Marketing to doctors may be more complex than one may imagine. Reaching out can be complicated, challenging, and expensive. As doctors work in multi-location medical practices, it is hard to identify the key decision-makers. This blog will take you through the latest strategies for marketing to doctors. Before doing so, let’s take a quick look at the trendiest stats for the same:
- 23.7% is the average open rate of healthcare email marketing.
- 3% is the average click-through rate of healthcare email marketing
- Almost 70,000 healthcare searches are performed every minute.
- Around 80% of internet users have looked up health-related concerns. (Indicating that doctors are going to be impacted by the resources on the internet while making decisions.)
- 5% of all the searches on Google are health-related.
Healthcare Market Valuation:
The US healthcare market is the most expensive compared to the healthcare facilities in any other country. According to Deloitte, in 2019, the US spent 16.8% of its GDP; the second closest was expenditure in Germany, 11.7% of its GDP on healthcare. Switzerland took the third place with a spent percentage of 11.3%. Considering the continuation of the current trend, the US will spend 26% of the GDP by the year 2040.
When it comes to market valuation, according to the national healthcare market of US, it reached a $4.3 trillion valuation in 2021 (the pandemic driving the numbers). By 2028, the global healthcare market is estimated to reach a valuation of $665.37
Which Are The Industry Sectors That Can Market to Doctors?
A few industries that can mingle with doctors are mentioned below.
- Hospitals, clinics, healthcare facilities, and any other form of healthcare service provider can market to physicians and doctors who are interested in working in partnership.
- Medical device and equipment managers confidently carry forward their B2B marketing to doctors, as medical practitioners are highly likely to be interested in their services and products.
- Healthcare insurance providers should consider marketing to doctors for their network expansion so their policyholders can secure their practice with long-term goals.
- Then comes the recruitment agencies for b2b marketing to doctors, as they specialize in medical staffing and are always looking for potential candidates for distinguished healthcare positions.
- Medical institutes form correspondence with doctors for collaborations on clinical studies and medical research projects.
- Healthcare associations and communities constantly communicate with doctors to keep them updated about conferences, industry updates, and upcoming events.
- Lastly, educational institutes form alliances with renowned doctors for curriculum enhancement, workshops, and guest lectures.
All industry sectors mentioned above that are loosely or directly associated with doctors can benefit when they market to doctors. With proven strategies, these industries can efficiently sell to healthcare providers.
Job Roles to Target While Considering Marketing to Doctors
Previously, we covered the different sectors of industries that can reach doctors to inflate their business profitability. Marketing to doctors is indirectly connected to patrons who work for doctors. It depends upon your business niche to explore which job segments besides doctors can benefit from your product/service.
- Pharmacists: Pharmacists play a crucial role in the healthcare industry. Their job is all about contacting multiple segments of doctors for educational materials, compounding services, and products.
- Hospital Administrator: Interact with the hospital administrator to offer services orienting equipment, service solutions, and healthcare management.
- Healthcare Executives: Advertise your products to CEOs and COOs for strategic management solutions, consultancy services, and partnerships.
- Medical Researchers: If your line of work demands collaborations for research projects, knowledge exchange, and clinical trials, then professionals working as medical representatives are your target audience.
- Healthcare Supplier: Your product contributes to the medical industry by selling medical equipment. Start working on robust medical supplies sales strategies.
- Telemedicine Providers: Your target market also include telemedicine providers for endorsing medical consultancy services and technology solutions.
- Agencies and Marketers: Every industry is living in the dawn of digital marketing. In case you are facing challenges, tap into the right inboxes. Collaborate with professionals in B2B marketing to doctors for promotions, advertisement, and marketing services.
Being aware of multiple sects of job roles that can further connect to doctors is extensive research work, which is why many organizations collaborate with data insiders to discover different categories of target audiences. For marketing to the job mentioned above, a renowned physicians’ email list will suffice the marketer’s requirement.
Top #5 Strategies to Grow Your Business by Marketing to Doctors
Now that you are aware of the blooming healthcare market and who in the market is your target audience, let’s focus on the advantages of strategies that will help you market to the doctors.
1. Defining Your Target Audience:
Before channelling your marketing endeavours, it is much appreciated to know whom to market. Businesses considering marketing to doctors must consider factors such as practice size, location, and facility to enhance the vitality of their business.
- Businesses personalize the marketing messages and every brand content in alignment with the doctor’s interest, consequentially increasing engagement and attention. Recently, HubSpot has brought to marketers’ attention that personalized emails have 41.2% open rates and 6.9% click-through rates, respectively, for the healthcare and fitness industry.
- Knowing your target audience well, which in the case here are doctors, helps marketers articulate the doctor’s grievances better. Come up with a solution that suits the doctor’s needs; the overall process showcases marketers understand the pain point better.
- When the marketing message resonates with doctors, it considerably increases the chances that doctors will take action. This can be done by attending webinars, booking appointments, or purchasing products and services.
2. Publishing and Promoting Educational Content:
Healthcare professionals invest significant time learning about the latest advancements in the industry. Your organization must create value-adding webinars, blog posts, and whitepapers containing solutions to their challenges. Following are a few pointers showing how publishing educational content is essential for B2B healthcare marketing:
- Pharmaceutical companies developing new drugs can position their organization as an industry expert. Highlighting the importance of drugs and creating insightful blogs about manufacturing and supply chain management can impress doctors significantly.
- The information gap can be addressed through educational content on clinical guidelines, treatment options, and the latest research. Take part in reducing the gap to enhance user care, become the doctors’ most liked marketers.
- Doctors who want to market your product must know how your product/services improved user care. This way doctors can contribute to improving user outcomes, which is their end goal.
3. Employ Email Marketing for Enhanced Outreach:
The average unsubscribe rate for most industries is 0.19%, whereas the healthcare industry’s average unsubscribe rate is 0.07%. B2B email marketing strategies for healthcare are the best way to reach distinguished doctors. Send personalized, targeted, and healthcare regulation-compliant (HIPAA) emails to achieve the best marketing results.
- Medical software solution providers, healthcare equipment manufacturers, and pharmaceutical and medical suppliers will benefit from email marketing. Email marketing allows B2B marketers to reach doctors directly, delivering content relevant to their demographics, specialties, and specific interests.
- For every healthcare solution provider, you must have a long list of subscribers, which is necessary to run a successful B2B email marketing campaign. In such scenarios, acquiring a physician database that contains the contact details of all the distinguished doctors will help you tap into the right business.
- Other benefits start following through with the implementation of email marketing campaigns. They build relationships and trust with patrons, increase engagement, nurture leads, and enhance cost-effectiveness.
4. Build Connections through Social Media:
Social media is a promising place to meet a broader audience. Businesses that create a professional presence on these platforms engage actively with doctors by participating in discussions, sharing relevant content, building relationships, and running targeted campaigns to expand their market size.
- A study by Manatt Health highlighted that 88% of physicians use social media for professional and personal use. In marketing, the common belief is that marketers should present where their target audience is available.
- Another study by AMN Healthcare suggests that 60% of doctors believe that social media improves the quality of patient care. As organizations share valuable insights and establish themselves as thought leaders, it provides doctors with additional sources of information to forward to the end users.
- Research conducted by the Journal of Medical Internet Research found that around 45% of physicians use social media for networking, collaboration, and gathering feedback about various sects of their work.
5. Collaboration with Key Opinion Leaders:
Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) are specialty doctors who have gained a distinguished reputation after significant years of practice. Forming collaborations with KOLs brings visibility and credibility to your brand. The subject of collaboration can be sponsoring educational events, inviting doctors to organizations events, research studies, and work related to your product and service. Renowned doctors endorsing your organization benefit your business tremendously.
- Research insights say that influencer marketing generates 11 times higher ROI than any other form of digital marketing. KOLs are influencers in the world of doctors connected to a large pool of doctors. Therefore, it opens an excellent opportunity for marketers to reach targeted groups.
- Doctors are also motivated to work on any recommendation from their peers. If marketers can collaborate with key opinion leaders, they can leverage the connection to begin a relationship with a large audience of physicians.
- Lastly, the expertise of KOL, with years of work and real-world scenarios, guides marketers to refine their offerings to meet the doctors’ aspirations.
These are the top five simplified ways of marketing to doctors; other approaches include top-notch client services, offering to continuing medical education, and networking in industry events to generate a spontaneous flow of leads.
Wrapping Up
Marketing to doctors poses out-of-the-box challenges, and at the same time, trying to overcome the challenges is a fruitful journey as it bears incredible opportunities. Keep integrating the suggestions you have learned throughout the article; it will help you outshine your competitors and bring your products and services to doctors’ notice as it genuinely resonates with them.