Healthcare marketers, and marketers in general, debate the effectiveness of everything… from colors and word choice to image selection and font size. So when 96 percent of marketers agree on something, it’s worth taking note of.
But what is that “something”?
It’s called personalized marketing. And not only do marketers agree that personalization advances customer relationships, but 86 percent of them also say they’ve seen a significant lift in their business resulting from personalized marketing campaigns. That’s according to a study cited by Forbes. But Forbes isn’t the only trusted source that is seeing these kinds of numbers. Personalized marketing is one of the most effective ways to get Facebook followers to pay attention to your marketing strategy. In another study, conducted by VentureBeat Insight, 91 percent of marketers saw a rise in email performance after implementing personalization.
Finally, McKinsey & Company has shown that personalization can lift sales by 10 percent or more and generate a five to eight times greater ROI. The list of success stories could go on, but let’s get into why personalization works so well.
Why is Personalization So Powerful?
If you’ve ever walked into a store that you’d shopped at before and been greeted by a sales associate who remembered your name and made suggestions based on your previous purchase, you’ve experienced personalization. And, consciously or not, you experienced the power of personalized healthcare marketing, albeit in a different way.
Imagine you’re at a crowded cocktail party, engaged in a conversation, surrounded by other conversations. Despite the noise, you’re able to focus on your conversation. Everything else is just a dull, unintelligible roar. However, if someone mentioned your name in a conversation, you’d be much more likely to hear that name clearly above the roar. Personalization, in essence, enables you to call out your prospects and patients in the large, noisy room that is their mail or email inbox.
Modern Healthcare Marketers Can Scale Personalization
Previously, even if you bought into the power of personalized healthcare marketing, it was expensive to implement and execute well. However, a big part of what makes personalization so powerful today is the significant advances made in marketing technology and service. Through tools that streamline list segmentation, data analysis, customer relationship management, and content distribution, healthcare marketers now have the ability to drive personalization efforts.
How These Tools Unleash the Power of Personalization
It all starts with data. But implementing personalization is not just about collecting data.
Segmenting Before Personalizing
One of the most fundamental aspects of personalization starts with well-segmented lists of patients and prospects. After all, how can you personalize your content if you haven’t defined how you’re going to adjust your positioning based on customer segments? There are a wide variety of options for you to start segmenting the lists you use for distribution. Regardless of how you end up segmenting, you should always start with your end goal in mind.
That way, you can work backward to each customer segment so you can build your messaging around guiding that segment to the end goal.
Manage Customer Relations and Content Distribution
Customer relationship management systems (CRMs) are the secret sauce of personalization. These tools allow you to track the journey of your customer from the first time they interact with your content all the way through their phone calls with your team.
As you track your customers, the system automatically assigns scores to each prospect based on your specified criteria. This score informs the system of the point at which each customer should be sent a postcard, given a call, or offered a discount. This allows you to set your criteria upfront and let the system do the heavy lifting of sending emails, direct mail or scheduling calls when appropriate.
Data Analysis for Continuous Personalization Improvements
Because personalized healthcare is possible with a set-it-and-forget-it approach, many marketers make the mistake of creating their system and walking away. But they’re missing out on one of the most powerful parts of personalized healthcare marketing: data analysis.
The truth is, you won’t know the best scoring system for your patients and prospects right off the bat. Nor will you be certain that you’re sending them the most relevant content, even if you get good results. However, by consistently analyzing results by running A/B tests, pulling reports, and more, you will truly unleash the full potential of personalized healthcare marketing.
Conclusion
Taking on a more personalized approach to your healthcare marketing will take some time, resources, and education. However, just as a more personalized approach to healthcare itself is increasingly becoming the norm for the industry, so will personalized healthcare marketing.
Even when they’re dealing with large companies, people want to feel like their specific needs are cared for. In most cases, particularly for a larger company, it’s just not financially feasible to cater to everyone’s needs. However, in the case of healthcare marketing, a more personalized approach, at a reasonable price, is within reach of just about everyone.