Location Based Advertising Trends in HealthCare

The nation’s healthcare delivery system continues to evolve. A curious thing about trend-watching is not that trends suddenly appear. Sometimes that’s true, but not always. In fact, marketing professionals are aware of the healthcare marketing trends on our list.

What is important–the significant dynamic at work here–is change. It is the degree of change that marks a meaningful trend. It becomes something worth watching, evaluating and bringing into your thinking and your strategy.

A backdrop of near-constant change in healthcare brings challenges and opportunities. Doctors, hospital executives and marketing professionals have the option of “going along,” or they can proactively manage the course and direction of change. In our modern era of technology, many are turning to location-based advertising to draw in new patients and customers.

Location Based Online Search Ads

When it comes to location-based healthcare marketing, web crawler/search engine optimization is one of the most widely used approaches. Google Search Data shows that 89% of consumers use search engines for healthcare information, showing that internet searching is most often the starting point for the average person's healthcare provider.

To capitalize on this, marketing teams for healthcare establishments are progressively making moves into the online realm to pursuit new customers by targeting people within a geographic space close to their businesses. Practically speaking, this is done by setting parameters on advertisements so they reach specific consumer bases inside of specific regions/areas, fusing area specific keywords into promotions and webpages, and utilizing geo-extensions in their AdWords campaign so that their business address shows up next to advertisements.

Healthcare Apps

The idea of location-based marketing isn't a new one, but the ease of entry is more attainable than ever. For quite a while, advertisers have been using physical advertisements such as print embeds in nearby local neighborhoods to attract and contact adjacent customers; however, with the rapid ascent of more advanced technological channels of communications, advertisers have a chance to take these time tested methodologies and bring them into the digital realm.

New strategies for our modern world can be found in the highlights that some medicinal services associations have started to consolidate into their versatile applications. Instead of relying on ads out in the world, hospitals and clinics have begun releasing their own brand-specific ads that their clients can create accounts on. Within the app, marketers have access to customer profiles, location data, and previous healthcare history in order to deliver the most personalized and convenient experience for their customers. Consumers using these apps can find and access coupons and deals targeted to their needs and location.

Geo-Fencing

Geo-fencing is a tool for location based advertising that allows you to target potential customers by forming a virtual geographic boundary around an area based off of a specific set of coordinates, and allowing you to set the radius and range as large as you would like. The area of a geofence could be as small as as an office cubicle and as large as a football stadium or even larger. The benefit of the geofence is that once consumers cross your virtual boundary, they can be served advertisements that are captured specifically for any customer within the area.

For healthcare providers, this can provide pertinent information about their patients: average stay time, frequency of visits, which clinic they visit, etc. Through the geofence, healthcare marketers can also deliver location based notifications and texts. When a customer downloads your app and accepts to receive notifications, it opens a whole new world of invaluable engagements techniques. Imagine having the capacity to show a time-sensitive offer when a client enters a hospital or clinic, or being shown a notification that prompts a user to take action on their mobile phone- whether it be scheduling their next appointment date and time, paying their insurance/medical bill from their phone, or leading them to links that provide more information on their sickness or ailment.

Takeaway

These are only a sample of what location based advertising can do in the healthcare sphere. Location based notifications have real-world advantages- including direct integration into mobile devices and high perceivability to users- benefits which are certainly appealing and speak to the goals of marketing professionals.