5 Digital Trends You Need to Adopt This Year to Remain Top of Mind

Rachel Seidman
Vice President, Digital Innovation
The Whyse

This year, digital healthcare marketing is beginning to take on the new form of elevating the customer experience due to smarter users, while communicating the value your brand has to offer by providing the right messaging, and contact, at the right time. As we gain access to more technologies, and our audiences get more comfortable with them, we expect agencies to continue to push the industry standards by providing healthcare professionals with a fully immersive, omnichannel experience.

The “Amazonification” of healthcare is upon us. We continue to learn and grow from the pandemic. More than ever before, our audience’s need for content paired with enhanced technical capabilities is essential to thrive. Here are some trends you can begin incorporating today to create a digital strategy built for 2022.

Go hybrid (we’re not talking cars!)

Don’t forget to merge the physical with digital every chance you get. Add QR codes to print pieces, live booth experiences, in-office materials, and more. Why not continue telling your story, while collecting insights and analytics? With users of all demographics fluent with the QR code, we can tap into a realm of new exciting ways to connect experiences.

Incorporate more movement

With the booming growth of TikTok, all other social networks have been forced to adapt to feature video content the same way. Regardless of your target audience’s favorite social platform, chances are that they now also are featuring video more often than the traditional images or posts. Don’t be afraid to try something new—start creating more bite-sized video assets to utilize across all networks and websites. You would be surprised by how much of your audience is active on underutilized networks like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Clubhouse, and even reddit!

Beef up your content and branding

Web consumption and device usage are on the rise. It’s important for your brand’s voice and strategy to come across in every piece that you put out into the world. You never know if your ad will be viewed next to a competitor within the same indication, or on a social network next to a meme. According to Dr. Carmen Simon—neuroscientist and Chief Science Officer at Corporate Visions—your audience remembers 10% of what you show them. Be sure to share your story in an easily digestible way to get your message across and make it easier to remember.

Put down the cookies

With third-party cookie targeting going away, it’s important to prepare so that your campaigns don’t suffer. The emphasis on your first-party data growth strategy compels your brand to establish more meaningful experiences with your users to grow your audiences and segmentation capabilities. Additionally, it’s important to weigh your partnerships and placements carefully, and begin asking for their paid digital placements’ capabilities across other networks. This strong foundation of first-party data and partner-specific targeting will help create a cohesive experience for your target audience. Which brings me to the last trend we are seeing many focus on this year.

Leave no channel behind

It’s time to turn disconnected channels into connected experiences that also provide connected data and insights. Creating a unique and effective omnichannel, storytelling experience across print and digital is never easy. Thanks to the insights, we can gather what our audiences prefer and decide how to optimize placements based on past performance. You should have everything you need to strategically message the right users at the right time, and on the right platform. In addition, thanks to platforms with capabilities for chatbots, CRM, social, email, text, inventory management, sales representative communications, and more, the tools and possibilities for connecting the HCP experience are at our fingertips. HCPs want the white-glove, Amazon-like experience, and are now expecting it from us in the pharmaceutical world. They have experienced what is possible, and now believe it is the new norm.What will you be innovating in 2022?