Healthcare Marketing

Medical and health matters are among the most commonly searched topics on the internet.  In the past year, about 72% of internet users have searched for medical and healthcare information, including how to find a doctor in their area or help with a specific health concern.

People are actively searching for information, but not just any information.  They’re looking for reliable guidance that’s credible, relevant, and that they can trust.

What are you doing to reach out to the consumers, prospective patients, medical clients, and business partners in the health sector?  How are you engaging with them?

Competitive healthcare entities and medical organizations are gaining attention by presenting relevant content directed to patients’ concerns in a way is both relatable and that that gives the assurance of credibility.

What does it take to move the audience to choose YOUR organization over another?

Credibility is Essential

Thanks to the internet, medical consumers are both better informed and more skeptical of claims made in healthcare marketing.  The “credibility gap” is a reality with which you must contend.

How do you overcome that credibility gap ?  People need to have confidence that you’re genuine.  One way to establish that confidence and develop trust with your audience involves engaging them on an emotional level.  A great way to do that is through storytelling.

Narrating Your Story

Audiences today have shorter attention spans and a marked preference for watching videos over reading text.  The most effective marketing strategies are akin to storytelling.

Stories capture the mind as well as the emotions, enveloping an audience in an experience that’s proven effective for retaining information.

A good story provides a connection with human feelings, imagination, and curiosity.  Effective stories are designed for engagement with an audience and appeal to the heart and mind.

Storytelling helps forge empathy and understanding ‑‑ intangible factors that also happen to be inherent to healthcare.

Raw facts about healthcare procedures, pharmaceuticals, or medical providers will put information into the hands of your audience, BUT it’s the intangibles that invite them to trust.

Your story conveys those intangibles.

Storytelling That Works

Storytelling in commercial ads and online video content is becoming an increasingly essential component of healthcare marketing.  It’s probably the most effective way to humanize your organization while sharing information in a credible manner.

People looking for a doctor or medical provider often feel unsure, perhaps underinformed, and maybe overwhelmed.  By reaching out with a relatable story, you help put them at ease and give them assurance that you understand their thoughts and feelings ‑‑ you even empathize with what they’re experiencing.  Without adding to their anxiety, you can explain complicated information, soothe their fears and, most importantly, cultivate trust.

Giving Your Healthcare Brand a Voice

An outstanding example of storytelling applied in healthcare marketing is the Minute Series produced by the Mayo Clinic in which they tackle one health-related topic in about 60 seconds.  The pieces are quick, simple, informative, and cover a broad range of topics known to be of interest to their audience.

Another approach involves narrated patient stories.  These stories can touch emotions and create an identification and empathy you would never realize from a presentation laden with unrelatable concepts and medical terminology.  A masterfully crafted story, delivered by the right storyteller, is your key to the most effective online video content and commercial ads.

Medical service providers are not an interchangeable commodity.  Not all doctors are equivalent.  Not all hospitals are the same.  The voice that represents you needs to reflect what makes you distinctive.  Voice over narration can support or sink your marketing efforts.  Get the right voice for your brand.

You need a voice that’s reassuring, inspirational, and sometimes even sentimental.  People imagine medical institutions as cold and daunting.  You want a voice that brings warmth to this setting.  The voice of your brand must be knowledgeable, trustworthy, authentic, and safe.  You need a voice to embody the CREDIBILITY that must be conveyed to the world.  When your patients think about who they’ll turn to, who they’re going to trust, they should hear the voice of your campaign in their heads.

I take a very personal approach to voicing ads and videos for medical and healthcare providers, because, ultimately, health is very personal.  Healthcare interactions, whether on the giving or receiving end, are one person to one person at a time.  That’s how we want each person to hear your message ‑‑ as though I’m speaking directly to them.

The right voice over delivery humanizes your message.  Let’s tell your story, reach your audience and patients, and bring AUTHENTICITY and CREDIBILITY to your message, your healthcare organization, and your public facing image.