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To say that the healthcare market has shifted in the past few years is an understatement. The changes ushered in by the effects of a global pandemic combined with the explosion in demand for digital health applications have created an unprecedented climate of opportunity for healthcare software providers. Small practices and hospitals alike are expanding telehealth services. Health care cloud adoption is on the rise as health system executives are keen to optimize efficiency. And AI applications promise to help data flow smoothly, while increased digitization stands to deliver on the promise of healthcare without walls.
According to Deloitte’s 2022 Global Healthcare Sector Outlook,
This is good news for healthcare software providers, but along with rapid digitization comes some hefty challenges. Dr. Bruce Green, the U.S. Federal Chief Medical Officer, explains that technology innovators will have to take measures to reassure regulators, clinicians, and patients that digital health products keep data — and patients — safe.
With all of these changes, one constant remains: healthcare software companies that stand out in a crowded market need a solid marketing strategy. While changes in the market will ebb and flow, nothing can replace a smart digital marketing strategy.
This is why many providers choose to work with a digital marketing agency specializing in healthcare software. An agency’s team of professionals who understand the market and how to navigate it with the most effective marketing tools can free up software providers to focus on what’s most important — growing their business. But how do you know what to expect from an agency?
We’ve created this guide to answer your most pressing questions, including an overview of the most successful digital marketing tools and strategies for the healthcare software industry as well as ways to choose the right marketing partner.
First, let’s explore some reasons why providers choose to enlist the services of a digital agency.
The first question software companies face when confronted with digital healthcare marketing is which avenue to choose. Some companies are torn between taking their marketing in-house, hiring a freelance consultant, or partnering with a full-service digital marketing agency.
A true partner is one that understands the healthcare IT market inside and out and can pivot on a dime when unexpected changes arise. To understand how to best support your needs, let’s examine the pros and cons of each marketing avenue to help you determine the best fit for your company.
As a healthcare digital marketing agency for software, we certainly have some bias when it comes to evaluating the options. It pays to take an informed approach to this decision because, ultimately, the best marketing fit is one that works best for you.
Considering these pros and cons, let’s explore the reasons why working with a healthcare software marketing agency may be the right option for your company.
Every agency is different, so it’s important to do your homework when selecting a partner that specializes in healthcare digital marketing for software. To help you get started, we’ve isolated some of the top reasons why providers choose agencies.
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Gain an entire team of experts in your field.In an agency, one person isn’t running the whole show. Working with a team means that you’ll find professionals who’ve been concentrating exclusively within their specialty, and their skills show it. On top of healthcare software industry experience, your agency team will have marketing experts in every area, such as developers, writers, content marketers, SEO strategists, and more. |
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Expand your time and resources exponentially.Rather than having one person juggle roles like social media manager, writer, and website manager, you can access agency staff to have several experts complete those high-priority tasks simultaneously. More hands available means your efforts come to fruition in a shorter amount of time. Not to mention, the team you’re working with has likely accumulated a great deal of knowledge and resources from working with others in the industry that they can readily share. Want to add a chatbot feature to your website this week? No problem. |
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Go beyond marketing efforts to create a cohesive strategy.There’s a difference between throwing some efforts at the wall to see what sticks and crafting a careful strategy. A team of healthcare software marketing consultants on your side can do just that — and then adjust as needed. Just as the healthcare software industry evolves, so should your strategy. Whether that calls for a website redesign, creating more content, or increasing social media engagement, an agency that is experienced in healthcare software will consider every aspect of your strategy from the audience to lead generation to analyzing the results of a campaign. |
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Realize the ability to scale your business.Flexibility and scalability go hand in hand, and both are reasons that working with an agency can be beneficial. An agency can be more flexible with the changing needs of your company in order to facilitate growth. As an example, the changing needs of your company may call for an initial focus on website redesign followed by content creation. If you’re limited to a freelancer with one skill set or an already strapped-for-time employee, so is your capacity to grow. With an agency, the support you receive can ebb and flow. Fortunately, an agency can deliver their team’s talent right when it’s needed. If you need to expand your marketing team to meet an increasing workload, an agency focused on healthcare digital marketing for software can make that happen in short order. |
To help your business realize these benefits, an effective agency should start with a personalized strategy that will guide decisions for your marketing investment. Getting it right takes an agile approach and a strong understanding of the complexities of healthcare marketing for software.
The healthcare industry is undergoing rapid digitalization. High demand for telehealth services, data analytics capabilities, and tech-enabled patient experiences will create ample opportunities for healthcare software vendors to grow in the future.
But there are also distinct challenges. For example, the healthcare software sales cycle is lengthy, with many healthcare providers taking over a year to make purchasing decisions. In addition, it takes a wide range of stakeholders, including IT leadership, the finance department, and potentially hospital administrators and medical staff, to execute purchasing decisions. Meanwhile, each stakeholder has their own set of priorities and concerns, which the healthcare software provider must address. To complicate matters, the healthcare industry is notoriously slow to change and must consider heavy regulations and high risks involved in every operational decision.
One of the biggest values a healthcare digital marketing agency for software can deliver is creating an inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing is an approach to attracting leads and customers by sharing useful and relevant content.
The idea of inbound marketing is to “pull” your target market toward you by offering them valuable or engaging content for free. Some of the most popular forms of inbound marketing include blog posts, webinars, social media posts and video content. Unlike outbound marketing, in which you “push” your business toward customers with a product offer, this method can build the crucial brand awareness you need in the crowded healthcare software market. Content marketing is ideal for targeting the healthcare software market because it adapts to market changes and news in real-time and reflects a clear awareness of what content will be most valuable for your prospective customers.
This approach can be relatively inexpensive and highly effective — if it’s implemented correctly. To create the kind of high-quality, industry-leading content that will help you stand out from other healthcare software brands, you need an agency that has worked in healthcare marketing for software for years.
The right marketing partner will help you develop or update your buyer personas. You can interview your existing customers to deepen your insight into why they chose your product. With this information, you’ll understand how to frame your product to interest new leads and use the exact terms, phrases, and examples most likely to appeal to other potential customers.
To be fair, inbound marketing is no magic bullet. It works best over a long period of time when complemented with a comprehensive outbound strategy that includes banner or print ads, direct mail, cold calling and emailing, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads.
And there’s valuable data to be mined from both inbound and outbound strategies. For example, an agency can illuminate which leads have been attracted to your website by blog posts, social media, or your outbound marketing efforts – or a combination of all three.
Let’s examine other ways these strategies can optimize your business decisions and yield data-based insights.
It’s important to base your strategy on actionable data. The right agency can provide insights to guide your strategy that are invaluable. Let’s review the ways that the right partner can help develop a healthcare marketing strategy for software companies.
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Analyze the CompetitionTo stand out in the competitive healthcare software environment, it’s wise to have a firm grasp on your competitors so that you can strategically position your content and offers in the marketplace. Marketing professionals can take a deep dive into your competitors’ tactics in content marketing, social media marketing, SEO marketing and video marketing to inform your strategy. Using data-driven insights, you can move forward with confidence. But the advantages of working with a healthcare digital marketing agency don’t stop there. |
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Define Data-Driven ObjectivesYour agency should help you determine data-driven marketing goals with a focus on website traffic, conversions and customer retention and then follow those up with detailed reporting on progress. They can put the right analytics tools in place and establish data benchmarks. Team members can then be assigned specific metrics to promote accountability. It’s best to tie each KPI to your short- and long-term objectives so it’s easy to measure the impacts of your marketing efforts. |
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Make Your Plan ActionableAn effective healthcare software marketing team knows how to turn strategies, insights and contextual information into actionable tactics. For instance, they may use value proposition mapping to create a flow chart to define processes. They should also create a content calendar to ensure that your inbound strategy is in sync with the rest of the marketing plan or use a product roadmap to guide marketing activities that support new launches and announcements. |
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Track ResultsYou’ve heard the old adage, “what gets measured gets done.” To efficiently track KPIs, set regular checkpoints to review the metrics and measure progress. Keep in mind that gauging the effectiveness of a branding initiative may not be as straightforward. In that case, you’ll need to establish qualitative benchmarks (e.g., use surveys to find out customers’ perception of your brand) or identify indirect metrics (e.g., increased use of your product name as a search term.) Capturing and monitoring the right metrics will keep your marketing goals on track; however, there is more to healthcare software marketing than data. Establishing personal customer relationships is, after all, a human endeavor. Building trust is fundamental to an effective healthcare marketing strategy for software companies. |
No matter what changes in the healthcare industry, building authenticity and trust will always be critical to any successful strategy. One way to facilitate that is to make your interactions personal. It seems that the more we move into virtual environments, the more we crave a human experience from our online interactions.
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Create ConnectionsB2B healthcare software buyers want to buy from people, not brands. Social media can be a powerful way to create a human connection with potential buyers. Using the first-person voice in updates or a “brand front person” to tweet, post or write articles is one way to stand out from the crowd and humanize your brand voice. Videos can also help make a connection between your healthcare software offering and the people behind it. A healthcare digital marketing agency for software can deliver personalization by targeting your prospects with one-to-one, customized marketing content and relevant use-cases. It may take more time, but the return on investment can be far higher than one-size-fits-all campaigns. |
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Prove Your PurposeThe majority of customers prefer to buy from companies that demonstrate strong values and align with their own beliefs. Let’s take a look at how this works. For example, make sure your digital marketing strategy communicates your purpose to your target market and existing customers. Review your company’s mission and vision and update as needed. Healthcare software companies often play a key role in helping your customers achieve their organizational purpose, such as a better experience for medical professionals or improved patient care. Demonstrating how your company’s purpose overlaps with the potential clients’ mission can help build a powerful connection between your business and theirs. The crucial takeaway? Only authentic purpose-driven digital healthcare marketing will resonate. |
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Stay Agile to Respond to Industry TrendsThe rampant changes in the healthcare industry demonstrate a valuable lesson: a good healthcare marketing strategy for software comapnies needs to be able to respond swiftly to industry fluctuations. To stay ahead of competitors, you’ll need to act on the latest marketing trends so you can meet customer expectations. Some major areas to focus on include user experience, content marketing and intent data analytics. Becoming more agile requires a strong understanding of your market and current and upcoming priorities to respond with relevant, targeted content via digital channels. A digital healthcare marketing team can pull together lead and customer data into a single source of information. They can also guide investments in marketing technology with social media analytics functionality, enabling you to understand what your target market is most interested in at any |
With a marketing strategy that includes these best practices, your business will be poised for success. However, you’ll need to employ the right healthcare digital marketing services to support your strategy to take full advantage of opportunities in the healthcare software industry.
A comprehensive, data-driven marketing strategy will chart your course, but, ultimately, it’s only as good as the tools and services used to get to the destination.
If you are wondering if a healthcare software marketing agency could help you, ask yourself if these descriptions of “need” fit your business:
Efforts that are inconsistent or intermittent won’t cut it in the highly competitive online landscape. An agency can pinpoint exactly what healthcare digital marketing services are best to reach your target customer—and then follow through with exceptional execution. With the right approach, what was once an impression on a blog becomes a click-through on a PPC, a white-paper download, submitted email address, and finally, a qualified lead.
Whether your company has the bandwidth to keep your strategy on track or you need some degree of outside help, these six marketing services are critical to a digital strategy.
An agency that specializes in digital marketing for healthcare companies will conduct thorough keyword research to pinpoint which terms your target customer is searching for, including the terms that have high search volume. If your competitors are ranking for the same terms that you want your pages to rank for, an intentional SEO strategy is crucial to ensure that you’re listed on the search engine results page (SERP) with them — ideally above them.
A study found that the first organic result on Google receives a click-through rate of 28.5%. Beyond the first SERP, the number of clicks decreases dramatically. But it’s not just ranking on the first page that an agency can help with; SEO specialists can target a specific keyword that they know your audience is searching for, such as electronic health record (EHR). Keyword research must be ongoing to maintain an understanding of audience priorities.
Your search rankings and keyword performances are good metrics for how consistent and relevant your content is. Though a good SEO strategy often takes time to build, monitoring analytics over a period of time allows your agency to share analytics and determine if your strategy needs refining. Simply put, an intentional SEO approach relies on quality content that attracts readers and drives engagement and content sharing.
It’s true: content is king. A content marketing strategy should be strongly aligned with your SEO strategy in order to be most effective.
According to this Hubspot study, 47% of buyers viewed between three and five pieces of content before reaching out to a company sales rep.
A healthcare digital marketing agency for software can create a content calendar and optimized blogs that attract the right visitors to your website. Content can come in many forms, but long-form content is best for establishing expertise and offering customers values. And timing is important, too. Long-form pieces, such as blogs, white-papers, infographics, webinars, and pdf guides, can feed social media channels and be coordinated with other sales promotions.
A video marketing strategy may be included with content marketing, but it also stands alone as a viable strategy that attracts and converts leads into customers. Videos can offer a valuable human perspective on your product, such as testimonials from healthcare providers who have been helped by your product.
Your agency can then provide data that reveals the types of content that best engages your audience. For a smaller company, the time it takes to create content and analyze the results can prove too cumbersome.
To stand out in today’s market, healthcare software companies need a website that is more than just a resume for your business. You’ll need a distinct website strategy that aligns with your larger marketing goals. An agency entrenched in digital marketing for healthcare companies has the advantage of understanding your audience, the topics they care about, and the problems that your company solves.
By implementing responsive design, marketing professionals can ensure that your website visitors can easily navigate your page and find the necessary information. The last thing you want are usability issues, such as pages loading slowly, which may cause a visitor to leave your site and move on to another solution.
Once the right website strategy is in place, a healthcare digital marketing agency should deliver data that proves your plan is working by sharing the number of visitors coming to your site each month, page views, the number of conversions on your site and more. Heat map tracking tools are especially useful to understanding where things are going right – or wrong. All of this data can be the difference between a website that helps to convert leads and one that merely distributes information.
To meet your marketing goals, it’s wise to aim for both long-term and short-term wins. Ultimately, PPC marketing and content marketing should be seen as complementary activities. While SEO-based content strategy is a long game, a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign has the potential to deliver new leads quickly. And with proper goal setting and audience targeting, PPC works very well.
A healthcare software digital marketing agency such as Spot On knows how to use insights from keyword research to choose the best lower-cost long-tail keyword ads that will be highly specific to your audience’s needs. They will also A/B test new ad ideas, re-evaluate goals, tweak copy and experiment with campaign times.
Keep in mind that the results of PPC ads can also hinge on how well your site is designed. Ad copy that entices a prospect to click should guide them to a landing page with highly targeted information about your company or product that is specific to your ad campaign. Today’s consumer expects an engaging website experience with clear details upfront and a mix of copy, images and video.
One benefit of PPC is that you can more easily align marketing dollars spent with the number of leads or customers received. Your agency will deliver data that correlates your PPC budget and strategy to the results. This includes cost per click (CPC), the number of impressions and clicks, and the cost per lead or customer.
Another way to drive potential customers to your website is through social media. While content marketing usually refers to long-form content, shorter interactions on social media can drive traffic to those resources while cultivating important rapport with your audience and those who can influence them.
As such, social media done well can be both a credible content source and a marketing/sales adjunct. The trick is in the execution. It has to be done with a consistent voice appropriate to the medium, with someone dedicated to being responsive to your customers’ questions and comments.
Healthcare digital agencies for software are experts at crafting and creating social media engagement. They can develop a content calendar that includes themes and specific sales messages coordinated with PPC and email campaigns to inform social media posts. And they can employ a social media expert to engage with comments, tags, follows and mentions several times per day. In other words, the promises of social media are directly linked to how sociable you are on the various platforms you decide to target.
Simply obtaining an email address can mean a new prospect is advancing through the sales funnel. However, the path to get there can be difficult without relevant content, such as whitepapers and free checklist downloads that provide your audience with the kind of value that entices email sign ups. Working with a healthcare digital marketing agency that understands this audience is key to helping you capture the right emails.
Once you’ve put a solid strategy in place, you can segment your email lists to identify leads in various stages or employ email automation to nurture leads who may not be ready to make a decision about your product yet. An agency can strategize with you to set up a sequence of emails reaching out to these leads over time. A well-informed strategy can help you sidestep the junk bin and obtain important data about what type of content resonates most.
As you can see, a healthcare marketing strategy for software companies is more nuanced than just fulfilling a checklist of services. It’s for this reason that many healthcare software companies choose to partner with a marketing agency. If this route seems right for your business, make sure you know what to expect.
The right agency is key to getting found by your ideal audience. An agency with experience in the healthcare software industry can provide multiple benefits, including digital strategies that lead to increased conversions and better customer retention. One of the most helpful benefits of working with a specialist healthcare digital marketing company is that they have highly relevant experience in your sector. This cuts down on the time they’ll need to understand your market and your products. The less time it takes for your marketing agency to get up to speed, the quicker you should start to see results and the better your ROI will be.
Let’s explore how a digital agency can facilitate the customer journey.
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Get found by high-quality prospects.It doesn’t matter how good your product is if no one knows about you. These days, customers are almost exclusively searching for products and services online. Search engine optimization (SEO) strategies can help you drive organic traffic to your website and increase your brand presence. Businesses that rank on the first page of search engine results have a great advantage in reaching prospects seeking the exact products or services that you offer. The right agency will understand exactly how to make this happen using SEO optimization and pay-per-click (PPC) ads that allow you to target specific audience segments with high purchase intent. They understand how to leverage the vast user database of platforms like LinkedIn to inform your audience targeting. While SEO can be completed using an in-house marketing team, many healthcare IT companies opt to dedicate their internal resources elsewhere and leave SEO to the experts – those who are already familiar with optimizing for healthcare IT. An agency skilled in SEO and digital marketing for healthcare will make decisions based on real data – rather than you having to guess what your future clients might be searching for. |
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Increase brand awareness.To appeal to healthcare software buyers, you must have a strong digital brand that speaks to your integrity, company values and industry authority. Doing so raises your profile among larger and well-established competitors. It’s important to build a cohesive brand that is consistent with every interaction with your customers from your website to your social media presence to your inbound and outbound campaigns. Look for a healthcare digital marketing partner that understands the end-to-end marketing cycle, not just certain platforms or tactics. |
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Gain trust and credibility for your brand.We all know that trust is an important factor influencing purchase decisions. But how do you build rapport when in-person interactions are limited? A healthcare digital marketing agency for software understands how to use digital tools to gain customer trust and nurture relationships. They can employ multiple touchpoints such as email, website, and social media and facilitate two-way interactions with webinars, live chat and messaging apps. |
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Drive conversions by educating your audience.Content marketing is essential to nurture and convert the right visitors into leads – and eventually – into customers. In healthcare IT, your company may be targeting an audience who can afford to take their time searching for a solution because they already have a platform but need something that better fits their organization’s needs. Providing them with engaging content is a valuable service and can demonstrate how your solution eliminates a pressing pain point. An agency that knows your industry as well as digital marketing for healthcare can serve as a priceless partner to not only create content but also promote it. |
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Facilitate conversions with marketing technologies.Identifying prospects who are ready to convert does not have to be a guessing game. A healthcare digital marketing agency can promote conversational selling and provide useful metrics that shed light on how to focus your resources and which relationships deserve the most effort. |
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Use data-driven insights to inform marketing decisions.Knowing which marketing data to track puts you in the driver’s seat. The right agency can tell you exactly which marketing techniques are moving the needle. Instead of merely looking at lead numbers, a strong marketing partner should help you track things like customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value and qualified lead velocity rate. Expect marketing reports that tie specific efforts to conversion rates, among other insightful information. |
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Improve customer retention.Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing one. Through various digital marketing channels, you can nurture customer relationships with your brand long after their purchase. A healthcare digital marketing agency can help by creating client-exclusive content, webinars, service portals or enabling AI-powered chatbots to manage inquiries and reduce wait time. Happy customers then become brand ambassadors whose positive testimonials can multiply your efforts. |
An agency with in-depth healthcare software expertise knows exactly how to deliver these benefits. It should feel like you are working with a trusted partner, not just a service provider. In order to find the right fit, you’ll need to do your homework. Next, we’ll share the best ways to evaluate a healthcare digital marketing agency for software.
Hiring a healthcare digital marketing agency for software is a big step that can propel your business forward. Finding the right fit for your business takes some investigation.
It’s a good sign if the agency is taking the time needed to understand your products and what makes your company stand out.
A telltale sign is what they ask about your business during the initial meeting.
For instance, an agency that is truly invested in understanding your business should ask questions such as these:
Knowing what you can expect will give you a double advantage: You’ll be prepared to answer them constructively, and you’ll know if the agency is invested in understanding what’s most important for your business.
It’s also important to prepare your own inquiries. Before you talk to a healthcare software marketing agency, arm yourself with the right knowledge.
Here are the top things to look for in an agency.
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Proven Industry Know-HowAn agency focused on healthcare digital marketing for software will bring proven experience and should be able to demonstrate their expertise in the form of case studies and client referrals. Before you take the next step with an agency, ask to see a couple of case studies that show how they’ve helped other companies like yours reach their goals. And don’t be afraid to ask for client testimonials or referrals – a happy client will be more than willing to share their experience and can help you discover sooner rather than later if a certain agency is a good fit. |
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Resources and TalentWhen you work with an agency, you have the advantage of gaining an entire team of healthcare software marketing consultants skilled in their area of expertise—and your industry. On top of healthcare software knowledge, your agency team can leverage the skills of marketing experts in every area, such as designers, developers, writers, editors, content creators, SEO strategists, and more. Keep in mind that one person shouldn’t run the whole show. Ask an agency about their team members’ areas of expertise. As far as resources, you’ll find that an agency has garnered an abundance from working with other clients. This means that they will already know how to solve most problems that may arise. For example, if you want to add a new technology or feature to your website, such as a chatbot or ROI calculator, an agency will already be familiar with available options. Other resources might include tools to improve your company’s marketing, such as a content management system like HubSpot. |
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Strategic ApproachFind a partner that understands that marketing is more than delivering a list of services and checking a box on a to-do list. Your healthcare software marketing agency should collaborate with you to create and fulfill a strategy that works best for your company. In other words, steer clear of agencies that have a cookie-cutter approach. Whether your needs call for a website redesign, creating more content or increasing social media engagement, an agency that is experienced in healthcare digital marketing services for software will be able to customize a strategy uniquely suited to your audience. |
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Flexibility and ScalabilityAs the healthcare software industry continues to evolve, your marketing strategy should shift, too. An agency should be able to pivot and flex with the changing needs of your company. In addition to flexibility, your company’s marketing may require scalability. As your needs change, the support you require from an agency may ebb and flow. Make sure the agency you choose is able to tap into their team’s talent as needed. |
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Omnichannel EngagementDecision-makers want the ability to interact with healthcare software vendors via any channel wherever and whenever that’s most convenient for them. One study showed that businesses that adopt omnichannel strategies achieve 91% greater year-over-year customer retention rates compared to those that don’t. Select a healthcare digital marketing agency for software that has experience in implementing a strategy through various channels, such as websites, emails, SEO, social media, mobile, etc. |
When you decide to partner with a healthcare digital marketing agency for software, you need to be sure that you’re getting real value for your money. As a HubSpot Solutions Partner, Spot On has helped many healthcare software companies to improve their digital marketing strategy. But, enough from us, hear what they have to say about working with our team.
Jake from Cureatr, a medication management platform, says:
With an internal marketing team of four, it is impossible to focus on everything involved in executing a successful inbound strategy. This is where Spot On has really helped; they are incredibly responsive to any request. Whether it is helping set up a workflow or campaign, making minor changes to our website, or developing new web pages, Spot On is on it. They are also very good at taking our input about design and executing our vision.
Dan Tashnek from Prevounce, a platform focused on preventive care, chronic care management and remote patient monitoring, says:
We spent a long time looking at different inbound marketing firms prior to Spot On. With each we talked to, we felt like they were either too big to give us the personalized attention our startup needed, or else too small to have the experience required to guide sales in our niche of the health IT/software industry. Spot On strikes a great balance having extensive experience and knowledge while still being agile enough to give in-depth and personalized service.
Not long after partnering with Spot On, Prevounce saw their website increase from zero organic search results to ranking for several high-volume keywords on the first page of Google, which ultimately led to a 1,600% increase in deals. If these results resonate with the solutions you’re looking for, we’d love to connect. To learn more about how Spot On can improve your healthcare software company’s digital marketing strategy and results, schedule a time to chat with us.
