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Every business aims to be the most productive and profitable by coming up with marketing strategies that are worth every penny they spend.
In the healthcare industry, a strategic and effective healthcare marketing plan could boost healthcare communications, which are vital in educating and influencing individuals and communities to arrive at decisions that benefit health.
Want to create a healthcare marketing plan but don’t have design experience? With Venngage’s marketing plan templates, you can design better healthcare communications for your company and patients.
Click to jump ahead:
- What is a healthcare marketing plan?
- How to make a healthcare marketing plan
- What are the key elements of a healthcare marketing plan?
- Why is a strategic healthcare marketing plan important?
What is a healthcare marketing plan?
A healthcare marketing plan is a report containing an action plan on how to achieve a healthcare facility’s goals and objectives.
The marketing strategy plan, which looks like the below, covers a specific time span, usually a fiscal year.
Serving as the framework or blueprint of your healthcare company’s short-term and long-term productivity and success, a healthcare marketing plan is a vital document that is not all about marketing stunts and ideas.
The plan lists specific actions that need to be taken and decisions that need to be made in order to achieve the identified goals.
For example, a fact sheet like the one below would be a great addition to a healthcare marketing strategy document.
This healthcare marketing plan could contain key information about the medical practice and patient satisfaction statistics.
A healthcare marketing plan’s goals typically include the following:
- To improve patient education about critical healthcare conditions and the ways to prevent catching them (e.g. heart disease, diabetes)
- To raise awareness about the services that can benefit their patients (e.g. prenatal care, cancer screenings)
- To determine the patients that best fit the company’s mission statement
- To demonstrate how the healthcare company’s facilities can deliver the best patient care and the best technology there is in the market
Developing a digital marketing strategy for healthcare requires integrating data storytelling to effectively communicate complex medical information and patient outcomes. This approach not only enhances transparency but also builds trust with patients and improves engagement by making the data relatable and understandable.
It’s important to note that healthcare marketers use data storytelling more often than marketers in other industries. This will also be a necessary component in creating healthcare marketing plans.
Related: Visualizing Healthcare Data With Infographics to Save Lives
How to make a healthcare marketing plan
Create a successful healthcare marketing plan by following these simple steps.
Step 1. Conduct SWOT analysis
SWOT Analysis, also known as the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats Analysis, is a technique used to assess or identify a person, or an organization’s internal and external environment.
This is what a standard SWOT analysis would look like:
A SWOT analysis is critical in crafting comprehensive healthcare marketing strategies
To build an effective healthcare marketing plan, conduct an extensive SWOT analysis to assess and understand your company’s current state in relation to the medical industry.
It’s a great way to help you understand the needs of prospective clients, have a clear understanding of the current market, and think about the service or product you can offer to give you a competitive advantage.
Step 2. Define your target market
You know you are bound to get your money’s worth spent on healthcare marketing strategies when you’ve reached your selected target market.
To streamline customer reach, create a well-target marketing plan. This will be a better use of your company’s time and energy and will generate favorable returns.
Take inspiration from this marketing plan and how it describes the company’s ideal audience personas.
Invest time and effort in getting to know your target market – their demographics, location, healthcare habits, or the lack thereof – for you to find out what approach would be best applied to them, what particular medical service suits their needs.
In the hopes of coming off as inclusive and cost-effective, many healthcare companies gear their marketing strategies towards the general public, failing to recognize the importance of target marketing.
Restricting your audience does not necessarily mean you are being selective and discriminating. Rather, it just means that you are standing by your niche and dominating it one marketing plan after the other.
Here’s an example of a user persona template that healthcare providers can customize for their prospective patients.
Step 3. Establish SMART goals
Establishing SMART Goals, also known as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based Goals, is a vital element in a business’s success.
However, many tend to overlook its importance in goal-setting discussions, leading often to failure.
Determine what you want to achieve with your healthcare marketing plan and make sure you state your SMART goals clearly and realistically.
This template will make it easier to divide goals according to the SMART categories.
Most medical practices say that the most ideal number of goals to include in a marketing plan is two but you can always arrive with four goals.
Step 4. Discuss and analyze key marketing strategies
Goals, strategies, and tactics go hand in hand. Marketing strategies are the ideas and approaches that are needed to be done to achieve established goals.
In order for those strategies to succeed, tactics should be put in place. These tactics are the particular actions, activities, and relevant information that must take place for a specific strategy to work.
For example, healthcare brands can determine whether posters, like the below, or digital flyers are a better way to reach clients by examining their SMART goals and user personas in their marketing plan.
Understand what steps you will be taking to achieve your SMART goals as well as the appropriate channels to implement them.
Your strategies should be the perfect blend between being easy and difficult to execute; not too easy that you become complacent and not too difficult to still keep you motivated.
Step 5. Stay ahead of the competition
Pay attention to your competition. Instead of ignoring them, devise proactive plans and strategies to stay ahead in the industry by projecting the issues and influences you might encounter.
Related: How to Create a Competitor Analysis Report (Templates Included)
Step 6. Set your budget
For most healthcare institutions, funds are allocated for many different components of operational expenses but only little goes to marketing.
Allocating a budget for healthcare marketing is essential to determine a plan’s feasibility.
For instance, creating a vaccine infographic is necessary to educate patients but healthcare providers would need adequate budgets to design such documents.
The budget you will be using in every activity stated in your healthcare marketing plan is vital as success would be far from achievable if you lack enough funds for it.
While working on your plan, take into account the estimated budget to be spent.
What are the key elements of a healthcare marketing plan?
Developing a marketing plan for the healthcare sector isn’t just about throwing in random ideas to promote a hospital, medical group, or healthcare professionals.
An effective marketing strategy is borne out of meticulous planning and of careful consideration of the following key elements.
- SWOT analysis
- Target market
- SMART goals
- Marketing strategies and tactics
- Marketing funds
Why is a strategic healthcare marketing plan important?
Successful healthcare marketing strategies, including those incorporating advanced healthcare software solutions, result in notable improvements such as increased patient acquisition, retention of clients, and a boost in overall Return on Investment (ROI).
The below nonprofit example, which can be adapted into a marketing healthcare plan, can make it easier to tailor healthcare services to patients’ specific needs.
We share the biggest benefits of creating a strategic healthcare marketing plan below.
A healthcare marketing plan promotes healthcare brand visibility
The traditional healthcare marketing and advertising scheme, through word of mouth or direct mail, may still be used today to supplement modern strategies such as social media postings. If you’re, for example, running a massage therapy clinic, you can also use various sites to promote your business.
Most healthcare marketing nowadays is done exclusively online due to its broad audience reach. For example, an infographic poster like this would be shared widely online.
Over the past few years, innovative technologies have given healthcare organizations newfound avenues to reach potential clients.
But how can a healthcare provider decide what posts to create? Which channels to use? What are the posts aimed at, awareness or acquisition?
The decision process becomes easier when all avenues for reaching patients and investors have been included in the marketing plan.
A nonprofit healthcare marketing strategy like the one below outlines the revenue goals for upcoming years. It also shares key metrics on the healthcare industry that will make decision-making easier.
With a healthcare marketing plan in place, healthcare marketers will be better able to retain current patients, improve patient journeys, and educate both patients and the public.
Download your marketing plans, fact sheets, and more with a Venngage business account. We offer a variety of download options, including PNG, PNG HD, PDF and PowerPoint.
Healthcare marketing plans provide healthcare organizations with a competitive advantage
Oftentimes, hospitals and healthcare practitioners compete to acquire patients by highlighting the cost and quality of the care they offer.
Although you need to go the extra mile in improving your services, you should also put a premium on your healthcare advertisement in order to boost your presence everywhere.
For example, healthcare services would need to find ways to build brand awareness. Thus, a social media plan would be a necessary addition to a healthcare marketing strategy.
You can use this template to boost your healthcare organization’s reach to find new partners, investors, and patients.
Easily import chart data from Google sheets with the Venngage editor. Use our Chart Maker to choose a chart for your marketing plan. Adjust the data and settings and finalize your chart.
Related: 10 Tips to Make Eye-Catching Infographics for Social Media
Growth opportunities for healthcare providers are easily recognized
Patient health and welfare are the top priorities for any healthcare organization, which is why new business opportunities are often overlooked.
With the help of a healthcare marketing plan, it becomes easier to conduct a more detailed evaluation with just one look at new business opportunities.
Whether it’s in rehabilitation centers, home healthcare agencies, mental health professionals, physicians, or massage therapy service providers, with the help of a healthcare marketing plan, it becomes easier to conduct a more detailed evaluation with just one look at new business opportunities.
The nonprofit example below can be easily adapted for a healthcare provider who wants to assess and predict growth opportunities.
Use a healthcare marketing strategy as the benchmark for expanding your practice, opening new branches of your healthcare facilities, and improving avenues to gain revenue.
Patient interactions lead to advantageous networking
Establishing a good relationship with patients and clients should be one of the main marketing strategies of a healthcare organization.
These interactions could help healthcare marketers generate new ideas to improve search engine optimization, products, and healthcare services.
A bold healthcare marketing plan for social media engagement will make this process easier for healthcare professionals.
Related: How to Identify Patient Learning Styles: Teaching Patients More Effectively with Infographics
Use the healthcare marketing plan templates to reach patients effectively
Being in a constantly evolving industry, a healthcare organization should always bring its A-game. It should be ready with innovative and groundbreaking healthcare marketing strategies.
An effective healthcare marketing plan contributes to the success of your medical practice.
To help you work on your healthcare communications needs, Venngage offers a variety of reports and healthcare marketing templates so you can grow your business and improve patient education.
