Influencer Marketing in Medical Tourism
In this ever-changing digital marketing landscape, healthcare companies also need to find innovative ways to reach their audiences. One of the most effective tools is Influencer Marketing.
Association of National Advertisers reported that 75% of advertisers opt to use influencer marketing and, and as it is successful 43% of them expect to increase their spending on it over the next 12 months. Influencer marketing is referred to as the ability of one person or campaign to form customers’ purchase decisions.
Influencer marketing isn’t just for the beauty, food, and fitness industries that usually come to mind. It can work in medical tourism too. Finding individuals who are passionate about your company, organization, or product is vital as people put more trust in user-generated content than content created by a company or brand.
What is Medical Tourism?
Medical Tourism refers to people who travel the world to get medical treatment rather than for fun. While in the past, people were traveling from less-developed countries to developed countries to get proper treatment, now the opposite is true. Nowadays, people tend to travel to developing countries to obtain cheaper medical treatment. It is mostly for surgeries (e.g., cosmetic), but people may travel to countries where treatment is the most understood.
We can use the health tourism term as a broader term for traveling that focuses on medical treatments and the use of healthcare services. It covers a wide field of health-oriented, tourism ranging from preventive and health-conductive treatment to rehabilitation and curative forms of travel.
If you want to start leveraging influencer marketing but don’t know where to start, keep reading to find out more how it is being used in marketing and promotional campaigns to reach prospective traveling patients, insurers, employers, and referring physicians is changing digital marketing.
Who can be an influencer in Medical Tourism?
Healthcare influencers could be everyone from healthcare professionals who are actively online to celebrities who talk openly and frequently about their health.
A physician or dentist refers a patient on to a specialist they know or respect or that they’ve read about in a journal article, etc.
A sports or cinema celebrity or public figure gives a glowing review of your service after being a patient at your facility.
Travel influencers who urgently need healthcare service, and finds your clinic more reliable.
Choose influencers wisely
Similar to all other marketing verticals, pick influencers based on their relevance to your brand values, their influence with your target audience and their desire to, in fact, be your influencers.
Consider who they are, what their story is, and why they are in health. If you’re going to work with actual health care providers and professionals, be sure to verify their credentials. The last thing you want to do is a partner with the wrong influencer. One who claims to be a doctor, but actually lost their license years ago, can ruin your reputation.
Trust is more important
Last but most importantly, medical tourism marketing involves consumer trust. Trust is imperative in the health care system, as people need to put their faith in the recommendations of their doctors, pharmacists, and other health care providers to feel their best. Trust is also imperative in influencer marketing. Consumers need to be able to rely on the words and advice from the people they follow online.
How much will it cost?
What brands pay those influencers can range from a few hundred dollars to a couple of million dollars, depending on the influencer, the platform, and the product.
Not all influencers charge a fee. But you can pay an influencer for their time and effort to create original content about your brand or that mentions your brand, but you cannot instead pay them a percentage commission based on closed sales as a result of what they wrote.
Some influencers promote exclusively on one social media platform. The platform chosen will impact the price charged by the influencer. More platforms are equal to higher costs. For one reason, the same content doesn’t work on all platforms interchangeably. The best influencers know this and create original content specifically for use on each platform, tailored to each platform following. If you are a small medical clinic, going with micro-influencers will cost less and have a closer relationship with their audience, so their brand recommendations will resonate with more of their followers.
How could Influencer Marketing be beneficial for Healthcare outlets?
This helps our clients to increase trust and credibility in the market in their segments such as hospital, clinic, or a diagnostic. Influencer marketing can enable and empower hospital in providing utmost care to patients, thereby creating the brand identity.
It creates long-lasting growth and provides a competitive edge in the market.
An influencer who you want to work with doesn’t have to be a single person or a person at all – Take Genentech’s #NotOneType campaign as an example.
The biotech company teamed up with Giuliana Rancic, Living Beyond Breast Cancer and ThirdLove to take a closer look at breast cancer because “breast cancer is not a one-size-fits-all disease.” A website was launched to serve as the center for educational information like breast cancer types, quick stats, and questions to ask. A pop-up experience was also launched in SoHo, NYC to provide an opportunity for further engagement and education.
Conclusion
Hospitals, Clinics, and Diagnostic centers can easily use and implement influencer marketing to increase the popularity among the people to drive more patients through influence. Healthcare companies who can engage patient communities and start a transparent dialogue are the ones who will rise above the rest.
Gulnar Ismayil
July 10, 2019