4 Covid-19 Digital Marketing  Healthcare Trends

4 Covid-19 Digital Marketing Healthcare Trends

Covid-19 has upended all industries and changed the behavior of consumers. Within healthcare specifically, the pandemic has impacted patients, healthcare providers and pharmaceutical brands alike.

These trends have become more apparent when the pandemic started and continue across the United States:

1. Spike in searches for health-related content and tools

Online searches for covid-19 content and information increased early in the pandemic and even continues to outrank other searches like music and news. According to Google Search Trends, coronavirus queries are even trending over sports related searches.

covid-19 digital marketing search trends

Research by Google states that interest for headspace, a meditation app, surged by 4X during the height of the pandemic! Searches for “headspace for healthcare workers” jumped by a 100 times early March, showing once again how the coronavirus has greatly impacted healthcare professionals.

covid digital marketing trends

2. Patients and HCPs want to continue connecting with healthcare brands

A survey of HCPs by CMI/Compas, a healthcare agency, discovered that the majority (86%) of healthcare professionals would like to continue hearing from pharmaceutical brands even during the pandemic. The majority of HCPs would like to receive information online as the demand for printed and physical material drops.

According to Accenture, since the start of the pandemic 60% of patients mentioned wanting to use technology to communicate with physicians and 41% already started leveraging video conferencing technologies. Despite the challenges brought by covid-19, 90% of patients thought that HCPs were providing as good or better service than before covid-19.

3. Healthcare providers and patients want to personalize their interactions with Pharma brands

HCPs are busy and short on time. While they want to continue engaging brands, healthcare professionals would like to personalize their interactions with pharmaceutical brands. Additional research by Accenture, found that 87% of HCPs want a mix of virtual and personal or all virtual meetings with reps even when covid-19 ends. While 64% of meetings with pharmaceutical representatives were conducted in person before the pandemic, that number has switched to at least of 65% of meeting being conducted virtually.

4. Marketers are adapting their budgets to focus on virtual experiences

While most marketing budgets have seen a decrease in spend, healthcare and pharmaceutical digital marketing spend is forecasted to grow in 2020. A survey by emarketer of B2B marketers, concluded that given the pandemic marketers plan to reallocate their budgets in order of priority towards content creation, webinars and search engine marketing.

covid-19 digital marketing spend

As the coronavirus has forced all industries to adapt and reinvent themselves, the brands that quickly adapt and innovate in regards to their digital marketing tactics will be the ones to stand out among both patients and HCPs.

María Gabriela Morales

Communicate with your Spanish and Portuguese Audience in America. Project Management. Translation. Localization. Terminology. Accessibility. Cultural Awareness. Inclusivity.

2mo

Alex, thanks for sharing!

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Mary Kangley

Award Winning Analyst and Insights Consultant at CREATION.co

3y

Great article, I agree with your points. Definitely an important season of digital transformation!

Ramon Nieves-Lugo

Principal at UniComm Media Group, a Hispanic marketing & communication strategy growth agency in Greenville, SC.

3y

Alex Lund, great article and insight! The level of personalization is rapidly growing in all industries, so number three is right on point. The word being used is mass personalization, and many brands are looking into AI to help them with the mass personalization. Number 4 is a great point because it shows where the new direction many marketers are taking. Awesome!

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