We hope everyone had the chance to attend the Healthcare Internet Conference (HCIC) in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago! We know there were a lot of great sessions to check out. In case you missed it, we wanted to recap our session, The Easy Button to Expand Your Digital Front Door.
Ray Wu, the Executive Marketing Director, at Hackensack Meridian Health, and Robby Pixton, Associate VP of Hospital Partnerships at Doximity, kicked off the session by diving into how COVID impacted digital health marketing. Overall, the pandemic has propelled healthcare’s transition to digital marketing. In 2021, 72.2% of marketing budget allocations went to purely digital channels, split between paid, earned, and owned media.
This reallocation to digital isn’t simply driven by cost. In fact, only 24% of respondents reported that they prioritized digital channels to reduce costs. More importantly, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are considering the vast opportunities that digital marketing provides, from the rapid pace of change to data-driven insights. Further, CMOs are considering the digital consumer journey, given that over 80% of consumers search for online healthcare information and never visit a hospital’s website.
Specifically, at the initiation phase, consumers interact with a plethora of digital channels from provider searches and appointment requests to secure messaging and patient portals. 64% of patients make their healthcare appointments online, and 77% do research online prior to booking an appointment. However, given that the vast majority of patients don’t ever land on a hospital web page, how can you reach these patients during their search? Doximity can help make an immediate impact on your physician referral patterns and your direct-to-consumer marketing.
Through Doximity’s exclusive partnership with U.S. News and World Report, partner hospitals can leverage Patient Connect and highlight individual providers’ profiles on one of the most-used third-party platforms in healthcare. And, they can seamlessly integrate existing scheduling channels to route patients to your preferred system for booking appointments. Out of the 10M+ unique visitors per month on U.S. News, 77% are looking for a specialist, representing some of the most valuable potential patients. This simple step expands your digital front door to meet consumers where they are both searching for and booking care.
At each of the institutions he has worked for, Ray has seen how impactful third-party channels, like Patient Connect, were for his digital marketing strategy (on average, it can yield a 13:1 ROI). During his search, a turnkey solution that provided verifiable (by a non-Doximity party) ROI proved to be at the top of his wish list. Physicians can be some of the toughest marketing critics, so finding solutions like Patient Connect is key to getting their buy-in.
Curious about what this could look like for your hospital? Check out this case study to see how a highly-ranked Northeastern cancer center used Patient Connect as part of a multi-channel digital approach.