5 Tips for Marketing to Doctors & Healthcare Professionals

For any advertiser, marketing to doctors, healthcare professionals, and other high-net-worth individuals in the medical field is an endeavor that’s well worth pursuing. After all, doctors control large sums of money both in their personal and professional lives, making them a highly desirable target audience for everything from pharmaceutical and medical device companies to real estate brokers and financial investment advisors. 

But while promising, marketing to medical professionals doesn’t come without its share of challenges. For starters, doctors are notoriously busy, hard to reach, and even more difficult to persuade. And in cases where a doctor works in a hospital or other multilocation medical practice, it can be almost impossible to identify the person or persons who ultimately make the purchasing decisions. 

At Innovare Medical Media, our custom healthcare advertising solutions are specially designed to help you reach this enviable audience. From our on-site digital displays and Point of Care advertising tactics to out-of-home media and advanced programmatic advertising processes, we can help your brand get noticed by the high-net-worth individuals you’re aiming for.

Of course, while Innovare Medical Media can help you market to doctors, we can’t make them want to buy from you. That’s your job. We are just the delivery person. Ultimately, your success begins and ends with your ads and marketing message. 

Want to improve your odds of success? Here are five tips for marketing to doctors and other healthcare professionals.

#1: Know Your Unique Selling Proposition

Having a unique selling proposition (USP) is literally on Page 1 of any Marketing 101 book, but it is so surprising how few advertisers take the time to understand or properly present theirs. 

For instance, medical software and SaaS solutions are two of the most competitive products in the healthcare industry, with hundreds of companies fighting for their share in an overwhelmingly congested market. Yet, when their ads are compared, you will find each one is largely the same, with just subtle differences in imagery or copy. No one ad stands apart from the others, and that’s the kiss of death for anyone trying to attract the business of a high-net-worth individual.

Remember, doctors are very busy and highly skeptical. They have heard it all before. In most cases, you have mere seconds to catch their attention, and the best way to do that is with your unique selling proposition.  

#2: Define Your Audience

With more than one million physicians working in the United States, you will never reach the results you’re looking for if you try to market to them all using the same techniques and/or messaging. You need to define your target audience. This will allow you to market your products and services more effectively to them. 

You can start by narrowing your focus to certain criteria, including but not limited to:

  • Specialty
  • Title
  • Age and gender
  • Organization size
  • Geography
  • Payment model

#3: Create the Content Your Audience Wants

When you create content for marketing to high-net-worth individuals like doctors, pharmacists, surgeons, and others in the medical field, it’s important to understand your target audience inside and out. Don’t lose sight of the fact that doctors are people, just like you. They have emotions and feelings. And this simple understanding can make a huge difference in how you market to them.

Like every buyer, a doctor also goes through what we call the buyer’s journey. This journey often includes: 

  • An Awareness Phase: Where the doctor first becomes aware of your product or service
  • A Consideration Phase: Where the doctor considers whether or not your product or service can help them solve their problem
  • A Decision Phase: Where the doctor either chooses to purchase from you or look elsewhere

To keep your audience progressing through your sales funnel, you need to create individual content assets for each phase. This allows you to speak to them in the proper context no matter where they are in your funnel. 

#4: Create Multiple Touchpoints

The more often your brand is in front of your target’s eyes, the more it will be on their mind when they make purchasing decisions. So, it is important to create as many touchpoints as possible, especially when your target buyer is as busy and as hard-to-reach as those who work in healthcare.

Using a variety of methods, including paid traditional or digital advertising, social media, place-based media, and programmatic advertising can increase your lead generation results because your targets will become more familiar and trusting of your company.

#5: Learn From Your Analytics

Marketing to medical professionals and other high-net-worth individuals is an ongoing endeavor. You need to pay close attention to the data being generated by your marketing efforts, so you can stay current on your market performance. 

The key to marketing success is learning how to replicate what works and how to fix what doesn’t. The only way you can determine these two factors is by constantly analyzing your results and making adjustments.

Market to Doctors and Other High-Net-Worth Individuals With Innovare Medical Media

If your target audience is medical professionals, then reach them where they can see your ads. Partner with the leader in healthcare advertising – Innovare Medical Media. Our advanced solutions for advertisers can help your brand get noticed by your target audience where they spend most of their time, in hospitals, medical centers, doctor offices, and other healthcare facilities. 

To become an advertising partner or to learn more about the benefits of our digital media solutions, contact Innovare Medical Media today at 866-887-2207 or send us a message online and one of our representatives will quickly get back to you.

How to Improve Your Hospital Waiting Room Experience

A hospital’s waiting room is one place that nobody wants to be because if you’re there, then that means that you’re either the one in need of medical attention or you’re with a loved one who is. And to make matters worse is the fact that the average hospital wait time can range anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, which coupled with the stress of the moment, can make one’s wait time feel like a lifetime.

For this reason, making your hospital waiting room as comfortable and accommodating for your patients and visitors is essential for reducing their perceived dwell time. Here are ten tips that will help you improve your hospital waiting room experience.\

#1: Use Check-In Kiosks

For most patients, a frustrating hospital visit starts the moment they’re forced to wait to check in. They already know that they’re going to be waiting to be seen, so when the waiting starts the moment they step into the hospital, it can have an immediate and negative affect on the patient’s experience.

Providing patients with check-in kiosks is an easy way to alleviate this frustration. Kiosks allow patients to check themselves in without having to wait in line to see a check-in nurse. They can also be used to collect copays, provide translations for forms, or make it easy for patients to sign consent forms. As a bonus, they can also greatly improve your hospital’s efficiency.

#2: Provide Free Wi-Fi

Most hospital visitors being some form of their own entertainment with them, such as their smartphone, tablet, laptop, e-reader, or some other electronic device. Since many of these devices rely on Wi-Fi to operate, providing free Wi-Fi to your waiting room guests will enable them to use their devices, and this will help the time pass much easier for them.

#3: Provide Free Mobile Device Charging Stations

As an accompaniment to tip number two, providing free mobile charging stations will help ensure that your visitors won’t have to worry about their electronic devices running out of juice while they’re waiting. These stations can take on even greater importance in ER waiting rooms where visitors often show up with phones that aren’t fully charged, but who also need to keep outside family members in the loop with what’s going on.

#4: Update Your Seating Design

Usually, the seating in most hospital waiting rooms is uncomfortable and poorly positioned to accompany family members. By updating your seating with higher quality, more comfortable chairs and positioning them in such a way that makes it easy for families to stay together, you can greatly improve the experience for your patients and visitors.

#5: Install Digital Displays to Keep Your Guests Entertained

Installing high-definition digital displays in your hospital waiting room gives your guests something to focus on while they wait. These displays can broadcast customized content that resonates with your patients and visitors while at the same time enhancing your brand identity and providing advertising opportunities for local businesses. Along with video content, these displays can share important medical reminders, weather alerts, and additional information that your guests will find helpful.

#6: Provide Entertainment Options

In post-Covid hospital environments, medical professionals and patients alike prefer touchless forms of entertainment. Gone are the old magazines and other sources of entertainment. Instead, you can use your digital displays to share trivia questions and other fun games that will help pass the time for those waiting to be treated.

#7: Provide Healthy Snack Options

Most hospital waiting rooms have coffee stations where visitors can grab a cup of coffee, but very few offer snack options other than the candy bars and chips found in the vending machine. Instead, provide your guests with a greater selection of healthy snack options that are better suited for a healthcare environment, like granola bars, green tea, or plant-based snacks.

#8: Incorporate a Separate Area for Children to Play

Spending time in a hospital waiting room is hard on everyone, but it is especially difficult for children. By providing your guests with a separate area where their children can spend the time playing, you can provide a calmer and quieter experience for the adults and an outlet for energetic children.

#9: Display Wait Times

One of the most frustrating things about being in a hospital waiting room is not knowing how long you’ll have to wait to be seen. This unknowing can make the time crawl even slower for most people. Simply providing your patients with an estimated wait time can have an immediate impact on their experience. Even if they are initially put off with a wait time of an hour, just having that information will give them an idea of when their time will come.

#10: Introduce the Care Team

For patients in a waiting room, a hospital can feel like more of a company than a group of medical professionals working under one roof. One way to bring a personal touch to your hospital is to introduce your care team by displaying their photos and information on your digital signage. This will allow your guests to put names to your doctors’ and nurses’ faces, and this will go a long way toward making your guests feel more comfortable about their visit.

Innovare Medical Media Has the Solutions You Need to Improve Your Hospital Waiting Room Experience

When it comes to improving your patient experience, you might have noticed that many of the solutions above can be provided simply by installing digital signage in your waiting rooms. So, if you’re committed to improving the quality of your hospital’s waiting room, then investing in digital signage is a great place to start.

Innovare Medical Media can provide your waiting room with custom-made digital displays that can help improve your patient experience. With our displays and broadcasting service, you can:

  • Keep your guests entertained
  • Share important health reminders and other information
  • Introduce your care team
  • Display warm and inviting signage
  • Strengthen your brand identity
  • Increase profit potential with advertisements
  • And so much more

If you want to learn more about the ways your hospital can benefit from Innovare Medical Media’s digital signage solutions, then give us a call today at 866-887-2207 or send us a message and one of our representatives will promptly respond.

Improving Patient Experience in Healthcare

The key to success for any hospital or medical office is not only to attract new patients, but also to retain them. In the past, simply providing quality medical care was enough to keep waiting rooms filled with patients, but today things are different. \

Today’s patients expect more from medical facilities. They want greater convenience, easier access, and more comfortable waiting rooms. They want a better overall patient experience. In this post, you’ll learn some creative ways to improve patient satisfaction by improving the patient experience.

What is Patient Experience?

The first thing you need to know is that patient satisfaction is different than patient experience, despite both terms often being used interchangeably. 

Patient satisfaction is determined about whether a patient’s expectations were met. Patient experience, on the other hand, is determined by whether something that should happen in a health care facility actually happened. An example of this would be whether the staff communicated clearly enough with the patient. 

For this reason, improving the patient experience is essential if you want to increase your patient satisfaction.

How to Improve Patient Experience In Healthcare

Luckily, it doesn’t take a lot of work to improve patient experience in healthcare. All it takes is some creativity and a commitment to providing the best experience possible. Here are eight ways to improve patient experience in hospitals and other medical facilities.

#1: Offer a Patient-Friendly Online Experience

More patients than ever use the web to schedule or change appointments, communicate with their treatment team, order refills, access test results, and more. So, building an online presence for your healthcare facility is a must if it doesn’t already have one. Make it easy for your patients to schedule appointments and have the required pre-appointment paperwork available online, so they can complete it before arriving for their appointment.

#2: Send Appointment Reminders and Confirmations

Your patients live busy lives, so it can be easy for an upcoming appointment to be forgotten. This is especially the case when the appointment was scheduled months in advance. By sending automatic appointment reminders to patient email addresses or via text, you can make sure they are reminded of their appointments. Providing them with convenient confirmation options also helps ensure your patients get the treatment they need, and your office doesn’t suffer financially from missed appointments.

#3: Ensure Your Staff is Friendly and Supportive to Every Patient

A good patient experience starts with how they are treated by your staff. As such, it is essential for every staff member to be friendly and supportive to every patient that walks through your doors. The incredible thing is that it doesn’t take a lot. A smile, a welcoming hello, and simply being friendly is all it takes to start a patient’s experience off on the right foot.

#4: Have an Excellent Bedside Manner

A healthcare professional’s most important asset, besides their education, is their bedside manner. This is what makes a patient feel comfortable and secure with their doctor. And it plays a major role in whether a patient returns to that doctor. Focus on not only providing your patients with thorough examinations, but also on displaying a warm, caring, and friendly presence. Make sure your patient never feels rushed and that they fully understand their treatment plan before walking out of the room.

#5: Keep the Waiting Room Clean and Comfortable

Any visit to a doctor’s office or hospital can be stressful. So, you want to give your patients an environment that soothes their anxieties. Instead of the usual hard furniture and harsh lighting that’s found in so many old-fashioned waiting rooms, update your waiting space with more comfortable furniture and warm lighting. And keep the space clean and tidy to help create a more relaxed and organized space.

#6: Be Courteous of Your Patients’ Time

Nothing reduces a patient’s satisfaction like the feeling that their time is being wasted. And long wait times do exactly that. Try to keep wait times as short as possible without sacrificing quality of care. It’s a tough balancing act to master, but once you do, you will greatly improve your patient’s experience and their satisfaction. And they will be more likely to return knowing that you and your staff value their time.

#7: Provide Complimentary Mobile Device Charging Stations

During a visit to the hospital, having the ability to charge your phone while you’re sitting in a waiting room is not only convenient, but it’s also essential for ensuring that you can stay in touch with loved ones outside the facility. Providing access to free mobile charging stations is something that every patient, visitor, and member of your staff will appreciate.

#8: Provide Resources to Reduce the Patient’s Perceived Dwell Time

Sometimes, long wait times can be unavoidable. But one thing that you can do to help take your patient’s mind off the time is to provide them with strategically placed LCD screens broadcasting a variety of entertaining and informative content. By placing digital screens in your waiting room, cafeteria, lobby, and other waiting spaces, you provide your patients with alternative options when they grow tired of looking at their phones or need a break from the book that they’re reading.

Innovare Medical Media specializes in creating custom LCD screens for hospitals and other medical offices and facilities. We can provide your facility with free branded displays, free LCD screens for broadcasting entertaining and informative content as well as strategic ads for revenue-generating opportunities, and free mobile device charging stations which will help your patients stay in touch with loved ones. To learn more about our custom LCD screens, call us today at 866-887-2207 or click here to send us a message online.

5 Ways to Improve Patient Satisfaction

It’s the goal of any hospital or health care provider to provide an exceptional level of care for their patients. So, it is understandable why so many of their business decisions are based on improving patient satisfaction in addition to patient outcomes. 

But the truth is, improving patient satisfaction isn’t as difficult as you might think. For most healthcare facilities, simply providing good medical care in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost is enough to warrant positive patient satisfaction surveys. But if you want your hospital to achieve even higher patient satisfaction scores, then you may want to above and beyond what most patients expect. Here are five creative ways to increase patient satisfaction.

Improve the Hospital’s Atmosphere

By nature, a hospital’s atmosphere is anything other than relaxing. It is usually a sterile environment filled with harsh lighting and a lot of noise and foot traffic. From keeping the facility clean to upgrading the décor to create a warmer and more comfortable environment to adopting new strategies to help reduce commotion, there are a variety of ways to improve a hospital’s atmosphere that will translate into higher patient satisfaction scores.

Get Personal

Welcoming your patients and providing them in a more personalized way is an easy and highly effective way to boost both your patient’s mood and their overall satisfaction with your staff and facility. This is easily accomplished by addressing your patients by name and seeing to their unique needs. Having your staff wear nametags also helps a patient put names to faces, so they can feel more comfortable reaching out to your staff for assistance.

Spend Enough One-on-One Time with the Patient

When receiving medical attention, it can be easy for a patient to lose track of everything their treatment team is telling them. All too often, a patient is left feeling rushed and confused, and this can make the entire experience scarier than it needs to be. Spending just a little more one-on-one time with your patients and ensuring they fully understand what is happening every step of the way will allow them to feel more in control and this will greatly increase their satisfaction in your staff and facility.

Use Digital Media to Enhance the Patient Experience

Digital media is one of the most powerful ways you can improve patient satisfaction across all channels. From providing your patients with online access to their medical records via a patient portal to sharing valuable health information on social media to offering patients greater convenience and flexibility using telemedicine and other telehealth resources, technology helps make everything faster, more accessible, and easier to use.

Employ Digital Signage to Reduce Perceived Dwell Time

Patient wait time is often one of the biggest detractors on most patient satisfaction surveys, but unfortunately, waiting is a part of any doctor or hospital visit. As a result, it is up to the facility to find ways to reduce the patient’s perceived dwell time. This can be easily accomplished by installing digital signage and full color LCD monitors in those areas where your patients and visitors spend most of their time, such as in your waiting room, lobby, and cafeteria. Broadcasting entertaining and informative content on these screens will help reduce your patient’s perceived dwell time and help increase their overall satisfaction. 

Why Patient Satisfaction is Important

Patient satisfaction is all-important to any healthcare facility or HCP office because it determines whether that patient will return in the future or seek their medical treatment elsewhere. Every hospital and medical office needs patients to stay open, and for most, repeat business is their bread and butter. Providing your patients with the best experience possible from start to finish begins by implementing the above five ways to increase patient satisfaction.

At Innovare Medical Media, we provide a range of services and products that are designed to help improve patient satisfaction. From custom-made LCD screens to mobile charging stations, we have the products you need to reduce your patients’ perceived dwell time, increase their comfort level, and lower their anxieties. Contact us today to learn more.

5 Types of Digital Media Used in Healthcare

To deliver quality healthcare and a good patient experience, a hospital needs to balance convenience and cost. One way that healthcare providers are achieving these goals is by adopting digital media technologies that are designed to keep their patients and staff more informed and better connected.

What is Digital Media?

Digital media in healthcare encompasses a wide range of technologies and services. From using telemedicine to provide convenient remote doctor visits and offering patient portals, so patients can access their health record from home to using digital signage in waiting rooms to help reduce perceived wait time, modern healthcare is being driven by digital media solutions that not only improve the overall patient experience, but also help keep costs down.

Here are the top 5 types of digital media used in a healthcare setting.

Social Media

Social media makes it easy for health care providers to share information, promote healthy behaviors, engage with the public, and educate and interact with their patients, caregivers, students, and colleagues. Social media is also highly effective at helping providers develop their professional network, increase awareness of news and discoveries, motivate patients, and provide valuable health information to their local communities.

Digital Signage

Digital signage is one of the most effective ways to reduce your patient’s perceived wait time. When installed in strategic areas, like in waiting rooms, cafeterias, parking garages, and hospital lobbies, digital signage provides a captive audience an escape from the tediousness of waiting because it gives them something else to focus on. Digital signage can be used to share a wide variety of programming, from entertainment to information, that your patients, visitors, and staff will appreciate.

Advertising Screens

Digital advertising screens allow a healthcare facility to promote its services in a highly visual and cost-effective way. Offering your patients, visitors, and staff mobile charging stations with built-in LED advertising screens is a great way to boost your brand and share information that these individuals will find valuable. 

Telemedicine

During the Covid pandemic, telemedicine and telehealth services grew to new heights because they allowed patients to stay in contact with their health care providers and keep their appointments despite being quarantined at home. These services rely strongly on digital media technologies like electronic information and telecommunications and streaming technologies to work, thus making them among the most important types of digital media used in healthcare today.

Digital Health Technologies

Digital health technologies are being employed throughout the healthcare industry in an effort to improve outcomes and reduce overall costs. Some of the other ways digital media is being used to help patients, doctors, and staff is through technologies such as:

  • Patient portals
  • Remote patient monitoring
  • SaMDs (software as medical devices)
  • Medical device data systems
  • Mobile medical applications
  • Wireless medical devices
  • Mobile health apps
  • And more

Digital media is revolutionizing how hospitals and health care providers meet the needs of their patients, visitors, and staff. With digital media, achieving greater patient outcomes and higher satisfaction levels along with increased profit potential and reduced costs for HCPs is not only a reality, it’s happening right now.

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