It comes as no surprise that technology used for marketing in the healthcare vertical lags behind some of the other verticals. Consumer electronics, by its very nature, tends to be on the cutting-edge, while other industries, like consumers goods, tends to be lag. According to Forrester research, healthcare’s interactive spend is fairly low, especially when compared to financial services, travel, and retail. On the below graph by Forrester, titled “Industries Grow Interactive Marketing Spend at Different Rates”, its apparent that no matter the current ranking of an industry’s current interactive marketing spend, every industry is increasing  its interactive marketing budget.

But what does interactive marketing entail?

This chart from Forrester show the comparison in spending across different marketing channels and technologies.

The Mayo clinic was one of the first to effectively leverage digital marketing, and you can watch a video from Lee Aase or read a case study about it here. Some of the valuable lessons include:

  • Mayo Clinic will continue to succeed because it is focused on the right things: providing superlative experience and relying on word of mouth from everyone in its ecosystem. Word of mouth is gaining more leverage every month as more people adopt Web 2.0.
  • When employees are excited and can share their impressions in an open forum, that can serve as a strong catalyst for bringing customers into the mix. It also does wonders for recruiting and public relations. In healthcare, patients read employees’ comments and realize that these are people who can take care of them.
  • Mayo Clinic’s experience shows that repurposing content can play an important part of launching a Web 2.0 program, although companies should not restrict themselves to that.

So where is interactive marketing headed for healthcare? Perhaps the best assumption lies in analyzing what the leading industries (and leaders in those industries) have successfully been doing in interactive marketing. This video from Best Buy, which describes its interactive marketing campaign, provides valuable insight into the value of digital marketing and shows us where healthcare  marketing is most likely going (albeit with some added FDA and other regulatory requirements).

Related posts:

  1. The Job of Digital Marketing
  2. Digital Acceleration: Scaling Your Marketing and Sales Efforts
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