Challenges of B2B marketing programs in healthcare
While the basic structure of all marketing programs has similar foundational pillars, such as buyer personas, content, SEO, buyer's journey, etc., marketers in the B2B healthcare space may face unique challenges.
Some of them include:
Challenge #1. Lengthy sales process
As a normal consumer, we tend to make purchase decisions in a prompt manner. We don't need to form a meeting and spend months deciding between Pepsi and Coke. But this is different for B2B healthcare businesses. Whether hospital beds, dialysis machines, stethoscopes, or even nurses' uniforms, every purchase is carefully researched and considered.
Many experts conclude that if you're lucky enough, you'll get a purchase order in 12 months. However, most of the time, it will take you up to 18 months or more in healthcare enterprise sales. Therefore, you need to find ways to keep them engaged in every step of their buying journey. This could be an infographic to raise brand awareness, newsletters for the consideration stage, and a white paper in the decision-making stage.
Challenge #2. Speed of the healthcare industry
It comes as no surprise that practically everyone calls the pace of change in the healthcare industry “slow.” The main reason for it is that people's health, and even life, is at risk. Itamar Kandel, President of TigerConnect at TigerText, a company specializing in clinical communications, believed that “Healthcare is conservative for a reason: lives literally depend on it. Every new piece of technology needs to be bulletproof.”
Marketing in the healthcare industry is no different. Some studies have explored that healthcare marketing lags about 2 years behind in the use and implementation of content marketing. You can consider these statistics:
General and healthcare content marketing- 28% of general marketers use print newsletters versus 42% of healthcare marketers.
- 72% of all marketers choose blogs versus 58% of healthcare marketers.
- 74% of general marketers create LinkedIn accounts to deliver content versus 56% of healthcare marketers.
- It can be seen clearly that paper newsletters are commonly used in the healthcare industry with 43%, while this figure is only 28% in general marketing. However, general marketers choose blogs and LinkedIn as their favorite channels to distribute content, which is much higher than their healthcare counterparts.
“This makes sense - healthcare is a highly regulated industry, and fear is rampant,” said Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute.
Challenge #3. HIPAA and other regulations
Until the 1970s, it was mostly illegal to market for hospitals and practices, and it still took a number of years for the boards to decide whether it was ethical.
The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) was passed in 1996 with a privacy rule that put patient-information safeguards in place and applied to any organization that handles healthcare or medical data. Businesses that specialize in B2B healthcare software are well-versed in HIPAA compliance requirements, and mandate that staff in every department go through extensive training. Medical software development plays a crucial role in the B2B healthcare industry and telemedicine app development services, providing hospitals and clinics with innovative EHR software development solutions for managing patient data, electronic health records, medical imaging, and more. Health insurance coverage addiction treatment plans are essential in providing individuals with the necessary support and resources to overcome challenges, ensuring a path to recovery and a healthier, brighter future
Typically, companies can use Google AdWords remarketing tools to display ads to people who used to visit their website, or express interest in their products. However, healthcare is much different. Healthcare marketers can still use pay-per-click advertising to get their web page or landing page at the top of the Google search results. However, they cannot retarget them due to HIPAA concerns.
So, consider hosting a comprehensive HIPAA regulations training program to keep every member of your marketing team in the know. Besides, update this program throughout the year, and retrain to maintain compliance at the top of mind.
Given the fact of typical long sales cycles, the slow pace of change in the healthcare industry, and massive regulation, marketers must cultivate patience at every turn. healthtech software development plays a vital role in the healthcare industry, as it enables B2B (business-to-business) interactions that enhance patient care, streamline operations, and drive innovation in the delivery of BPO healthcare services.
3 examples of successful B2B healthcare marketing campaigns
BFW Inc.
The best results sometimes come from strategies that concentrate on foundational pillars rather than on trendy tactics. And that is the case of BFW Inc., an American manufacturer of medical headlamps and surgical headlights.
Through highly targeted content, wildly successful backlink outreach campaigns, and aggressive onsite search engine optimization, BFW now dominates every single keyword in their niche. They've beaten out much bigger and more well-funded competitors, and rank #1 for over 50 variations of “surgical headlights.”
An example of BFW Inc.'s B2B healthcare marketing campaignThis result is especially impressive because most B2B health marketers find it hard to deal with content marketing and SEO strategies , with only about 30% getting an ROI (Return on Investment) they're satisfied with.
BFW's campaign should be a potent reminder for B2B marketers to keep an eye on the fundamentals before draining their budget on trendy ideas. This kind of marketing campaign requires vast amounts of strategic thinking, discipline, and patience.
A lot of healthcare brands, including both b2B and B2C, are beginning to penetrate into podcasts as part of their content marketing strategy. As a matter of fact, almost one-fifth of B2B marketers have adopted podcasts as an indispensable tactic, according to the Content Marketing Institute.
HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, Inc.) is a thought leader and global advisor whose mission is to support the transformation of the health ecosystem through IT. They have launched 13 different podcasts that range from talks with experts in various healthcare topics to discussions of significant industry trends. They're getting more leads, and of much higher quality than they have ever had.