In the past, companies could afford to blanket consumers with information. There was little need for a healthcare advertising agency to spend much time targeting the most fruitful client bases. Radio and TV assured that everyone was virtually a captive audience for all promotions. With the arrival of the internet, everything changed. Now, every hospital marketing agency uses careful audience targeting - and if they don't, they're doing clients a disservice. For today's healthcare advertising agency, identifying a target audience is just the beginning. The best promotional programs emerge after a much more in-depth process of research and investigation: the process of truly understanding the target demographic.
A Good Hospital Marketing Agency Can Tell You Everything About The Audience
What does a neurologist do for lunch? How late does an average 45 year old with high cholesterol stay up at night? These questions might seem irrelevant until you consider their implications for medical promotions. In order to accurately target the neurologist, you need to know what media he encounters during the day. You need to know what websites he visits, and what medical journals he is most likely to read. The same thing is true for the 45 year old with high cholesterol. They will almost certainly have radically different schedules, and turn to totally disparate media in their downtime.
Benefits Of In Depth Research
Some might question whether or not it's worthwhile to put this much time into research. There is still certainly the odd healthcare advertising agency resisting this new push for increased understanding of the audience, but even the holdouts show signs of embracing the facts. Thanks to increasingly specialized websites and publications, it is possible for a hospital marketing agency to provide a more targeted message than ever before. The limitation of that targeting is no longer the media, but rather the amount of research that can be performed. One can place an ad in a very specific, industry-only web sector, but not until that sector has been clearly identified as beneficial and receptive to these kind of products.
Dollars And Sense
The increased spending on research is almost always less expensive than trying a particular broad campaign and hoping for good results. Focus groups can help even a small healthcare advertising firm understand the habits of a target audience at very little cost. The amount saved on otherwise wasted promotional efforts can be funneled into another campaign, perhaps targeted very directly at another promising sector.
Every healthcare and hospital marketing agency faces the unique challenge of frequently appealing to two very different audiences. The same new medicine may be marketed to physicians and their patients, or hospital workers and in-home caregivers. With such a broad market to address, choosing the right audience and pinpointing the best ways to contact them become increasingly important. There is a big risk of wasteful spending unless highly targeted approaches are used for the two different sectors. When a health care marketing company can successfully isolate engagement opportunities, all funds can be used to their best advantage, helping health care companies maximize their return on investment.
