3 Tips to Level Up Your Digital Marketing

Our team lives and breathes digital marketing, so we were eager to attend HubSpot’s annual INBOUND conference in Boston, MA. The industry-agnostic event hosted over 12,000 attendees with deep-dive sessions, keynote speakers, and lots of valuable information. 

In case you missed the event, here are some of our favorite takeaways from the event, along with tips on how to apply them in healthcare marketing. 

1. Leverage behavioral science to get results.
   

   Author and consultant Nancy Harhut shared actionable ways to leverage behavioral science in your copy and strategy to drive results. According to Nancy, the brain uses shortcuts when making decisions. Even if you think you understand how your audience makes decisions, you might be crucially underestimating the power of small tweaks to activate shortcut pathways.
   
   For example, people are twice as motivated to avoid pain or loss than they are to seek success. Try a headline that cites common mistakes and how to avoid them. Additionally, framing a campaign around emotion rather than logic can activate mirror neurons and persuade action. The simple word “imagine” can activate this emotional cognition principle.
   
   You might intuitively rely on testimonials to amplify key messages, but did you know this strategy taps into the authority principle, a behavioral science framework that shows we respond best when we trust the source of information. One way to invoke the authority principle in physician marketing campaigns is to re-share trusted third-party content like journal articles. This principle also strengthens the impact of peer-to-peer messaging and social proof. For other content marketing tips, check out the inside scoop on top-performing content.

   
   

2. Brand marketing closes the performance marketing gap.
   
   As marketers, we’re familiar with the challenge of demonstrating the results of brand marketing efforts. It seems to be an age-old battle between brand and performance marketing. Tyrona Heath and Derek Yueh introduced the concept of combining these ideas into performance branding. They provide a framework for maximizing creative and media to drive measurable brand outcomes. 
   
   They shared that 95% of buyers are out of market at a given time. Performance marketing reaches the 5% who are in market, whereas brand marketing reaches your future audience. And, of course, winning on brand creates value that activation cannot. Brand impacts sales, pricing power, category optionality, talent acquisition, and competitive landscape.
   
   And, there can be synergy between brand and performance marketing, especially when campaigns and metrics are aligned. Read more on why brand marketing matters for hospitals and healthcare organizations. 

   
   
3. It’s essential to test and iterate.
   
   It’s common to leave a conference like this with a plethora of new ideas, suggestions, and best practices. It can be overwhelming to feel like you need to implement every tactic immediately. But, instead of getting bogged down, Jay Schwedelson reminded us that the most important thing is to just try something new. 
   
   Not every tactic will work for every organization, every channel, or every campaign. Even if you don’t have time to run a true A/B test or rework every line of copy, find something that you can test. You might be impressed with the results you see with even small tweaks, like including a number in your subject line or writing your CTA in the first person. For some proven strategies to try on Doximity, take a look at tips from client success manager Courtney Petersen. 

Image courtesy of HubSpot INBOUND.