How to effectively reach healthcare professionals in the most modern ways

Meredith Grey, Lexie Grey, Cristina Yang, Izzie Stevens, Derek Shepherd, Mark Sloan- The list goes on…Die-hard fans of Grey’s Anatomy, television medical drama created by Shonda Rhimes, will never be able to forget these names, primarily because of the way the characters have enchanted us with their lives. The show has taught us that the lives of healthcare professionals are more adventurous than ever & they deserve more respect. It has a fan base that fights for & loves the show & its characters and they have covered topics & medical issues that otherwise wouldn’t be known or talked about. Now, now….let’s come to the topic. You might have noticed Meredith & her colleagues using a different range of medicines & medical equipment to save lives, right. These medicines & medical equipment are also important for real life healthcare professionals who treat patients on a daily basis. But many times corporates who provide these medical facilities find it difficult to find healthcare professionals. But knowing the correct ways to track the presence of healthcare professionals in different mediums makes it easier for B2B marketers of these enterprises to contact them. In today’s world physicians & allied healthcare professionals, embrace new technologies which have made new communication & marketing opportunities to emerge for organizations to reach, educate or influence their target markets. Healthcare in general has adopted digital technology in a number of ways, which is one of the reasons why the traditional manner in which pharmaceutical & medical companies communicated with healthcare professionals has diminished rapidly. It’ll be great for marketers, who formulate marketing & communication strategies, to know exactly where & how healthcare professionals want to hear from them, achieve better ROI on marketing spend on the campaigns.

Marketing channels to connect with healthcare professionals

• Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is the current greatest channel out there to reach out to a large audience in the most economical & profitable manner. It has become an inevitable line of communication to share education material, information related to healthcare professionals, industry news of latest trends regarding new medical products & equipment, announcements regarding special workshops & medical programs etc. Marketers should ensure to segment email list, activate real-time personalization, plan a work flow, & create customized email campaigns to achieve maximum results. Marketers of pharmaceutical & medical companies can also avail the help of database providers who provide multisource targeted email lists. Finding precise data to connect with healthcare professionals is a cumbersome task in the healthcare industry. The main downside while building organic lists is the enormous time taken to build specific email list that too customized as per the requirements. Availing email lists from database providers will help you solve this problem as they are designed to target healthcare professionals for maximum reach.

• Response by Automation

Customers of today demands immediate & compassionate responses, which goes same for healthcare professionals. Marketing automation is the best way to get things done in real-time even though it requires some getting used to. But then again, the results are more than rewarding which ranges from relevant representation of your objectives & services on landing pages and mail campaigns to customized automated responses. In simple words marketing automation means seamless marketing management under your fingertips.

• Targeting by social media

More & more healthcare professionals are turning to social media platforms for collaborating with peers, ongoing education, coordinating conferences, and to directly from Healthcare Companies. When used correctly social media helps marketers to generate awareness, leads, followers, product views, purchases & a lot more. Social media also provide private online groups where healthcare professionals can coordinate networking & education activities in a single location. Corporates with highly specialized audiences can use these private groups to effectively communicate with these hard to reach healthcare professionals where attentive moderators conduct profile reviews of applicants prior to granting membership. Conferences & product launches can be promoted through social media within existing groups or new groups can be created that are dedicated to specific events. Social media also provides a platform for marketers to authentically respond to discussions or starting conversations with healthcare professionals about what the company is offering & the impact it can have on the patients can elevate the image a lot more than direct marketing. Looking ahead, the adoption & usage of social media by the next generation of connected doctors are expected to grow.

• Healthcare business segmenting

Business segmenting works great not only for healthcare professionals but for prospects of all industry. Groups your prospects into smaller segments based on products & services, common traits, purchase behaviors and characteristics. Segmenting the profiles enable marketers to focus on tailored marketing communications to specific types of health professionals across channels at your opportune time. Segmenting your list needs surgical precision, thereby demanding professional assistance.

• Retargeting ads

Retargeting advertisements helps to target healthcare professionals who showed interests by visiting your website. Retargeting campaigns enables to harness a pool of repeat visitors who are more likely to convert than trying to attract first-time visitors who may or may not convert.

• Visual media campaigns

People are watching more videos than ever. From sharing generic awareness to latest innovations in the field, videos are being extensively used across all platforms. Audio- visual content adds the readability manifolds to any form of marketing campaign. It also has the potential to reach healthcare professionals across geographical barriers & cultural differences.

• Newsletters that are customized

Subscribers of newsletters are precious soft leads who have already appreciated your thoughts to a certain degree. With the right amount of persuasion, these healthcare professionals could eventually end as full-fledged clients. Crafting newsletters that are customized according to list segments will fetch you better results & save campaign costs rather than to entire list.

• B2B medical surveys

B2B medical surveys are very different than the normal one to one medical surveys. These should be considered as seamless & effective tools to understand the purchase behavior of healthcare professionals. Survey campaigns help to demonstrate that you value your customer’s opinion while also gain information about the type of products or services they are willing to pay for.

• Medical webinars & conference invites

Share invites of events to your contact list if you are attending or exhibiting. Sharing how the event can benefit their business will attract healthcare professionals. Host a webinar to take the interactions to the next level. Medical webinars are said to have the highest engagement amongst all events & guarantees 10 to 20% conversion.

• Good old telemarketing

Being one of the oldest, tried & proved marketing tactics, telemarketing comes cheap & provides the advantage of direct human connection with healthcare professionals. It provides the compassion factor & understanding which can’t be ignored. It’s better to outsource your work to professionals to save time & provide direct verification to the authenticity of the list.

Take away

I hope these ideas will be useful to you. By utilizing these channels marketers can create unified healthcare marketing plans to reach healthcare professionals. Remember not all heroes wear capes. By helping out healthcare professionals with medicines & medical equipment you can also serve the society.