Join Tim Lane, Senior Digital Marketing Strategist, and Kelly Collins, Digital Marketing Strategist, as they give a quick overview of the top questions they hear day in and day out consulting with healthcare marketers just like you. Then, they’ll turn the majority of their time over to you, loyal webinar attendees, to ask the burning questions. Sign up and submit your questions early, or ask during the live webinar.

You will learn:

• What top technical aspects of SEO most healthcare marketers don’t capitalize on
• Why Google My Business is a must-do
• If voice search is really a game-changer
• The key features of the recent Google update
• The answers to any questions you have – surprise us!

Whether you’re in charge of your organization’s intranet, or you contribute to its content, you may have noticed where it’s lacking and may even be questioning if it’s time to upgrade. Here are five reasons why you might be ready for a better, more sustainable and flexible healthcare intranet.

1. You Can’t Access Your Intranet on Mobile Devices

Your distributed teams across the organizations – from marketing to clinical to environmental safety – need access to your employee communications and documents at the most convenient times. That includes on devices of their choosing.

If your intranet is homegrown or outdated, it likely only performs on a desktop computer. But for employees who are mostly connected by mobile or tablet within your facility, it might not be such a friendly experience. In fact, according to the Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine, physicians’ use of smartphones has increased from 68% in 2012 to 85% in 2015. Another survey found that more than half of nurses have used their smartphone instead of asking colleagues for information.

An accessible, responsive, and mobile-first intranet is a great answer to help your non-desktop employees find what they need when they need it.

2. All Your Forms Are Still PDFs

Once upon a time, it was normal to have all of your employee forms and documents on paper. As intranets evolved, those paper forms probably found their way into scanners and onto your network drives as PDFs.

Nielsen Norman Group – the foremost authority in online user experience – says intranet experiences improve when you convert print content, like forms and newsletters, to online experiences.

“Search, navigation, and online reading are all enhanced when you convert content into well-designed intranet pages,” writes Nielsen Norman Group, “each containing a meaningful chunk of information about a specific topic with cross-reference links to related material.”

Today, forms are easier to track, manage, route, and complete online. Online forms give you the power to monitor engagement, abandonment, and more. You can set up workflows so forms are routed to the correct people or teams. Most of all, they’re easier to use for your employees (especially on mobile!).

If you are still drowning in PDFs on your intranet, it might be time to look at other options, such as Formulate, which offers flexible, author-friendly form management for healthcare.

3. Employee Engagement is Impossible to Track

When intranets were just document repositories, it was probably not imperative to track the length of a user’s visit, the documents they visited, or what they were trying to accomplish. But in today’s modern intranet world, that type of information can be extremely handy in improving employee communication and engagement.

Tracking employee engagement comes in many forms. The first is the ability to apply measurement tools, like Google Analytics, to track high-level traffic of your intranet. With Google Analytics, you can answer:

• What pages are employees visiting the most, and why?
• How are employees finding the information or documents they need?
• What stories and news are most engaging?
• What’s the page journey or path for users? Where are they going from one page to the next?
• What and how they’re using site search to find?

Another way to track engagement is simply to ask. Including online forms for feedback allows employees and team members to reach out to your intranet’s team directly with questions, feedback, and ideas to continue improving the intranet and support the everyday activities of your staff.

4. Communicating Changes Across the Organization is Challenging

Email inboxes get flooded. Printed newsletters might get missed. Reaching your colleagues and staff with important updates and news is difficult even on good days, but when life at your organization is busy or hectic, that content is even easier to miss.

Instead, a digital workplace invites staff to find information relevant to them. An online content hub for your employee newsletter gives you more flexibility to publish stories that are meaningful to your colleagues and staff. Spotlight important news and updates on your intranet’s homepage to grab attention. Use your intranet as a link in emails to send people to the content they need when they have time to read it.

By connecting your intranet and email marketing platform, you can send more targeted emails to specific groups and teams, making your communication outreach more personalized and effective.

5. Your Intranet is Difficult to Use

User experience (UX) is the foremost quality that defines the success of any tool. In the case of intranets, its success can build a bridge between technology and employee satisfaction. But without it, employee productivity can flounder.

In fact, today’s intranet is less a “tool” and more a “digital workspace.” While it’s still the home of documents, policies, and benefits information, its definition has expanded into a collaborative space where employees can communicate more easily and find information more freely. These digital workspaces are an engaging experience rather than a filing cabinet.

These days, digital workplaces have even expanded to include more personalized experiences, delivering content on the homepage that’s specific to the person logging in.

And for authors and department leaders, your intranet software might not be delivering an easy experience to make content updates, which could lead to stale content across your intranet.

Ease of use and user experience are intertwined in an intranet’s success. If you’re frustrated by your intranet, your colleagues probably are, too.

Start Building Your Case to Upgrade

If you agreed with the experiences outlined here, it might be time to build a case for a better intranet. Geonetric can help you get started. Whether you’re looking for a user experience consultation on your current platform, or you want to talk about services to help you improve the intranet you have today, we’ll be happy to answer the call.

Request a demo of VitalSite to learn more about our robust CMS and services to take your intranet to the next level.

In 2005 when Geonetric started the Healthcare Digital Marketing Trends Survey, access to data on how organizations were using digital was minimal. And data around how healthcare specifically was using digital was even scarcer.

In 2005 websites were still becoming the norm. Content management systems weren’t as sophisticated as they are today. Building MarTech stacks wasn’t even on most marketers’ radar.

Take the 2020 Healthcare Digital Marketing Trends survey today!.

As an industry, mergers and acquisitions weren’t business as usual. Telehealth wasn’t common in traditional provider settings and has only taken off for most organizations in the last five years. Consumerism wasn’t a term used in healthcare in 2005, and most healthcare consumers weren’t really worried about their rising out-of-pocket costs. Not to mention, according to Pew Research, only 65% of Americans owned a cell phone in 2005, compared to 96% today.

Geonetric started the Healthcare Digital Marketing Trends Survey primarily to help our clients gauge must-have features for their websites and intranets. Provider, location, and service directories weren’t as common, and the data helped organizations – and us – learn how hospitals were using the web to connect site visitors with doctors and services.

Snapshot of 2005 results

Looking back the first survey results show just how far we come, but at the time the data was invaluable as teams worked to defend investments in digital to their executives.

In 2005:

• Less than a third of respondent organizations (32%) invested more than $150,000 per year on digital.
• Only 42% of organizations surveyed had the ability for patients to pay their bills online.
• Of the technologies that we surveyed, CRM software was listed as the least important technology for reaching respondents’ goals.

In the 2019 survey, you can see just how much the industry has changed.

Digging into the 2019 data, we learned:

• The actual staff investment by healthcare organizations is much larger than previously believed, with leaders averaging 25 FTEs dedicated to digital!
• Excellence in content continues to be one of the critical differentiators for leading organizations, while digital strategy rose to the top for the first time.
• The top functional area for growth is digital advertising, an indication of the success of online ads along with a diminishing organic reach on many platforms.
• Budgets continue to shift from traditional marketing to digital, with median budgets last year between $50,000 and $300,000.
• Despite the growing adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) systems, there is still a tremendous gap between the importance of demonstrating the financial impact on marketing investments and the ability to deliver.

ROI: The constant obstacle

In that first survey in 2005 respondents were asked what their biggest obstacle was. They replied, proving ROI (return on investment).

In 2019 – ROI is still a concern. Although it’s still an obstacle in a lot of ways, the way it poses a problem today demonstrates just how much more sophisticated we all are.

ROI is no longer the top digital goal, falling behind consumer experience, consumer engagement, patient acquisition, patient satisfaction, and consumer awareness in the 2019 results – but it still proves elusive to demonstrate.

In an effort to look more deeply into obstacles around ROI, survey respondents who indicated they were not able to demonstrate positive ROI were asked an additional question to uncover the reason in 2019. With almost 69%, lack of tools and infrastructure topped the list of reasons ROI is hard to measure. Despite inroads in CRM implementations, healthcare organizations are still struggling to tie financial results to marketing efforts. This may be due to the level of integration with CRM platforms, failure to successfully link with other financial systems, or may result from the types of marketing and campaign efforts used by healthcare organizations. Even more interesting is the second most cited reason: Nearly one-third of respondents indicated they don’t measure ROI because no one is asking them to do so.

What will the 10th edition tell us?

Every year the survey shows us just how far we’ve come as an industry to make our digital experiences more meaningful for healthcare consumers. And this year, with COVID-19 changing the healthcare landscape dramatically, we’ve added new questions and sections to help healthcare marketers better gauge how employee communications and content marketing are continuing to shift as we all return to a new normal.

This year’s survey marks our 15th year and will be our 10th edition. We hope you will participate and help build the knowledge base for the industry as a whole.

That’s why a solid, up-to-date content strategy is at the foundation of every good website. Read on for some signs that you need to refresh, revamp, or enhance your organization’s content strategy.

1. You’re not sure what content lives your digital properties.

Your digital content is a valuable asset. Just like your physical assets, it can create revenue and deliver ongoing value to your organization. Do you track your digital assets with the same care that you track your physical assets? Do you know what content you own, where it lives, and what it’s about?

If not, you may inadvertently waste time and resources creating duplicate content. Duplicate content is bad for both SEO and user experience. Even more concerning, if you’re not sure what content lives on your site, you may be sharing outdated or inaccurate information with your target audiences.

Depending on your situation, a variety of content strategy tools can help. You’ll likely need to start by taking inventory of your content. Next steps may include a content audit or a content maintenance checklist and log.

2. You struggle to get internal buy-in and alignment regarding website content, or it’s unclear who gets to make decisions around content.

Maybe you work in a culture where everyone wants a say in your website – and everyone has a different idea of what’s best. Who is your primary audience? What is the main goal of your website? How will you achieve that goal? What content is highest priority? And when two or more stakeholders disagree about the best direction or approach, who gets to make the final call?

When these common questions aren’t settled, updating content may become a lengthy, unpleasant process. Or you may end up with an inconsistent, confusing user experience on your website or across your digital properties.

Here’s where a content governance strategy makes your life easier. Content governance includes tools such as:

• Content strategy statements
• Project role and responsibility exercises
• Workflow documentation
• Content maintenance calendar

An objective third party (like your agency) can use these tactics to help your team and stakeholders get on the same page. That means your work will be more peaceful, productive, and efficient.

3. Too many visitors use site search.

On sites like Google and Amazon, search rules. Healthcare websites are different. Your users generally prefer to use your website navigation. It’s faster and easier to recognize and click on a word than it is to think of a search query, enter it (with correct spelling), and then evaluate the results. (Bear in mind: Only 12% of adults have proficient health literacy.)

If more than 4% of visits include site search, that’s a red flag. It means your users are having trouble finding content by clicking through your navigation. Maybe you have content gaps. Or maybe your website isn’t organized and labeled in a way that makes sense to your site visitors. Either way, it’s time for some content strategy sleuthing.

4. Your content categories read like your organizational chart.

Your intranet is for your organization. Your website is for your consumers. Have you built them that way?

On an intranet, it’s natural to organize information based on internal, departmental structure. It may make sense to use branded terms and medical jargon.

Your website, however, is for external audiences. It should categorize and label information in way that’s accessible to people with little to no experience with healthcare – or your organization. This helps them better understand and use your website.

It can be hard to put yourself in the shoes of an external audience when you’re so steeped in the culture of your organization. Content strategists and digital marketing specialists can help you better understand the preferences, goals, and perspectives of the people you’re trying to reach through user research and testing. Then, they can apply those findings to a content strategy that resonates with your audiences while also helping you reach your goals.

5. Analytics reveal a high bounce rate.

Your bounce rate shows the number of people who land on a page on your website, and then leave without another interaction with your site.

Defining a “good” or “bad” bounce rate gets tricky and requires understanding of how each page fits in the user journey.

On some page types, a high bounce rate can indicate that your content has done its job. For example, it’s not unusual for location pages to have a high bounce rate. That’s likely because users came to the page seeking an address or phone number, got what they needed, and left.

On other pages, a high bounce rate is less desirable. It’s not a good sign, for example, to see a high bounce rate in a bariatric surgery section intended to educate patients about their options and guide them toward registering for an online or in-person seminar.

When bounce rates for your foundational content exceed 65%, it’s time to take a close look at your content and overall user experience. You may discover opportunities to improve content, calls to action, meta data, your mobile experience, or other specific elements of your site.

Sometimes It’s Best to Start Outside Your Organization

If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you may need content strategy. But getting started internally can be hard, especially if your organization lacks clarity about who gets to make decisions about digital content. Sometimes an outside agency can help. If you’re ready to get a process around your content, our experts would love to help.

Join Ben Dillon, Chief Strategy Officer at Geonetric and David Sturtz, Vice President of Business Development at Geonetric, for a conversation about digital transformation in healthcare and what it means for your short- and long-term digital strategy.

You’ll learn:

• What does “digital transformation” look like in healthcare?
• What lessons can healthcare learn from digital transformation in other industries? What pitfalls should be avoided?
• How will this shift in organizational priorities impact your digital, UX, and content strategies?
• How can marketing pro-actively engage organizational leaders to gain a seat at the table as these initiatives are planned?
• What are the foundational processes and systems – from journey mapping to CRM – for a robust consumer-centered strategy? And how can you move forward quickly if those aren’t in place?

What’s a Content Marketing Maturity Model?

A maturity model is a tool that helps your team create benchmarks and improve your efforts. Using a set of levels and criteria, Geonetric’s content marketing maturity model helps you identify where you’re succeeding and where you can improve.

Elements of Our Content Marketing Maturity Model

Effective, mature content marketing requires attention to the entire content marketing process – from goal-setting and audience research, to content development and publication, to tracking and analyzing your content’s performance.

Our content marketing maturity model breaks down into seven key components:

1. Strategy –Creating, publishing, and distributing content within the framework of an agreed-upon plan or approach
2. Audience research and insights – Understanding the goals, needs, and preferences of the people you’re trying to reach
3. Planning and workflow –Producing, delivering, and reporting the results of content marketing within your team within an agreed-upon process
4. Content development – Researching and creating content
5. Technology – Using software and tools to publish content marketing as well as target and reach audiences
6. Publication and distribution – Sharing, distributing, and promoting your content marketing across channels
7. Analysis and optimization – Using data to measure performance and adjust approach

Within each component are three levels of maturity: Beginner, intermediate, and advanced. See where you align within each content marketing component in our content marketing maturity chart.

How to Use the Model

Use the model to assess your current content marketing efforts. Ask yourself:

• Where do you fall today in each category?
• Which areas are current strengths?
• Where do you see gaps and areas for improvement?
• What are your goals? Where would you like to grow?
• What areas of growth will provide the highest value to your content marketing efforts?
• What areas of growth will be easiest for your team to take on? Which will require significant effort to gain resources or buy-in?
• Where do you have internal interest, experience, or expertise? Where do you need to invest in training or hiring?
• Where would it be beneficial to work with a partner or vendor?

Use the answers you uncover to prioritize areas for growth and create a roadmap to move forward.

How Mature Is Your Content Marketing?

Find out where your content marketing efforts stand. Take our content marketing maturity quiz to discover your strengths and opportunities to improve.

If you’re ready to move your brand experience forward, reach out to Geonetric. You’ll partner with healthcare content marketing experts who can help your team create valuable connections with your target audience, driving brand recognition and engagement in new ways.

What Moms-To-Be Want to Know

Figure out what your maternity patients want to know about the coronavirus and pregnancy. Coronavirus is a huge search topic right now. Look at online sources to help focus concerns for expecting moms. Consider:

• What searches are trending on Google? Look at Google Trends to find popular terms and topics. On a Google search results page, check the common questions knowledge box or look at “searches related to” at the bottom of the page.
• What information are organizations like the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, American Academy of Pediatrics, and March of Dimes putting out for this audience?
• What questions are women asking on social media? Explore Facebook groups, Reddit threads, etc.

And use your organization’s providers as local experts. Talk to your OB-GYNs and midwives to find out what questions their patients are asking them.

Strengthen Your Content Marketing Assets

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pregnant women should protect themselves from COVID-19. People look for information to reduce anxiety. Content marketing during a crisis can educate and improve patient trust in your organization.

Reference search trends and resources, and apply your marketing knowledge to create a list of pregnancy and COVID-19 related blog topics or content marketing hub articles. Answer questions people are asking, such as:

• Can becoming ill with COVID-19 increase my risk of miscarriage?
• Is it safe to deliver my baby in a hospital now? Should I change my labor and delivery plans?
• How does COVID-19 change prenatal and postpartum care visits?
• If I get COVID-19 while I’m pregnant, can I pass it to my unborn baby?
• Will I be tested for COVID-19 when I’m admitted for labor and delivery?

Draw Attention to Care & Safety Changes

Your organization and moms-to-be have the same priority – a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. Most hospitals and health care systems have modified their prenatal care because of COVID-19. Send updates to patients about care or process changes to:

• Expand infection-control practices and safety measures to protect mothers and newborns
• Replace some in-person prenatal care visits with telephone and virtual visits for women with low-risk pregnancies
• Increase waiting room precautions (masks) and procedures
• Provide wearable home monitoring devices for women with high-risk pregnancies and those who face barriers to accessing prenatal care
• Move preparedness education classes online
• Limit support people present during birth
• Restrict visitors
• Shorten the length of hospital stays

Informing patients about changes is relatively easy with established communication channels. Reach your patients through your patient portal, website, email, and social media. Consider using live, online chat sessions with your experts to answer maternity patient questions and ease fears. They will appreciate the fact that you’re addressing their needs with patient-friendly, practical solutions.

Reassure & Prepare Worried Patients

Giving birth during COVID-19 is an unfamiliar experience and comes with anxieties and expectations. First-time moms and moms with other children may be facing a different birthplace experience than they anticipated. Help reduce the unknown as much as possible by communicating exactly what patients will experience, step-by-step, when they come to deliver their baby. Emphasize the safety of mom, partner, baby, and staff.

Offer Facts to Make Informed Care Choices

Concerns about COVID-19 and visitor restrictions are making some pregnant women reconsider giving birth at a hospital. Explain why hospitals are a safer option for the mother and baby when giving birth. Explain that you have advanced technology and expert providers available to care for any problems during labor and delivery and after. Deliver easy-to-understand messages written in plain language so women can make informed choices about their care.

Extend Mental Well-Being Support

It’s normal for pregnant women to feel overwhelmed by the challenges COVID-19 brings to their pregnancy and newborn care. Provide patients with ways to manage their feelings, such as:
• Linking them to your online support groups or one associated with a national organization
• Offering digital wellness resources through your website to support lifestyle changes, mental health, self-care, and stress relief
• Highlighting the availability of referrals for therapy and counseling if needed

Highlight Community Outreach & Convenient Care

Community outreach, education, and care programs that impact maternal health and prenatal care are a focus of many hospitals and health care systems. Meeting pregnant women in their communities to provide for their health care needs is one way to ensure they continue to get the care they need. Publicize your efforts towards home health, mobile health, digital community education, and convenient services women can get within their communities or through telemedicine.

Make Childbirth a Joyful, Positive Experience

Remember, childbirth is one of the most memorable experiences of parents’ lives. Continue to celebrate bringing a new baby into the world – even during a pandemic. Focus on the important aspects of a safe and healthy delivery and newborn bonding. Craft messages that assure patients they will receive the same exceptional care during COVID-19 as they would any other time.

Share Experiences

Relieve pregnant women’s fears with patient and provider stories. Share narratives from maternity nurses about the care they give and from maternity patients who praise your hospital for the amazing care and successful delivery of their babies during COVID-19.

Avera Health wrote a patient story about two separate moms’ insights on their recent deliveries. Although they acknowledged their worries and disappointments dues to Avera policy changes due to COVID-19, they also share how they had good experiences even though it wasn’t what they originally imagined.

Cone Health created two patient birth stories. One story is about the early delivery of a mother’s first baby. The other tells the story of a mom who had pregnancy complications before and after birth.

Connect with Your Patients

Be a trusted source of information and support for your maternity patients during COVID-19 and they won’t forget your messaging during this challenging time.

If you need help creating compelling digital content that connects with your target audiences, contact Geonetric.

Identifying Post-Pandemic Personas

Like most marketers, you likely make email marketing part of your marketing arsenal. As we move into the next phase of this historic pandemic, you’ll probably reach out to patients who fall into one of three categories:

1. “Ready to Go” – People who are eager to return to everyday life as quickly as possible, with no hesitation to visit doctors’ offices again
2. “Nervous but Necessary” – People who understand it’s time to visit their doctor, schedule a checkup, or follow through on a procedure, but might need some help feeling comfortable
3. “Not Yet Ready” – People who aren’t comfortable venturing into public yet, and might be harder to encourage to come in for care

Your hospitals and doctors’ offices are probably buzzing with new protocols to ensure patient safety, and you’ve probably started communicating them with patients. Before they come to your facility, follow these tips for clear, consistent email messaging that prepares them for their future visits.

1. Lead with Empathy & Accessibility

While the world slowly approaches “life as normal,” your patients are trying to navigate the right time to seek care for themselves and their loved ones. That’s why tone is so important.

Tone is part of your brand voice and should be documented in your style guide and trained among people creating content in your organization. Empathy is ever-important in healthcare, and especially in the midst of a pandemic. While email can sometimes feel like its own beast, it’s important to keep this empathy at the forefront as you create your email outreach messages.

As you’re considering your tone in post-pandemic messaging, think about:

• Who you’re trying to reach: What are they doing when they read your email? What state of mind might they be in? How much time do they have?
• How you message content on your website: Is your content friendly, calming, and approachable on your website? Follow the same guidelines in your emails.
• How you might define your brand voice in three words: Can you be conversational, but not too casual? Or professional, but not patronizing? Document your decision and share (and practice) among your team.

In a similar vein to empathy, focus on using plain language to speak directly to your recipient and reader. Anxiety and fear impact our ability to understand and absorb information and can even interfere with our decision-making abilities. This is magnified in email, as you’re often reaching your reader as they’re multitasking.

2. Make Content Digestible

Like your website’s foundational content and content marketing, content that’s easy to digest is better for all users. This includes common writing for the web best practices including:

• Accurate, descriptive headings
• Short, easy-to-read paragraphs
• Scannable bulleted lists
• Patient-focused (first person) language that speaks to the reader
• Active voice content, written in the present tense

Breaking content and topics into smaller “chunks” is an effective place to start. While your email shouldn’t attempt to cover 20 topics in one message, you might be covering three or four that need to be broken up appropriately so the email reader can quickly scan and digest the information on the screen.

3. Consider Other Media to Share Your Message

Remember that text may not be the best delivery vehicle for your information right now. Videos, infographics, blog posts, and question and answer articles are valuable approaches to delivering important messages.

Engaging video, for example, can be another extension of an empathetic experience: Invite a doctor or leader to share a video message that updates patients on what to expect upon their first visit back to your clinics. Videos are very mobile-friendly, and popular among many consumers, even in an email format.

Infographics are also a simple, streamlined way to deliver information that’s engaging and digestible. Even if you’re updating people on your sanitization practices in waiting rooms, an infographic can be a great way to share that information.

4. Maximize Your Content with Links

Long story short, don’t publish content in your email marketing that can’t also be found on your website. Instead, maximize your email messaging by including links to foundational content on your website.

First, not every patient may get your emails, or open your emails. More importantly, your website is likely driving an increased amount of traffic during and after the pandemic, so keep your website updated with new information across your:

• Patient and caregiver resources
• Service-line pages, especially those impacted by COVID-19 changes
• Patient portal messaging
• Homepage banners or featured homepage content

In your emails, link to those pages of content, or to your crisis resource hub, where the recipient can read more information at their convenience. Then, they’re in charge of their exploratory journey from there and may even convert by scheduling an appointment after reading.

5. Avoid Experimenting Right Now

Email marketing is a great place to experiment with audience segments, messaging, and A/B testing, but now may not be the best time to run a large experiment, such as adjusting your voice and tone.

As your team works with leadership to define important messages to share with patients as you invite them back to non-urgent medical care and appointments, transparency, honesty, and accessibility should be your key goals.

However, keep an eye on your open rates and engagement, as this could dictate how and when you send future messages as news evolves from your organization.

Need Help Getting Started?

If you’re gearing up your email marketing for the return of services to your health system but want help ensuring you’ve captured the right information, contact Geonetric. Our expert digital strategists and marketers can help you create messages that are patient-focused and written with plain language. Or, download our whitepaper on how to prepare for the post-pandemic rebound.

Sobering headlines and statistics about record unemployment numbers, slowing global trade, decline of gross domestic product, and unstable stock markets paint a picture comparable to the Great Depression. A recent SSRS and the Commonwealth Fund survey reports more than a third of Americans have seen some disruption to their income due to job loss, cut hours, or a pay cut. Of those, three percent have lost their health insurance.

In this uniquely challenging (and ever-evolving) situation, optimizing your marketing efforts can help ensure your messaging resonates with consumers who have financial concerns.

Remember the Last Recession…

The 2008 economic contraction had a different cause and took place under different circumstances than we’re experiencing today. But what lessons can we learn from the last recession that can help us now? How did the 2008 financial crisis impact healthcare organizations, providers, and consumers?

According to Advanced Billing & Consulting Services (ABCS), the 2008 financial crisis taught us:

• The healthcare industry may not initially feel the impact
• Demand for certain treatments decreases, somewhat alleviating the shortage of qualified healthcare workers; in 2008, some retired returned to the workforce
• Patients may delay elective surgery and medical care for minor, nonemergency conditions to save money needed to spend on necessities
• Outpatient care, considered “usually more consumer-friendly and affordable… when compared to more traditional inpatient settings,” may expand

ABCS references a study of Great Recession trends from the American Academy of Family Physicians that looked at consumer behavior. Patients were more likely to:

• Have higher overall stress levels
• Experience anxiety about their abilities to pay for care
• Cancel their appointments
• Skip preventive care and develop new health issues as a result
• Lose access to employer-sponsored or private insurance coverage due to job loss or furlough

Knowing your audience and their pain points is one of the most critical aspects of effective communications. While you’re writing, developing or refreshing marketing personas, or other tasks, use the above findings to inform your understanding of your readers.

…And Look to the Future

A lot has changed in digital marketing and content strategy best practices in the last few years. Healthcare organizations, providers, consumers, and marketing departments are much different than they were more than 10 years ago.

The following tips are informed by what’s happened in the past and tweaked to most effectively reach audiences of today. Bear in mind that the 2020 pandemic is a rapidly changing situation and your marketing efforts need to adapt with the same agility.

Let Empathy Guide You

Consumers feel more confident to convert when your content is relatable, readable, accessible, and helpful.

• Aim to help consumers feel safe and secure returning to your healthcare facilities, and consider what types of questions patients have in times like this, especially when it comes to care.
  • What will my visit be like?
  • How can I trust it’s safe to visit a waiting room or facility?
  • What are you doing to protect me/my loved ones when we come to an in-person meeting?
• Meet your users where they are, positioning your providers as their go-to resource for answers and solutions.
• Write in an engaging, user-focused way (versus an organization-focused style) that demonstrates your patient-centered ethos.
• Use plain language to make your content accessible to users of varying health literacy abilities, and conduct keyword research to understand the language your target audiences are most familiar with.

Promote Services Strategically

If you offer services that may see increased interest or demand, consider promoting them more widely.

For example, if your organization offers mental and behavioral health services and can accommodate increased volume, you may see improved engagement and conversions promoting counseling through a marketing campaign.

Promote services that were paused during the pandemic. Patient and visitor restrictions prevented people from receiving annual physical exams and routine cancer screenings, such as colonoscopies and mammograms. Young children may need to catch up on routine recommended vaccines.

Telemedicine as Competitive Differentiator

Patients will understandably worry about the risk of COVID-19 infection until a vaccine is widely available. When choosing between two organizations, the ability to see a provider virtually may be the user’s deciding factor. Whatever services you offer through virtual visits, promote those widely.

Communicate Risk

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. To avoid loss of patient volume for preventive and primary care services, explain the detrimental health impact patients who forgo or delay these services may experience.

It may be especially effective to note that waiting until a health issue becomes an emergency is likely to end up being a costlier option than catching it earlier, in addition to having a larger negative impact on the consumer’s health.

Answer Financial Questions

Our keyword research often reveals queries related to billing and finances. These include “paying for [XYZ] care,” “what’s the cost of [XYZ]?,” “financial help for patients,” and similar variations. We also hear from doctors and other department subject matter experts that these are some of the most common questions they get from patients.

On your service line webpages, use plain language to explain how most patients pay for care, and cross-link to relevant areas of your website as needed. For example, you may note that you accept major insurance plans, Medicare/Medicaid, and offer financial assistance or aid to patients who qualify. If affordability is a competitive differentiator for your organization, emphasize it in your content.

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Still, some patients may consider whether they should risk exposure to COVID-19 by going to treatment at a hospital or outpatient facility.

Many health care professional groups and associations have put out recommendations about treatments, therapies, and surgeries for patients. For many patients, delays can be detrimental and make treatment less effective. The National Kidney Foundation urges kidney disease patients not to skip their regular dialysis treatments. And the American Society of Clinical Oncology does not recommend changing or withholding cancer therapies.

Ultimately, decisions about postponing necessary treatments and therapies should be made on an individual basis with a patient’s doctor.

Some patients may have to be hospitalized if that is the safest way for them to get treatment and monitoring for their condition, if they have waited too long for care, or if they have COVID-19 symptoms along with their chronic condition.

Protecting At-Risk Patients

Patients with cancer, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, or a transplanted organ are at higher risk if they get COVID-19. That’s because of their health condition, a weakened immune system from treatments and medications, coexisting conditions, or donated organs that do not work as efficiently as they should.

If any critical treatments or therapies are available through your home health care services, highlight the benefits to your patients of receiving care and medical supplies at home. Support from home health providers can keep patients safer and healthier.

Patients with chronic conditions need the most protection and reassurance during a pandemic. Coping with cancer and other diseases and worrying about the coronavirus can be overwhelming. They need support. Making them feel comfortable is an essential part of being a health care communicator.

Outreach & Advice from a Trusted Source

Your patients need to know what is true and what isn’t true, and how your organization is caring for patients with chronic conditions. They will value information from you because they trust your organization and providers.

Your primary care providers and specialists might want to begin outreach with these patients, so they don’t slip through the cracks. Use your electronic health records tool, a phone visit, or telemedicine services to connect, answer questions, and put them at ease with their care plan and treatments. During these touchpoints, be sure your providers encourage patients to seek emergency care for their condition if needed. This keeps your patients in the decision-making process for their health care and mental well-being.

Information Can Reduce Patient Anxiety

Patients may worry about the safety of necessary care. As a health care communicator, you’ll need to be transparent and share comprehensive information with your patients to lessen their concerns. Craft messages about:

• Patient safety as your organization’s number one priority – Enforce face coverings at all times and social distancing in the hospital or health system’s facilities. If some locations have different rules, explain why and what differences exist.
• Infection prevention measures at your facilities – Outline cleaning and disinfecting practices your organization has put into practice to prevent infection spread. If you are using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s infection prevention guideline, be sure to mention that detail.
• Prescreening procedures – Let your patients know the appointment prescreening processes you are using before they come to your location. This may include phone screening and public entrances screening before allowing patients to enter your hospital or clinic. If employee protocol is different, explain those precautions, too. Make sure patients know your procedures apply to all patients and employees, so they feel safe receiving care from your health care professionals.
• Surges in virtual visits – In-person appointments have gone down during COVID-19 temporary closures, and telemedicine usage is up. Explain to nervous patients that this means fewer people are coming through your doors and, therefore, the disease is less likely to spread. Lower patient volume gives your organization time to clean, disinfect, and screen visitors as a way to keep everyone safer.
• Treatment of COVID-19 patients – If you are treating many patients with COVID-19, your other patients may wonder if they are safe when they come to your facilities. If you have a separate unit or area and staff for treating COVID-19 patients, explain the separation of those patients from other patients and other specific precautions you are taking.
• Visitor restrictions – Make your visitor restrictions clear. If family or caregivers are not allowed to accompany patients to their treatments, tell the patient during prescreening. Explain how your limits help keep everyone safe by exposing fewer people to the person-to-person spread of the infection.
• Curbside services – If any of your locations provide curbside services, such as pharmacy or home medical equipment pickup, let patients know they won’t have to risk exposure to COVID-19 to get what they need.
• Contactless, digital payments – Online bill pay isn’t new, but it’s more popular than ever because it reduces the need for patients to interact with staff. Let patients know where to find access to your online bill pay services.

There are many risks during a pandemic; information can bring relief to patients. Regular communication is key.

Contact Us to Help Your Team

Reach out to Geonetric for content services to support your team’s response to the coronavirus. And explore our COVID-19 resources hub.