Brand building is an important tactic for businesses of all shapes and sizes, helping them to define their place within the market. It’s all too often neglected by businesses in the healthcare sector, though, who prioritize their budgets elsewhere.
Building a recognizable brand can be a game-changer for healthcare businesses, so here are some tips to help you get started.
#1. Find your niche
Healthcare is an exceptionally varied industry. Businesses operate within specific niches, be that drug procurement, social care, or alternative medicine, but to build a brand, you need to find an even more specific area.
This means working out exactly what your business stands for, its values, and its ethos. These are the aspects of your business that help it to stand out from the crowd. It also informs the decisions that you take in other areas of marketing, including on social media, through blogs, and videos.
Customers are nowadays more conscious of the products they buy and the services they use. If they know exactly what your business stands for, they’re far more likely to trust you.
#2. Work on your social media presence
Social media makes it much easier for businesses to build a brand. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter give you an unprecedented opportunity to reach customers and communicate with them, letting them know exactly what your business stands for.
Posting image and video content related to your niche, using the company colors and company “voice” establishes your presence online. Better still, you can use social media to expand on your business’s ethos. If, for example, you specialize in natural cures and remedies, then your social media should reflect this.
It might adopt a green focus, sharing resources, images, and information about all-natural remedies and healthy living. Social media is a fantastic way to establish what you stand for and to build an audience.
Don’t be afraid to get light-hearted, either. The best social media accounts aren’t adverse to cracking jokes and even posting memes.
#3. Work with a marketing agency
Building a brand is a difficult and ongoing process. Since healthcare is already an extremely demanding industry, it makes sense that so many companies choose to outsource the task to specialist agencies like www.clickintelligence.co.uk.
As well as helping you to build a brand, these industry specialists will ensure that it’s amplified and reaches as many people as possible. There are lots of different ways to reach the maximum audience online, including PPC advertising, SEO, and compelling content.
A marketing agency will advise you on the best combination of methods to suit your business and the type of brand you’re trying to build. A long-term strategy is important, and working with professionals helps you to plan a road map for the future.
#4. Design an eye catching logo
Logos are a tricky proposition. A well made logo should be eye-catching but also simple; it should communicate the brand identity of your business without overloading the viewer with too much information.
For example, a logo that consists of too many words or a cluttered design looks unprofessional, whereas something bland doesn’t hold attention and won’t be memorable. It’s a tricky line to tread, so many healthcare businesses simply hire a graphic designer rather than trying to tackle the challenge themselves.
Even this can be a fraught process, though. Avoid sourcing designers from job boards like Fiverr, who prioritize bulk orders over quality. Instead, work with a specialist designer. They’ll consult with you directly to produce a final quality product.
#5. Be uniform
Uniformity is overwhelming the most important part of brand building, and it applies to every aspect of your business. Your website, social media presence, and email correspondence should be carefully designed to match your brand identity.
Color schemes and fonts are obvious factors to consider, but even the company voice should be carefully designed to match the brand. How you communicate on social media and emails is just as big a part of your brand identity as the logo.
Apple is an excellent example of a uniform brand identity. Everything from the products to the stores to the shipping process and email communications has the same aesthetic clearly identifiable as Apple.
Replicating this level of attention to detail is certainly a daunting prospect, but a coherent brand makes your healthcare business instantly recognizable in a crowded field. That might even be the difference between prosperity and failure.
#6. Use giveaways
Following on from the previous point, giveaways are an excellent way to entice new customers towards your business while simultaneously building brand awareness, but they need to be tailor-made.
Any giveaway should, of course, be related to your business. If you specialize in skin treatments, a giveaway that features sample lotions and products will give customers a taste of what they can expect from the rest of your business.
Make sure that the packaging matches your brand exactly, though. Colors, logos, and tone should exactly match the aesthetic of the rest of your business.
Beautiful packaging makes just as big an impression on customers as the products themselves, so be sure to make a memorable experience that amplifies your brand.
#7. Encourage ongoing relationships
Ongoing relationships between a healthcare business and its customers are extremely important. Just as patients rely on you for their healthcare needs, you rely on their repeat custom and positive word-of-mouth recommendations to help the business grow.
No appointment should be viewed as a one off occurrence. Rather, you should work to build a health profile for each customer that includes their concerns, any medications and their healthcare goals. Follow up regularly and send out reminders for customers to attend appointments.
Schedule checkups and offer consultations so that patients can ask any questions and you can work together towards their long term goals. When patient relationships become inseparable from the core business brand, then you know that your healthcare company is in a fantastic position to expand and grow in the future.