B2B Marketing for Healthcare Providers

We at Global Talent BPO (GTBPO) have seen that for years, healthcare marketers have focused on marketing to consumers namely B2C marketing. In 2022, healthcare digital ad spending increased by 14.3%, reaching $15.84 billion. That figure is projected to increase by12.3% in 2023 to reach $17.79 billion. In addition, healthcare providers are allocating 57.5% of their total ad spend to mobile devices.

The world of healthcare and life sciences is broad and diverse, with various institutions contributing to its ecosystem. Pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, healthcare IT firms, healthcare services organizations…all of these businesses play a critical role with unique missions and markets.

B2B healthcare companies like these have distinct marketing challenges to overcome. Unlike B2C healthcare marketing targeting patients with specific needs, B2B healthcare marketing requires a comprehensive understanding of the buyer’s journey and sales cycle, considering everyone from administrators and procurement professionals to chief executives, board members, and clinicians.

For effective marketing to healthcare professionals, we at GTBPO develop a holistic view of our client’s target market, buyer personas, buyer’s journey, and how our solution and services uniquely addresses their needs. Then, we effectively communicate our value proposition to each stakeholder on the proper marketing channel, at the right time.

GTBPO works closely with its clients as a demand generation service provider uniquely built to help its clients measurably improve business performance. We focus on three interdependent drivers of growth: Branding, Lead Generation, and Customer Engagement, with a view to attract, secure, and retain profitable customers for our clients.

B2B audiences are an interesting breed. They are consumers by nature, yet rarely make decisions on impulse. They are highly qualified in their fields, yet are always looking to learn something new. Most B2B sales are considered sales, as there are enough complexities involved in them for buyers to research different options. For these reasons, many B2B companies employ a sales force in addition to their marketing efforts to help close the sale.

In healthcare, it is not uncommon for hospitals to employ physician relations departments as their B2B sales forces. Physician relations performs this function with the physicians as the customer, along with customer service, consulting, and a few other roles mixed in. In the end, it is their job to build and nurture relationships with referring physicians. Traditionally, this was done through face-to-face encounters, as physician liaisons visiting referring physicians’ offices regularly with updates on services and referral materials and to follow up on satisfaction with the referral relationship.

Likewise, when physician liaisons sought to establish a new referral relationship, they made frequent stops into the offices of potential referral partners in the hope of creating a connection, gauging referral potential, distributing educational material, and scheduling face time between the physician they represent and the potential referring physician.

But these face-to-face connections among hospitals, hospital-based physicians, and referring physicians are becoming less frequent. In part this is partially due to some hospitals shrinking or even eliminating their physician liaison programs. However, the work life of the modern physician also plays a role, as does the growth of new technologies and changing preferences in terms of how they receive information.

The implications of this shift are clear: healthcare marketers must be supplemented with new marketing techniques to form a comprehensive physician marketing strategy. Just as B2B companies utilize marketing and sales, so must healthcare providers.

There are a number of reasons healthcare providers market to physicians. Think of them as three ‘R’s:

B2B audiences are an interesting breed. They are consumers by nature, yet rarely make decisions on impulse. They are highly qualified in their fields, yet are always looking to learn something new. Most B2B sales are considered sales, as there are enough complexities involved in them for buyers to research different options. For these reasons, many B2B companies employ a sales force in addition to their marketing efforts to help close the sale.

In healthcare, it is not uncommon for hospitals to employ physician relations departments as their B2B sales forces. Physician relations performs this function with the physicians as the customer, along with customer service, consulting, and a few other roles mixed in. In the end, it is their job to build and nurture relationships with referring physicians. Traditionally, this was done through face-to-face encounters, as physician liaisons visiting referring physicians’ offices regularly with updates on services and referral materials and to follow up on satisfaction with the referral relationship.

Likewise, when physician liaisons sought to establish a new referral relationship, they made frequent stops into the offices of potential referral partners in the hope of creating a connection, gauging referral potential, distributing educational material, and scheduling face time between the physician they represent and the potential referring physician.

But these face-to-face connections among hospitals, hospital-based physicians, and referring physicians are becoming less frequent. In part this is partially due to some hospitals shrinking or even eliminating their physician liaison programs. However, the work life of the modern physician also plays a role, as does the growth of new technologies and changing preferences in terms of how they receive information.

The implications of this shift are clear: healthcare marketers must be supplemented with new marketing techniques to form a comprehensive physician marketing strategy. Just as B2B companies utilize marketing and sales, so must healthcare providers.

Many hospitals are still designing websites for desktop computers and then trying to shoehorn them onto mobile devices.

CONTEXTUAL ADVERTISING is the placement of ad campaigns on websites or site pages that are directly relevant to the ad we are running.

In B2C, if we are selling a kitchen mixer, for example, we try to have it placed on sites listing recipes for cakes. The idea here is that people who are interested in baking are more likely to want a mixer than someone on a video gaming site. A more interested audience usually means better click-through rates and more conversions, so contextual advertising is a great way to improve the performance of your marketing.

There are now a growing number of advertising- funded sites with content developed specifically for physicians. We will review select ones, but before we do …

Sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Google are all used by physicians even when they are just not contextually in sync with them. The sites we will cover all reach physicians, but they are utilized differently. A news site is likely to be visited by physicians 2–3 times a week, while a reference site is likely to used 2–3 times a day.

These sites do not represent the beginning and end of physician communications. According to a 2021 HealthLink Dimensions survey of more than 700 physicians, email followed by interactions via in-person visits (physician liaisons) and direct mail are still the preferred channel for receiving industry news, announcements, research, and educational opportunities.

Capturing physician attention and persuading them to change long-standing referral patterns or opinions about particular institutions usually takes a concerted, omni-channel effort to succeed. We use specific advertising funded sites as set of digital marketing tools that enable us to pursue that effort in contextually relevant way.

The sites we will cover all reach physicians, but they are utilized differently. A news site is likely to be visited by physicians 2–3 times a week, while a reference site is likely to used 2–3 times a day:

We think of Medscape as The New York Times of medicine. It is a premier source for medical news, clinical reference, point-of-care tools, and medical education for physicians. Owned by WebMD, Medscape boasts a 55% physician reach on mobile. Its precision targeting and ability to present brand messages to physicians through the flow of their day (apps, site, tools) and across devices make it a go-to resource for B2B healthcare marketing.

While doctors are highly social, you will not find them connecting to each other on Facebook or LinkedIn, at least for their day-to-day work and this is where Doximity comes in. Billing itself as the Newsfeed of Medicine, Doximity’s fast-growing audience now exceeds that of the AMA as it has over 1 million members. While it (proudly) does not allow banner ads, it offers marketers an effective media mix through its Colleague Connect® and DocNews® products.

If Doximity is the LinkedIn of medicine, SERMO is the Facebook. This social media site acts as a virtual doctors’ lounge in which practitioners vent about anything and everything. Since 90% of SERMO’s users remain anonymous, the site’s medical crowdsourcing feature does not run afoul of privacy laws. Much of the current advertising is from pharma companies, but that could change if this intriguing functionality takes off.

A recent Johns Hopkins study found that YouTube was the most valued social media channel by physicians and not surprising considering the instructional power of video. BroadcastMed, a contextual channel similar to YouTube, was first in the world to broadcast live surgeries on the internet using its ORLive solution and is still going strong after nearly 25 years. It lets industry participants post their educational content and run targeted campaigns towards the physician audience that they are looking for.

Univadis uses concise executive summaries to help physicians tame the onslaught of medical literature and stay up to date in just a few minutes per day. While the site has morphed a bit, it was started by Merck, and absorbed peer-to-peer physician network QuantiaMD a few years back, and its current owner, Aptus Health, has made it a platform that features sponsored content delivered through various market access pull-through programs.

Here are our 6 most effective strategies for marketing to healthcare professionals:

For over 10 years, GTBPO has worked with our partners in two market sectors — B2B and B2C healthcare. Physician marketing, whether it be for a hospital, health system, or a medical manufacturer, is nothing new to us. It lies at the very intersection of what we do.

Even if you have a B2C agency or a strong internal team, GTBPO can bring different experience and perspective to your physician marketing.

Without clear physician referral marketing or patient referral strategies, most medical practices or physician groups are simply opening their doors and hoping for patients to walk in, often with little or slow success. In today’s market, it takes 2-5 years for a medical practice to hit a full patient volume capacity. At GTBPO, we aim to cut that time in half through our unique and direct field marketing program that no other company in offers. We target your most important physician referral or patient referral audience and push to gain awareness of your services and the opening of your practice.

By putting into place a clear and measurable referral system, it is possible to create multiple streams of new patient referrals for a simple monthly cost. As a reminder, every new patient referral submitted during and after the term of our 6 or 12-month contract is absolutely free.

Most medical specialists rely heavily on patient referral or “word-of-mouth” marketing to be successful, which is why GTBPO focuses on promoting your name directly to top referring physicians in your geographic area to increase exposure. First, we aim to see every referring practice and local pharmacies to within a 10-15 miles radius of your zip code. We then tailor a call cycle to promote to the most beneficial offices that can consistently send you patients.

Because this is a results-oriented program, you will receive a monthly Activity Report from your Physician Liaison, which will outline who we spoke with, on what date and the focus of the conversation. In each office visit, we aim to visit not only with the leading physician, but also the office manager, nurses and most importantly, the patient referral coordinator. Your Physician Liaison will meet with you at the end of every month to go over monthly results and future physician referral marketing plans. We will also remain in constant contact with you to discuss progress and keep you informed on new challenges in the healthcare industry.

Please give us a call and we wll begin with an in-depth evaluation of your practice, your specialty and the challenges you’re currently facing in growing your practice, in order to tailor a specific marketing strategy to finding you new patients.

GTBPO represents all major physician specialties and sub-specialties for Referral Marketing, such as: