Ever feel like your competitors are reading a secret marketing playbook you never got a copy of? You’re not alone if you are having these questions run through the mental playlist in your head:
Are you curious about what your competition is doing to set them apart? What makes their product or service better than yours? Why does your marketing fall short?
These are all great questions, and questions you should be asking. Why? Because 89% of healthcare marketers use paid search advertising. If you aren’t one of them, you should be.
B2B healthcare marketing is not an option in today’s digital-driven world. It is estimated that 9 out of 10 people in the United States have smartphones. That’s a lot of technology at your fingertips; ultimately, that is a lot of technology you need to leverage.
Let’s look at some common mistakes B2B healthcare marketers make with paid media, and what you can do to fix them.
Mistake 1: Running Paid Media Without a Strategy
A smart marketing strategy will have defined goals, and its marketing funnel will show this. Think of it like this: when you go to the grocery store, do you write a list ahead of time, or do you walk up and down each aisle hoping to remember what you needed to buy? Both will get you to the checkout line. But at what cost? Having a list gives you direction; if you plan your list, you will have a more logical path through the store. Going to the store without a list poses some problems. You might forget an item or end up circling the store because something you saw in aisle 6 reminded you of something in aisle 2. Then you need to go to aisle 9 and back to aisle 4. You might end up with the same items, but it will take you a lot longer to get there.
A poorly planned or no plan for your marketing may get you some results, but at what cost? You may spin your digital wheels and spend more money to get there. You might also be attracting the wrong leads. It will be more challenging to track your ROI without a solid strategy.
Healthcare marketing should have a strategy based on persona development, campaign goals, and funnel stages. You will have direction, multiple campaigns, and A/B testing to help you determine what is working and what needs to be adjusted.
Mistake 2: Poor Targeting or Broad Audiences
You now know you need a strong B2B healthcare marketing plan. Now, you need to know who will see your ads. It’s not good enough to say you want to reach everybody. That isn’t practical, and can cost a lot of money with little ROI. Healthcare audiences are niche and complex. Using filters to create an ideal audience, we narrow it down so the unwanted traffic doesn’t waste your campaign dollars. Look at titles, organization types, ABM (account-based marketing), and other filters you can build quality retargeting pools.
Mistake 3: Misalignment with Buyer Readiness
If you could contact your B2B audience at the precise moment they want to make a purchase, would you? Well, of course, you would like to grab those leads. But by the time the decision makers are ready to purchase, they have already been approached by a dozen other companies just like yours. That’s a problem.
Most healthcare buyers need nurturing, not hard selling. Your healthcare marketing efforts should reach buyers throughout the entire journey, not just the end result. They want to see what you offer and what your competition has that may be better suited for their needs. The trick is to catch their attention while they are at the top of the purchasing funnel and continue building a relationship, retargeting them with conversion offers. Only 5% of B2B buyers are ready to buy. You need to be prepared when they are.
Mistake 4: Ignoring the Power of AI in Optimization
Surely you have heard there is good and bad in using AI in healthcare marketing. Manual campaign management and ad ops become outdated quickly in today’s marketing. Your competition may be using AI-powered marketing to gain targeting and bidding advantages. In fact, 93% of healthcare marketers plan to adopt AI in their marketing. That’s considerable, and you can’t afford to be left without a piece of the B2B healthcare market.
Going this route can be dangerous when considering HIPAA-compliant marketing. Limit your use of AI to copy testing, audience modeling, and budget distribution, and refrain from having AI create the bulk of your content.
Mistake 5: Failing to Monitor and Adjust Campaigns
Now that you have some ideas about your healthcare marketing challenges, what is next? You can’t expect to get results again and again from the same campaign. You’ll need regular reviews and adjustments to your campaigns, preferably weekly. If you don’t, you will lose money on campaigns that have become dull with repetition. Tracking metrics brings you some control over your campaigns and ad spend. If you don’t see the green arrows in your CPL, conversions, CTR, and ROAS, you should be reviewing your campaigns. The average CPL for healthcare businesses is $401, making every dollar count.
Mistake 6: Skipping Retargeting or Nurture Paths
If you want to make an impact, you will need at least 6-8 touchpoints to convert a lead to a sale. That means you need to stay with the people who show interest, and probably a few who don’t. Letting high-intent visitors slip away after the first touch is worse than not getting them to begin with. They have already seen your ad and possibly clicked on it. You are now financially invested in that lead. If you don’t retarget them, you may lose that visitor and leave value on the table. It pays to keep marketing to that visitor, bringing them from awareness to the decision-making stage.
Mistake 7: Overinvesting in a Single Channel
When you consider your B2B marketing, think of omnichannel marketing, or at least multichannel marketing. We have discussed who you are marketing to, but not where to market to reach your ideal audience.
If you put all your budget into one platform, you are missing leads from other platforms. When doing your persona development, consider what platform they follow. Maybe they like to Google everything. Perhaps they live on LinkedIn. More likely, they will be on more than one platform. Imagine what it can do for your campaign if they see you everywhere. When looking at your data, a data analyst can determine where your leads find you, what they do due to your campaign, how much it costs you, and your ROI. It is best to allocate a portion of your budget to test emerging platforms and monitor the platforms you already use.
Smart Paid Media Is Intentional Paid Media
Common mistakes result from misalignment of audience, message, and timing. Be sure to audit your campaigns, realign your funnel, and use AI and analytics to drive results. Want to avoid expensive missteps?
