The ever-quotable Seth Godin says that marketing used to mean advertising. Now marketing means everything. After all, the ways in which consumers learn about and engage with brands transcends traditional advertising. In health care, branding used to mean brand advertising: the big, high ticket campaigns that are designed to elicit positive feelings about health care brands.
But after COVID-19, branding no longer means “running ads.” Today, health care branding means consumer engagement.
That’s because COVID-19 changed our patient-consumers’ attitudes, beliefs and desires about health and health brands. It used to be that patient-consumers didn’t want to hear from hospitals and health systems unless there was a crisis, mounting pain, or nudges for annual exams. After all, there are more pleasant things to think about than scheduling the annual colonoscopy. Health system marketers accepted the premise that their Facebook and Instagram posts might only receive modest engagement—certainly nothing to the extent of a hot new consumer device like a new iPhone or whatever brand a Kardashian is selling. Health care content promoting life-saving cardiology procedures isn’t nearly as enticing to consumers as fun videos of cute dogs actually silly.
But all that changed with COVID-19. Now, your patient-consumers care about their health like never before. And they want to hear from health care brands.
Like, a lot.
YOUR PATIENTS WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU. A LOT.
Hailey Sault has been tracking patient-consumer sentiment since May 2020. At the high point of the pandemic, 52% of consumers said they wanted to hear from their physician or health system daily.
Daily!
As the pandemic recedes, patient-consumers don’t want the daily briefings. But they do want steady, ongoing engagement.
Are you engaging with your patient-consumers and helping them to nurture their health and wellness? Or is your competition?
Health care brand loyalty used to be measured primarily with brand tracking public perception surveys. For example, do consumers regard our hospital more favorably than other brands in the marketplace? We also used to track brand loyalty based on a patient-consumer’s perception on where they would turn or trust the most for specific medical services like cancer care, cardiac services, and OB-GYN services.
Brand tracking still has a useful home in the Chief Marketing Officer’s portfolio. But COVID-19 taught us that consumer preferences, beliefs and desires are fluid and can change in a heartbeat. Health care chief marketing officers can’t afford to wait on quarterly or yearly brand tracking studies to know how the brand is performing and what consumers value at any given moment.
YOUR ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY IS CHANGING BECAUSE YOUR AUDIENCE IS CHANGING.
We’ve reached the tipping point in health care communications in which we can’t assume or take for granted that we “know” what consumers want from our health care brands.
That’s because our audiences’ inner lives and health needs keep changing.
Prior to COVID-19, Hailey Sault developed yearly audience persona models that represent the four generations of health care consumers: Gen Z, Millennials, Generation X, and Boomers. These persona models allow us to identify the universal qualities and concerns of our health care clients, which we then customize to our client’s specific audience cohorts.
But since March of 2020, Hailey Sault has updated our health care audience personas four times to reflect changes in consumers like:
- Attitudes on personal health
- New health challenges
- Prioritizing their family’s health
- Media consumption habits
- Barriers to accessing care
- Ability to pay for medical care
- Attitudes on diversity, equality and inclusion
- What are consumers clicking on?
- What are they commenting on and sharing?
- Which messages are resonating?
- Are you meeting your patient-consumers where they are?
- Are you “taking the pulse” of your audience to see what their top health concerns are?
- Are you helping to unwind the fear associated with the pandemic so your patient-consumers feel more comfortable and confident getting back to life and back in the exam room?
- Does your messaging account for the nuances and needs of your diverse community?
- Are you leveraging real-time metrics to optimize your engagement strategies?
