The use of telehealth spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, statistics show that office visits and outpatient care via telehealth were 78x higher than before. The drastic increase was due to lockdown and the inability to create face-to-face appointments.
During the pandemic, telehealth offered a bridge to care. However, since then, there has been a decline in usage and telehealth services have stabilised at 38x the initial usage pre-pandemic.
Now, telehealth brands want to reinvent the service and showcase to their audience a new form of healthcare access — a virtual and hybrid service that is affordable and reliable. This message change puts pressure on marketing teams to ensure their efforts cut through the noise and reach their desired audience.
So, how do telehealth marketers increase brand awareness and reach their target audience? Well, we’ve put together three crucial brand awareness methods to guarantee success.
It’s no surprise that social media is a great marketing tool for all businesses. Regardless of what sector, industry or field you’re in, social selling should be a crucial element of your marketing strategy.
We recommend doing the following to make the most out of your social media.
With technology advancing and a new form of communication hitting our screens, joining all social media platforms will be overwhelming. Instead, telehealth marketers should research what platforms their target audience is predominantly browsing and invest in that platform.
Once you’ve dominated that platform, you can move to the next — as long as your audience uses that platform.
When building brand awareness, it can be easy just to post what you offer. However, this hard-sell content will not captivate your audience. You want to build a genuine connection and show your audience what your brand stands for.
We recommend an 80/20 split when social selling. This means that 80% of the content you post is a gradual approach to selling your services (soft-sell). For example, thought leadership articles, company culture posts or industry news. Doing this allows you to interact with your audience and form a relationship. That way, when they’re ready to use a telehealth service provider, you’ll be at the top of their mind.
The remaining 20% of your content (hard-sell) encourages your audience to take immediate action. You can do this by either using a call to action (CTA) or a post about your services. Although it's enlightening, regularly hard-selling your services can be tiresome and loose engagement.
The telehealth industry, in particular, needs to create trust amongst its audience. Authenticity is crucial to building this wholesome relationship. So, avoid all the sales jargon and stop beating around the bush. Instead, offer your audience genuine advice, resources and help that will benefit them.
Content marketing is a crucial contributor to building brand awareness for your telehealth company. Delivering high-quality content helps build trust in your brand and service, engage potential stakeholders, and establish your company as a thought leader.
Every good telehealth content marketing effort begins with a carefully created strategy that supports your business needs and goals. That said, most content marketing strategies will contain a combination of the following content:
Investing in content marketing and building a strategy for it is one of the most important steps you can take to increase brand awareness for your telehealth brand.
Increasing brand awareness is much easier if you have a network of people who like and engage with your business.
In addition, if you build a community of loyal followers, you can inspire them to spread the word about your telehealth services. In fact, companies that encourage both customers and employees to network regularly tend to outperform their competitors financially.
You can expand your network and build a community around your brand in several ways. You can host events, webinars, and Q&A sessions to encourage people to engage with your brand and their peers.
Encouraging active participation from the members of your community helps them feel like you give them a valuable and exclusive experience. Moreover, if people feel like they belong somewhere, they’re more likely to return to that place for support and guidance.
One effective way to prove your expertise and trustworthiness to your network is to partner with industry experts such as doctors and other healthcare professionals. Invite these experts to speak at your events or join in answering questions, for example.
Confidence-building is key when marketing telehealth. As with anything new, it’s natural for people to feel concerned if they’re unfamiliar with your brand. However, health-related issues are often sensitive, leaving your audience feeling even more nervous.
One effective way to build confidence and establish yourself as a trusted brand is to clearly outline what the registration process will look like for new patients. Since procedures vary between providers, describing the steps will set expectations and help ensure that more patients complete them.
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