Healthcare marketing isn’t easy. You provide a service, product or treatment to people who typically aren’t at their best. They (or their loved one) may be dealing with an illness, navigating a recent diagnosis or experiencing chronic pain. Unfortunately, with these physical symptoms comes emotional discomfort.
Marketers across the healthcare industry have a responsibility to their consumer: to make the Digital Patient Journey as comfortable as possible. This requires finesse, strategy and a great deal of empathy.
Throwing phrases like “we’re here for you” at the end of every blog post or marketing email isn’t going to cut it. Plus, actions speak louder than words. Digital marketing without a focus on human connection is simply noise. Genuine care and empathy should be woven into the fabric of your digital strategy. Here are a few ways to get you and your team started.
Walk a Mile in Their Shoes
You may know that your typical patient is a female in her mid-to-upper forties living in the suburban America. But, that isn’t what truly defines a person. What do you really know about her? How many children does she have? What does her daily life look like now with her diagnosis? What are her struggles and frustrations related to her condition? How does she manage it? Who helps her manage it? The list goes on and on…
Understanding your audience on a deeper level than general demographics means you can make informed decisions related to your web design, user experience and digital marketing campaigns.
Take the time to develop rich, detailed patient personas for your target audiences. This exercise, when done well, takes time. Interview the people who directly interact with patients, caregivers and/or clinical professionals the most. Whether it’s your sales team, schedulers, nurses, clinical liaisons, or physicians, these individuals will be able to connect you with the emotion and real stories of your audience.
Create a Patient-Centered Digital Presence
Before you even begin trying to gain web traffic from new patients and customers with targeted ads and landing pages, make sure everything exudes empathy. This includes the design and user experience of your website, your messaging, your page copy and your content offers. Before you draft a blog post, white paper, or even social post, write down the personas you want to connect with.
Again, put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what information you would find comforting and helpful given their current situation. How would this message make you feel? Reduce any friction that would make your well-intentioned content piece seem off-putting.
Think, write and implement with a human to human touch.
Get Creative
Using empathy in your web design and digital marketing requires finesse and creativity. In order to portray genuine care and offer help appropriately, look outside of what normally takes up the most real estate in your strategy.
Yes, healthcare is a serious space to be working in and as marketers it’s important to maintain that. But, it’s equally important to remember that you’re not talk to robots. Within reason, get creative.
Tell inspiring and motivating success stories with video testimonials. Produce an interactive infographic with helpful information that a consumer can act on easily, without having to dig for further details. Take the design of your website to the next level and stand out from the rest of the overly sterile healthcare websites. Create visual how-tos that walk family caregivers through the process of a common preventative medical screening.
When done the right way, uniqueness in your digital marketing is not only more memorable, but it’s almost always more helpful.
When used appropriately and genuinely, empathy can be a powerful ingredient for your digital marketing. It helps reconnect your brand and your patients and form a bond that’s solidified by a human to human philosophy.
Are you letting empathy drive your web design and digital marketing strategy? Contact us today and let’s talk about how emagine’s team can help you get there.
