Common Reasons Your Healthcare Advertising Isn't Working

As more and more companies within the healthcare industry embrace inbound marketing and digital advertising, how a B2B healthcare company positions itself online becomes more important in getting more awareness, generating more leads and closing deals. With those incentives in mind, B2B healthcare companies are jumping to develop websites and inbound marketing programs that will tirelessly work for them and promote their brand messaging.

But if you’ve launched your website and marketing strategy only to receive less-than-exciting results, you may still have some work to do. Here at Whittington Consulting, we get to see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes of a healthcare company’s digital advertising efforts -- both what works and what doesn’t. Here are four surprisingly common reasons your healthcare advertising isn’t working:

1. You’ve adopted a one-size-fits-all healthcare advertising strategy

You’re competing with a number of companies that offer similar products or services. Your product or service (or the way you deliver it) is different, and your marketing efforts need to reflect that. You and your marketing partner need to identify this difference and present it to your customers clearly.

If you find your campaign to be a little more generic than you’d like, it’s time to do some homework. Invest time in asking important questions about your company’s purpose, culture, and values, and find a way to communicate those principles to your marketing efforts. It's time, too, to find out how well you know your ideal customer.

2. You emphasize your own perspective

Here’s one of the most common missteps in B2B advertising: not speaking your customer’s point of view. Often, companies will use their healthcare advertising to emphasize what makes them different from others in the industry using their own insider’s knowledge of their business and the industry itself. Using this insight, they end up talking about themselves more than about how their product or service could benefit their customer.

While company values are important to advertise, these kinds of messages aren’t the most powerful. In fact, they can be downright distracting. Your clients don’t necessarily care what makes your business special. They care how you can make their business special. And the best healthcare advertising will be explicit about your customer and his problems -- not your own business.

Has your advertising been a little selfish? You can fix that. Go back to the drawing board and look at your sales calls and help desk requests. Identify your customer’s most pressing concerns and seek to address them with specific landing pages and calls to action. Speak your customer’s language and they’ll talk a lot more!

3. Nothing ever changes

In the age of digital marketing, it seems like there's something new every day. Without the guiding hand of an experienced healthcare advertising firm, you may be too intimidated to ever try anything new.

Healthcare B2B advertising should involve a mix of traditional advertising methods and modern digital strategies. Embracing every new technology isn’t a coherent strategy -- but neither is ignoring new tools that might help you reach your audience. Move strategically, not randomly, for more success online.

To make sure you’re guiding your advertising campaign with core values rather than Google Glasses, keep your target audience in mind. Make advertising choices based on what you know about your target audience, and be open to advertising where they spend their time online, too.

4. You’re more interested in promoting than educating

As HubSpot illustrated in a post about the Da Vinci robotic surgery, if you’re focused solely on promoting your medical device or healthcare service, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Educational content is powerful. Not only does it provide more transparency in your company’s approach to its industry, but it also establishes your company as a thought leader and instructor in your industry.

Rather than spending your entire healthcare advertising budget on promoting your products and services (think print magazines and newsletters), open your strategy up to developing online content assets that can educate clients rather than advertise to them. A client that enjoys your approach to educating on your topic will be more open to pursuing a business relationship with your company.