As a marketer of healthcare products or services, you’re familiar with multiple processes inside a living body. You’ll know that a breakdown in one step of a process can have serious negative effects on the overall functioning of a healthy body. Each step, no matter how small, has an important role in a system and a system of systems.

These missteps in nature can be managed or remedied with support in the form of your products and services. The basis of developing these products was the understanding of a healthy system; the various working parts and how they work together and in what order.

This is a useful analogy if you are moving into digital marketing for the first time.

If you plan to develop a digital marketing programme that will deliver consistent, healthy results, you need to start off by understanding the various systems, what they consist of, and how the various elements work together.

You’ll know the human body is complex and there are many systems, processes and steps to familiarise yourself with. Unpacking this is never going to be achievable in a single blog. Similarly. digital marketing is highly complex with an overwhelming number of components.

So, with this blog I won’t be able to cover every detail of every digital marketing process. However, it will give you a macroscopic overview of the various systems of digital marketing and how they work together to deliver healthy growth for your brand.

If you’re interested in learning about each system and process in more detail, subscribe to our mailing list to receive notifications when future blogs and other helpful resources are released.

The critical starting point is profiling your various target audiences. This ensures that your planning will be customer centric.

The process involves developing a detailed, holistic view of each different audience so that your marketing can avoid the common “one-size-fits-all” trap. If your company brand planning template doesn’t include a guideline for building detailed customer profiles, download our free Content Strategy Kit and complete the Customer Avatar worksheets.

Developing customer avatars is a powerful process that distinguishes the different goals, challenges and pain points for each of the various customer types your brand may need to cater for – in order to drive growth.

To build relationships with your customers and position your brand as a trustworthy authority, you can use the insights gathered from customer avatars to understand what information they are looking for and where they are looking for information – to solve their problems.

At this point in the strategy development journey it is important to remember that your brand does not exist in a vacuum. Do the necessary research to understand the offline and online context of your competitors. Visit your competitors’ websites and explore the content that they have made available. Use a SWOT analysis to help you prioritise your list of opportunities.

The next step is to create a plan for content that needs to be created or sourced. Your plan should include budgets for creating content and time allocations to allow for the internal approval processes that are an ordinary course of business.

Once you have a clear view of the information you need to provide to your customers to help them along their buying journey, you need to create a plan for where and when you will deploy the content you plan to create. Download our Web Strategy Kit for a quick start template.

Strategy development is a living process. And in a digital age where feedback and data analytics are virtually real time, so the effectiveness of a strategy can be measured in record time.

Become familiar with the information available in technology platforms such as Google Analytics. Identify which content is being viewed most frequently. Find out which platforms are generating the most valuable traffic.

Deploy. Measure. Course correct.

4. Engagement & Monetisation

As you continue to adopt digital marketing practices you can keep the human touch if you adopt the correct approach.

Human relationships are not typically formed by one greeting, one conversation or one touch. Rather it is a respectful sequence of engagements over a period of time that builds trust that is the foundation of relationships.

Platforms and technologies such Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Reviews empower people to share their stories.

As an effective digital marketer, you need to set up processes to listen to customers.

Marketing technology is evolving rapidly so there is no shortage of opportunities to start building relationships.

You need to engage healthcare professionals in meaningful conversations and discover insights with powerful mobile technology platforms for detailing. By moving beyond the limits of outdated paper detail aids, you can create personalised branded content for different HCP audiences.

Incorporating eMail marketing into your mix gives you the opportunity to hold the attention of customers and patients between face-to-face engagements with personal, customised messages. To get started with email marketing, download the Email Marketing Quickstart Guide .

Also, you can stay ahead of your competition and improve your customer experience with conversational technology. AI-powered personal chat agents help brands build trust faster by listening to and supporting customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Keeping your customers engaged and building a following are fundamental to boosting ROI for your marketing efforts in the future. Don’t try to employ all opportunities at once. Rather pick one that your brand can afford – and build from there.