10 Healthcare Marketing Trends for Your Health and Wellness Practices in 2024

Healthcare marketing is a unique puzzle to tackle. Although everyone has a need for healthcare-related products and services to ensure their quality of life, it can be challenging to make them look glamorous and appealing—ever more so to keep individuals engaged in the health system over the long term and to distinguish yourself from competitors.

Additionally, health and wellness organizations have to worry about HIPAA compliance and privacy concerns, along with building trust within the community. All of these factors combined make it necessary to take a strategic and multidimensional approach to advertising and marketing in 2024.  

What Trends will Impact Marketing for Health and Wellness Practices in 2024?

A successful health marketing strategy requires a multi-channel approach. Generally, it revolves around the 5 Ps: People, Place, Product, Price and Promotion. In short, considering your target audience, centering your product or service and where customers can acquire it, and determining how to appropriately value your product or service, and then creating various promotions that encapsulate those concepts.

While that general premise remains unchanged in 2024, the specific approaches, tools, and techniques you incorporate into your healthcare marketing strategy are sure to evolve based on current trends. Here are a few to take into consideration as you develop upcoming campaigns for your health and wellness practices:

1. Digital Marketing is a Critical for Healthcare Organizations

According to research from CallRail, website and SEO (search engine optimization), social media, and email marketing are the top channels for health and wellness marketing. Non-digital marketing tactics—such as print publications and events—are also still popular, especially for smaller clinics working to target local patients.

You should not abandon print marketing campaigns, and healthcare organizations should focus on putting time and effort into making sure they’re communicating well across digital platforms in lock-step with printed campaigns. When you tie together your print and digital marketing techniques, you maintain a consistent and cohesive message across various patient touch points, enhancing their experience and creating greater “stickiness” in their minds.

2. Inflation is a Challenge for the Healthcare Industry

Consumer uncertainty and inflation are challenges for healthcare organizations in 2024, and that’s something to take into account when developing your marketing campaigns. While health and wellness practices have historically been more “recession-proof” than other businesses and industries, it’s important to approach your marketing strategies according to the economic fears and concerns affecting individuals and communities. Social validation and case studies are a few ways to showcase value and communicate your message in a way that addresses the population’s decreasing risk tolerance and desire to prioritize physical and mental health.

 3. Improving Local and Technical SEO is Essential

Another important marketing trend in 2024 is improving the local and technical SEO on your professional website. When individuals are looking for health and wellness services and products, they are likely to turn to the Internet for options. You want to ensure your website ranks high in search-engine results by being accessible, crawl-able and indexable. Additionally, local SEO has become increasingly important, especially since people are likely to want services within close geographical proximity.

You can improve your local SEO by incorporating focused keyword phrases and search terms related to the Colorado Springs area, making sure your site is listed on local directories, optimizing your Google Business Profile, and other similar techniques.   

4. The Use of AI is Increasing Across Industries—Including Healthcare

Many organizations and businesses are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and ChatGPT at a greater rate these days. AI has become more accessible and easy to use, making it an appealing option for over-burdened and busy workplaces, such as hospitals and other wellness practices who want to streamline tasks like scheduling appointments and sending reminders. However, issues around patient privacy and overall data security should be a high concern for healthcare organizations when sharing information with AI tools for marketing purposes. 

5. HIPPA Compliance and Government Oversight Put Constraints on Medical Marketing

Along the same lines, heightened concerns around data privacy make it imperative for marketers to target audiences and cultivate a level of personalization without violating HIPAA’s privacy rules. As marketers and business owners, it’s important to keep up to date with government regulations and guidance so you can be a step ahead when developing your healthcare marketing and always remain in compliance. Across your various platforms and touchpoints, integrate advanced encryption, technical safeguards, and other security measures to keep your patients’ information safe and private.  

6. Phone Calls Remain a Top Lead-Generator

Due in large part to the nature of the healthcare industry, phone calls continue to be a primary source for communication that revolves around generating leads and retaining customers. It doesn’t require a lot of new or challenging technology, which is beneficial for both busy offices and busy patients. It’s also fairly cost-efficient. However, knowing that individuals who are looking for health and wellness services heavily prefer phone calls, healthcare organizations should explore ways to use that channel to their advantage. 

Direct mail and EDDM marketing campaigns also serve as a great option to get your brand in front of prospective patients and reduce the friction it takes between their need and them picking up the phone and calling your office.

7. A Desire for a Human Touch—Even in Digital Spaces

As health and wellness practices, it’s important to avoid an overly clinical appearance in online spaces. Individuals are craving that “human touch.” They want to know their medical providers are real people who actually care about them.

This is particularly important since the health and wellness services are often associated with very raw, human needs and vulnerabilities. From user-friendly interfaces and engaging content to a welcoming appearance, consider how to make your professional website and other digital communications more inviting and less sterile.

Social media is another avenue for sharing important information but in a way that’s more down to earth and approachable when done well. You also can highlight connections and partnerships that demonstrate your commitment to the Colorado Springs community. Additionally, have a presence at local events, from street fairs and trade shows to farmers markets and resource fairs. 

 8. Healthcare Organizations are Focused on Implementing Website Accessibility

Another trend in healthcare marketing that will continue in 2024 is the need for accessible websites. You can look for guidance from the international organization W3C, which established guidelines surrounding accessibility on the Internet in 2021. Last year, the organization updated their WCAG 3.0 accessibility guidelines, and businesses will continue making improvements to their websites in 2024 to reflect those updates.

The goal is to make your professional health or wellness website approachable, convenient, and easy to navigate for all web users. Additionally, you want to provide features that improve their experience and let them access the information they need online, including lab and medical records, appointment scheduling, billing records, prescription refill requests, and updated business information.  

9. Using High-Quality Content and Materials to Engage Patients

Part of effective branding in healthcare marketing involves engaging patients and interested individuals through high-quality materials and resources that establish your practice as an authority in the health and wellness realm. This could include e-books and guides, webinars, informative videos, animated content, and case studies. Patients want to feel informed and empowered to make decisions about their health, and your content can help them do that. You can also engage your community through health challenges or online Q&As where your professionals answer questions and interact with participants. Also, providing apps for people to stay connected to your organization throughout their healthcare journey is a growing trend for medical marketing in 2024.  

10. Telehealth is Here to Stay

Telehealth proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it continues to have a lingering effect on the health and wellness industry. Patients got a taste of how convenient it is to connect with healthcare professionals remotely, especially for activities like consultations, asking questions, getting advice, or conducting followup appointments after in-person visits and procedures. Of course, not all health and wellness services can be provided remotely, but there is an expectation to make telehealth an option to help support your patients’ healthcare journeys.

Staying Up to Date with Healthcare Marketing Trends

Patient needs and behaviors are frequently evolving, and it’s important that your marketing efforts grow and adapt in turn if you want to ensure your healthcare organization stays relevant and competitive in 2024. With the unique demands and pressures faced by healthcare organizations and medical practices, it can be challenging to also stay up to date on marketing trends. That’s where our team at Third Angle can be of assistance. We can work with you and your organization to develop marketing campaigns and materials that address the top priorities of patients and distinguish your brand as a leader within the healthcare community.