Being in 2020, people focus on their health more than ever, as the patient always searches for the best health services, and as a result, many medical care options have emerged and competition has intensified fiercely in many fields and disciplines of medicine. And if healthcare officials insist on using old methods, the opportunities for growth and development are slim, as in the digital age people can reach an incredible amount of information with the press of a button, and even use this information to make different healthcare decisions. As a result, medical marketing techniques and trends in 2020 develop quickly to adapt to evolving consumer behavior.Here are 8 trends in 2020, as seen by medical marketing experts in Upper Medic:

1- Medical Content Marketing Goes Beyond​​ Blogging

As we know, when people get sick, they turn to the Internet and search for the symptoms and problems they are suffering from. Then, they try to find a solution, which often includes visiting a physician. If health service providers want to attract more patients to their institutions, they must create useful, high-quality content that answers the patients’ medical inquiries.

To do this, an increasing number of doctors use medical blogs to provide information about specific diagnoses and how to prevent different medical conditions, however, content marketing is more than just blogs and can take different forms.

Beyond blogs, healthcare providers think and provide advanced ways to meet patients’ needs, as some create digital health centers that contain not only written content but also ways to communicate with patients as well as smart tools and applications that help monitor patients’ health. They fulfill this through their marketing team or work with trusted companies. When laying the foundations and origins of new digital medical content, the content must be compatible with search engines (SEO), and the content must be structured to fit the quality rankings of search engines, and site pages must be fully secure, fast, and comfortably designed for visitors (UX best practices).

2- Zero-click Search

This means the search results displaying the answer to the user’s query above the search result in Google. This type of search follows the intention of the user without the need to click on any links, and year after year the number of zero-click searches increases. In 2019, about 50% of all searches were made without clicking, according to Jumpshot. Patients search for questions and answers are often provided through premium quotes, and in many cases, users do not need to enter the website.

An example of this is when searching for the appropriate timings and cost of an eye examination, the search engine concludes that the user does not need an eye examination this year, and the search stops at that without the need to enter the website. If they are searching for information for their children, this may lead to a new search for children’s eyes.

Searches without clicking affect some areas such as hotel reservations, travel reservations, and weather reports, but what is its impact on the healthcare and medical marketing sector?

Mostly, the impact will be slight because patients want to conduct detailed research to understand their symptoms, medical diagnosis and treatment options, however, the impact of the search without a click may be important in the case of searching for the cost of a medical procedure or setting an annual appointment for an examination and dental cleaning, as well as patients in emergencies, as they don’t have time to conduct thorough research and need to find urgent care.

Read also: Healthcare Marketing Strategies – Make your healthcare Organization the patients’ first Choice!

Doctors and medical centers must request the Knowledge Graph Panel and ensure the accuracy of the information presented, as users may not search by clicking on your website, and instead, they may decide to call to book an appointment directly. Google Dashboards require periodic updates. If you change your business hours, you need to update the information so people know when to be open.

An example of Google Knowledge Graph panels

3- Increased Video Consumption

If you are in charge of medical marketing for a clinic or medical center and you are not going to use the videos in 2020, you will be losing a lot. As videos lead to more interaction because most people prefer watching videos than reading articles. Hubspot reports showed that around 45% of people spend more than one hour a day watching videos. Moreover, about 39% of potential patients call to book an appointment after watching a video on a medical topic.

When creating a promotional video for your medical center or clinic, make sure of the following:

• They’re concise and appropriate for the target audience.
• Invest in high-quality video imaging equipment or work with professionals.

Besides, here are some other tips provided by medical marketing experts in Upper Medic to help you create better videos for your healthcare practice:

A. Tell your story:

When choosing a healthcare provider, consumers want to make sure they trust the doctor. You can boost your credibility and public confidence in you by engaging them through the power of the story. When creating video content, look for new angles, or what makes the services you provide unique?

People are more likely to respond to videos from patients and doctors of the same specialty.

B. Show Empathy:

When people face serious medical problems it is important to be sympathetic to them, and your promotional video clip must show positive emotions which helps strengthen your relationship with them. That is, it is required to develop content that leaves positive memories to increase patients’ confidence level.

C. Educate and Spread Awareness:

In the health care sector in general, one of the main goals of your promotional videos should be education, by discussing medical cases and reviewing treatment options and all considerations and do not forget to inform them about the different services you provide in your center or clinic.

D. Become Your the Patient’s Destination:

Every content creator wants their video to reach as many people as possible, so you need to create content that viewers feel compelled to share. If the content is professional does not mean that it is boring. When creating great content people will start to look forward to what you post, and if the content is engaging and beneficial to them, they can share it with their family and friends, further increasing the branding of the clinic or medical center online.

4- Some Patients Went Beyond the Idea of ​​Resorting to Google

When people have a medical problem, Google is the first thing many people turn to, where they can search for the cause of their symptoms and can also find doctors in their vicinity. However, many patients skip the idea of ​​resorting to Google and go directly to the designated medical sites such as PlushCare or WebMD and Balto.com website in Arabic, and these sites have proven useful as many patients go directly to these sites to obtain information about medical conditions and find service providers and communicate with other patients.

If you want to protect your reputation and enhance your medical practice, you need to create your page on these sites, and once you create a page you will also be able to promote your practice through ads on WebMD and Balto.com.

Doctors and healthcare professionals should also pay attention to the various booking sites and platforms as they are trusted sites visited by patients to read doctor or clinic reviews, and when you neglect these sites you miss a great opportunity to reach potential patients. Personal pages and reviews can negatively affect patients’ perception of you or your clinic.

5- Medical Social Media Marketing:

Social media has become a powerful tool for building a community of millions of people. About 90.4% of millennials, 48.2% of baby boomers, and 77.5% of Generation X use social media platforms. In 2020, more doctors will use social media to connect with potential patients.

In addition to disseminating information, on social media platforms, people share about the same problems they face, so doctors and medical marketers should think about being a part of these small communities and provide support and inform them of their presence, especially those with chronic diseases.

Read also: 6 Tips for Strategic Marketing of Medical Devices Online

6- Increasing Facebook’s Advertising Budget

Facebook has more than two billion active users, so it is considered a strong advertising platform, and year after year advertisers spend more on Facebook, as research conducted by Marketing Proof showed that companies invest about 75% of the advertising budget on social media, and there are a lot of industries that heavily invest in Facebook ads and healthcare professionals are lagging.

Strict regulations pose severe challenges to the healthcare field, and yet they need to explore ways in which Facebook ads can be better used. If you want to communicate with potential patients and build a good reputation, then you need to invest more in Facebook advertising budgets.

7- Managing Medical Reputation Is An Increasing Priority

Google and various social networks are part of the patient’s journey to find the right doctor for an examination or an operation. Before choosing a doctor, people search online to review the opinions of previous patients.

Negative reviews about the place or the doctor may discourage potential patients. Healthcare providers take many steps to improve the patient’s experience from the website, the clinic’s waiting room or by using new appointment booking techniques and multiple payment methods, using software solutions for hospital management, and all staff at the center or clinic are trained to emphasize the importance of customer satisfaction.

Negative reviews can harm your health organization because they reflect on bad business management and that could be prevented and must be handled carefully.

8- Create A Distinguished User-Experience on Your Website

The user-experience can be expressed simply like the design of websites, taking into account the desires and needs of the user from entering, as the main challenge for website designers is to know the user’s expectations and find effective solutions to his problems i.e. to think like the user to know what he wants and what he does not want.

The user experience on your website is more important in 2020 than ever. As the health sector is very competitive when people head to the website of a clinic or medical center, they expect to get answers in a few moments and if they fail to meet their expectations they will leave without taking any action. This way you don’t only miss an opportunity to turn a lead into a customer, it may affect your brand. The user-experience greatly affects the ranking algorithms and appearance in Google, as sites with high speeds compete in the ranking, as well as the speed of mobile devices.

When evaluating your user-experience, think about why a user has accessed the site, do they need to book an appointment? Do they need information about treatment? Do you provide them with high-quality content?

Once you understand the reason for the user’s existence, make sure that the sequence of your website is logical and easy to navigate from one page to another, and the content on the page should be well organized with the use of the appropriate headlines. Keeping in mind that SEO and user-experience design go together, as you cannot design a clinic-only website for search engines, you should bear in mind that your site’s visitors have needs.

Finally, you know how to digital market for your clinic it became easy for patients to review various clinics and doctors, find what’s appropriate for their needs, and healthcare marketers should keep up with that.