Leverage Retail Strategies To Drive Your Healthcare Business

Ken Robbins, Founder and President of Response Mine Interactive

Is retail strategy relevant to your work as a healthcare marketer? The answer is a resounding yes, according to Ken Robbins, Founder and President of award-winning digital agency Response Mine Interactive (RMI).

“Techniques used to increase conversions for larger retail organizations can be very successfully applied to healthcare,” he says. He offers the following stats in support of this claim:

• Digital interactions influence 36 cents of every dollar spent in a retail store, a sign Web browsing can often be a gateway, not a deterrent, to an in-store purchase.
• Digital interactions influence 50 percent of in-store sales.
• Customers who shop both online and offline with a specific retailer buy 250 percent more on average.
• But most important, 45 percent of consumers search for physicians using search engines.

So how do you take these “health-sumers,” as he calls them, from online searchers to actual customers at one of your walk-in clinics or practice locations?

1. Deploy Content Marketing That Makes Health Information Easy to Find and Empowers Decision-Making

“Traditional retail centers on the fact that online shopping is an enjoyable experience, and retailers connect to that emotional appeal,” Robbins says. “But in healthcare, online research is driven by the fact that an individual has a health concern, either about themselves or a loved one. Healthcare prospects need information that is relevant and valuable with regard to the health condition they are researching. You can start the prospective patients on their journey by creating a steady stream of relevant blog and social media content that demonstrates to patients how they can benefit from your organization’s expertise.”

2. Once You’re On Their Radar, Don’t Waste Their Time

“It may not surprise you that 62 percent of Web users made a purchase after their online research,” Robbins says. “But what may surprise you is that that a one-second delay in site load time could result in a 7 percent reduction in conversions. Conversely, retailer giant Wal-Mart found that for every one second of improvement it made to the speed of its website, there was a 2 percent increase in conversions. Your site needs to load quickly before any potential patient becomes frustrated and moves to a new source for health information.”

Want more? For all 6 of Robbins’s retail-inspired tactics for converting online healthcare searchers to real-life patients, read our full article now: 6 Ways Healthcare Marketers Can Boost Conversions with Proven Retail Strategies.

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President