.

Maybe you offer a free initial consultation, a free trial for a product, etc. For products, offer them a money-back guarantee after so many days.

You can also add urgency to your pitch. For example, if you’re a plastic surgery location, you might offer discounts on various procedures for a limited time. Have an expiration date, and people will be more likely to sign up.

Google Ads – The Best Ally in Your Healthcare Advertising

The U.S. healthcare industry is the third largest in the country. The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country.

Healthcare represents about 18.3% of the U.S. economy. While the money is there, standing out in this lucrative field takes time. This time can be shortened through Google Ads.

1. Establish a Budget

Before increasing patient volume through Google Ads, it’s important to establish a budget. Think about how much your business can realistically afford and use a Google Ads cost calculator.

First, decide on your advertising goals. That could be brand recognition, conversions, etc. Think about your target audience as you establish a budget and create ads. Consider your profit margins for products or services that you provide to patients.

2. Find Relevant Keywords

Next, you’ll need to find relevant keywords. Google Ads has a keyword planner tool which is effective. It’s best to focus on low-competition keywords whenever possible.

Keywords have varying prices dependent on their difficulty and search volume. If you target a keyword with a high search volume, the price tends to be higher.

3. Create Search Ads Campaign

Next, create a search ad campaign through Google. Search campaigns are text ads on search results to reach potential patients on Google. It’s ideal for traffic, leads, and driving sales to your website.

You can enrich your search ad campaign with a callout extension. Callouts can improve text ads by promoting unique offers such as free shipping on medical products.

Once created, it’ll appear on with your ad. You can show up to 10 callouts depending on the device you’re using, the browser, and character spacing.

4. Monitor the Results

It can be tricky to monitor the results of your ads if you’re not a marketer. It’s a good idea to consider hiring a digital marketing agency to help you stand out and monitor your results.

There are various components to consider, such as the ads and keywords. First, see if your ads are running and check the click-through rate.

 Next, see the average cost-per-click. If your ads or keywords aren’t performing well, try making changes.

You could even perform what’s called split testing. This is when you have multiple ads and change one characteristic about it, such as the image, copy, etc.

5. Run Remarketing Campaign

Remarketing is when you’re running a campaign and users haven’t converted into customers despite seeing the offer. Then, with the tracking code, these users are tracked and a specific campaign (remarketing campaign) is run to promote a personalized offer to users who saw the offer but didn’t accept it.

Social Media Marketing

You’ll want to have a social media marketing strategy to build awareness about your brand. Social media can be overwhelming on top of everything else you have to worry about.

Many in healthcare services wind up hiring an advertising agency. Choose a company that specializes in healthcare.

1. Facebook Ads for Healthcare Advertising

Facebook is great for targeting a broad audience and age range. If you’re trying to target a younger demographic such as Gen Z, it’s usually not the best option.

Facebook has beneficial ad information that lets you target them based on demographics. Facebook also allows you to have high engagement and turn prospects into patients.

2. Instagram Ads for Healthcare Advertising

If you’re targeting Millenials and Gen Z, Instagram is the way to go. Since Facebook and Instagram are connected under Meta, it allows you to have ads across both.

Even though Instagram has fewer users than Facebook, engagement is high! Instagram has an average engagement rate of 4.21%. Instagram has 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook and 120 times more than Twitter.

3. TikTok Ads for Healthcare Advertising

In 2022, Tiktok downloads were 672 million. If you’re looking to connect with Gen Z patients, then TikTok is for you.

To stand out on TikTok, pay attention to trending videos, hashtags, and make your videos unique and fun. You could also hire a social media manager to help you with your TikTok strategy.

Additional Digital Marketing Strategies To Support Your Healthcare Advertising

To stand out in the healthcare system, you’ll need a digital marketing strategy that’s unique and different from the competitors. With worrying about your business, it can be a challenge. That’s why many turn to digital marketing specialists.

They can check your key performance while you’re focused on your patients’ medical conditions. Medical marketing should focus on social media, your website, and improving your Google My Business profile.

1. Improve Your Google My Business Profile

Google My Business is vital for local businesses! It’s how potential patients can find you online when they’re searching for doctors. Update your business information for relevant searches in the area. Ensure the information is accurate and complete.

2. Boost Your Website SEO

Include keywords on your website to help increase organic traffic. Business owners can find this difficult since they focus on their company’s day-to-day actions.

Keyword tools can help digital marketers. Digital marketers will identify your ideal audience, what keywords they’re searching for, and how to improve your ranking. As you think of keywords, focus on what feel your ideal audience will be typing into search engines.

3. Make Collaboration With Influential People

Reach out to influencers on social media to help get the word out about your business. Maybe you’ll offer them a free service or products.

 Or you could pay them for them sharing their opinion. Find those within your niche, preferably influencers in the medical world who are local. Consider your budget since influencers’ rates will vary depending on audience engagement and how large they are.

Too Complicated? Hire a Healthcare Advertising Agency

Whether it’s too complicated or too much work, a healthcare advertising agency could help! They’ll have the experience and knowledge necessary to understand how to help your business.

A digital marketing agency could help design and optimize your website, create and manage ads, run social media, and more. That way, you can focus more on your business and less on marketing.

Healthcare Advertising and How To Succeed

Healthcare advertising can be a success through trial and error. While the results won’t happen overnight, there are various methods to speed up the process, such as ads.

If this seems too complicated or you don’t have enough time in your day for these multiple steps, we can help! We can help with content, marketing, advertising, digital and more.

We specialize in helping healthcare companies stand out from the crowd through our unique approach. Save time and focus on what matters, your business. Contact us today to get started!

By: Frank DePino

Frank DePino is Principal and Founder of Mediaboom. Since 2002, Frank has led Mediaboom’s award-winning staff of creative and technical professionals building the most effective marketing and advertising solutions for its clients.