3 Quick Tips for Marketing Your Educational Seminars for Patients
In any business today, empathy goes a long way. By showcasing empathy in your marketing, general communications and customer service, you will put your business head and shoulders above your competition.
In the age of digital assistants, automation and artificial intelligence, empathy and emotional intelligence set you apart.
This is especially true in the healthcare and medical device world. So if you’re thinking of helping your partners with practices – doctors, dentists and others – put on educational seminars for patients, you may want to put yourself in the end user’s shoes.
In fact, according to research, healthcare marketing strategies reflecting consumer preferences for positive customer experiences can be twice as successful as campaigns that ignore that aspect.
If you’ve included educational seminars in your strategic plan, the right marketing is a critical component.
Here are 3 quick tips for marketing those educational events for patients.
Customer Experience Matters
It’s true that consumers care about whether they’ll get quality care. Going beyond that though, they also want a customer experience that feeds their soul. It’s more than a transaction. It’s a relationship for many. And we do business with those we know, like and trust.
A positive customer experience builds that trust.
One tool you can implement, patient questionnaires, can help determine what to emphasize in marketing materials. In fact one such survey found that patients were willing to pay nearly 40 percent more for a hospital room with hotel-like amenities.
Build a positive customer experience by communicating with – and listening to – your end user audience. Then put yourself in their shoes and communicate how they desire.
Combine Media
It seems digital media has overtaken everyone’s marketing strategy. “Search ads and Facebook and Instagram… that’s all we need!”
That’s probably not the best approach. Instead of only using the newest tools, combine a few platforms to create a multimedia event to market your educational seminars for patients.
For instance, direct mail and email together amplifies response rates for many seminar hosts.
Going back to research cited above, the average direct mail piece has a lifespan of more than 2 weeks. Compared that with email: about two seconds.
So mail brought in five times as much revenue per customer than email, but the two combined brought in six times as much revenue per customer as email, the research showed.
Email can be a great way to communicate with an existing audience, but coupled with other tools you’ll have more chances to reach your intended audience.
Don’t think of direct email and direct mail as an either/or decision. Explore how the two tools can combine forces to provide the greatest incremental, complementary effect.
When you throw social media into the mix with Facebook events people can subscribe to and share plus paid ads to reach a targeted audience, and you could have a 3-pronged approach that drives decisions.
Personal Invitations
Finally, put the power of personal networking to work. Empower the people in the practice you’re working with, those with the “boots on the ground,” to invite their patients right in the office.
This can come in the form of a webinar with the office where you train them on how to bring up the event. It could mean providing them with invite cards of varying sizes – postcard or business card sizes – they can hand out. It may also mean putting some kind of flyer or brochure in a holder on the desk for incoming patients to see.
An in-person, real conversation can turn an ignored invitation into a “Yes I’ll be there. I’m looking forward to it!” in the right hands.
Again, in the age of automation and constant messaging, that personal connection can help.
How do you get the word out about events? Leave us your best campaign or trick of the trade in the comments below. And if you’d like to know more about putting on an event and you need help, download the event planning template below.
Empathy heart photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Marketing photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash
People talking photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash
