What Does Summer Mean for Healthcare Marketing?
Anyone involved in marketing or business development (and especially our team at McCauley Marketing Services) knows the meaning of Francois de La Rouchefoucauld’s famous quote, “The only thing constant in life is change.” Consumers are constantly going through changes in their lives and, as a result, in their buying habits and in the way that media and advertising reaches them. Fortunately, we’re heading into a rather predictable change in our consumers’ lives: summer. For healthcare companies in particular, what implication does the beginning of summer hold for marketing your business?
Specific concerns and procedures are more likely to be on your patients’ minds.
The types of activities that people engage in are very different during the summer than in other seasons. For example, summer is the season when we’re much more likely to spend time on the beach or at swimming pools. Plans for these fun outings can leave people thinking about how they can feel their most confident in their bathing suit, so many patients are likely to be considering medical weight loss or plastic surgery procedures for body contouring. For medical offices that offer these services, using the coming few months to send your consumers a message they can relate to—that you can help them achieve that great beach body they’re wishing for.
Your patients will appreciate information that can keep them safer.
Patients are at a higher risk for certain medical problems during the summer, like dehydration, sun damage, or heat stroke. Use the coming months as an opportunity to both provide your patients with important health tips and to improve your customer relationship management by helping your audience see you as an expert resource who’s truly here to help them. For example, a dermatology office would be wise to spend more of their marketing time and effort on skin cancer awareness during the summer than they do during the winter. Just make sure you’re focusing on information that’s relevant to your specialty so that patients will be able to trust that their information is coming from an expert.
Your patients’ day-to-day schedules are changing.
The summer break from school can completely change many families’ schedules. For instance, full-time moms or dads now have their school-aged children at home with them every day. You can make scheduling easier on parents by offering more appointments in the evenings or on Saturdays, when it’s more likely that a spouse will be available to care for the children. Or, make your office more kid-friendly. If there is an in-office daycare available to your patients, advertise this special perk that can make daytime appointments much more convenient. On the other hand, some patients have much more free time during the summer than during the school year (like college students and the thousands of adults who are employed by schools), so putting extra effort into your social media marketing during the summer can pay off as well.
Your patients have several long weekends coming up.
Medical facilities who offer elective or cosmetic procedures, like plastic surgeons or medical spas, know how difficult it can be for some patients to make their work schedules accommodate the recovery time they need for some procedures. Summer provides several bonus vacations in the form of three-day holiday weekends, like Memorial Day, 4th of July weekend, or Labor Day. This is a perfect opportunity for some of your busier patients: encourage them to schedule their procedure shortly before a long weekend, so that they’ll be able to recover over the holiday and take fewer days off work.
Every season is ripe with marketing opportunities that can allow you to make your message and your service more relevant to your audience. The difficult part is figuring out who your audience is and understanding what they need to hear and when they need to hear it. Schedule a meeting with McCauley Marketing Services to learn how we can develop a plan tailored to your healthcare business and your patients. Or, for more marketing and advertising tips, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.