Long wait times and limited NHS access – especially for elective and non-emergency care – mean more patients are exploring private healthcare options. This growing demand also fuels competition between providers.
The task of cutting through this increased competition to reach and acquire new patients falls to marketers. If you want to maintain a steady flow of new and returning patients as demographics, research habits, and channels change, now’s a good time to take a look at your healthcare marketing strategy and refresh your approach.
Here are four key questions to ask to consider:
1. Do we use the right channel mix to reach the kind of patients we’re looking for?
There’s been a recent generational shift in the type of patients who choose to go private, with more 18-34 year olds funding private care themselves or via insurance. Younger audiences often prefer different research channels than older patients, meaning your marketing mix may need adjusting.
“Marketing across diverse channels helps capture multiple audiences,” explains Faye Thomassen, Head of Marketing for Mediahawk. “But you shouldn’t waste budget on underperforming channels that aren’t delivering high-intent leads.”
With better tracking and attribution, you can identify and prioritise high-performing channels, and prioritise your spend accordingly.
2. Are we engaging potential patients throughout their research journey?
Patients compare facilities, services, fees, and reviews before deciding. Your strategy should support them at every stage.
“Seeking healthcare can be a vulnerable time,” says Faye. “Given the costs of private care, people want to be sure they’re choosing the right provider. Many visit multiple times before enquiring.”
Proper attribution helps both measure marketing performance and personalise patient experiences. Call tracking, where each marketing activity is assigned a unique phone number, helps you understand:
- How a lead found your website.
- What they’ve interacted with.
- Where they are in their journey.
With this data, you can serve relevant content or calls to action, guiding them toward an enquiry. Integrating these tools with your customer relationship management (CRM) system also provides valuable context for support teams handling enquiries.
3. Are we reaching high-intent patients ready to book – and handling enquiries well?
A phone conversation remains the best way for patients to enquire about consultations, allowing them to discuss concerns in real time without entering sensitive health details online.
With conversation analytics, you can ensure these phone calls are effective, efficient, and personalised.
You can even get insight into your patient demographics with the right data protection rules in place.
A speech analysis tool uses artificial intelligence to understand the interaction, its outcome, and keywords that were used during the call.
This can help you understand:
- Whether the caller was ready to book an appointment.
- The kinds of questions your callers need answers to before they’re ready to convert.
- Whether your support team has the information and training they need to offer consistently high-quality responses to enquiries.
- If your patient journey guides people to the right resources and department.
- How you can adapt your marketing campaigns and patient journey to attract and retain more patients.
4. Can we clearly demonstrate the impact of our marketing strategy on the volume of booked appointments?
By tracking potential patients from the moment they engage to the moment they convert, you can draw clear lines between your efforts and the outcome.
It’s one of the ultimate challenges of marketing attribution – but it’s within your grasp.
You can achieve this level of attribution by combining dynamic call tracking with a sales reporting tool that links every touchpoint to a booked appointment.
It gives you a clear, step-by-step view of the journey your patients took, starting from the marketing activity that caught their attention in the first place.
This is highly valuable for two key reasons:
- You can do more of what works, and avoid using budget on activities that don’t deliver a good return on investment. When you know which channels to prioritise, the right keywords to use, and the most valuable resources to offer your prospective patients, you can drive more enquiries for your clinic.
- You can show other stakeholders in the organisation how your strategy is performing, and directly connect marketing activities to revenue. This leads to better engagement and buy-in from your colleagues – and can assist with budget discussions, too.
Summary
According to analysis by healthcare marketers Medico Digital, the average cost-per-click for paid media is £1.23, while the cost-per-acquisition is £30.66, with costs creeping significantly higher for specialties that offer a lot of elective procedures.
Private healthcare is a highly competitive, complex industry to market in, so it’s wise to take every advantage that data, analysis, and marketing tools can offer to ensure you’re gaining real value from your investment.
