Brands and businesses that will survive the hot competition in this ever-changing digital space invest strategically in their digital strategy.
The world is a global digital village. And the masters know this. They know how to beat the competition and stay afloat.
Those who refuse to follow the tide are left behind and gradually go extinct.
Software, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, amongst other cutting-edge advanced digital technologies, are already ruling the business ecosystem.
It’s no longer news or a hypothesis.
It’s already happening before us. It’s reality.
Early adopters are the smart ones who will rule the future of business–in all industries!
Are you going to be left behind?
“A digital strategy is an all-encompassing guide that defines the goal for your digital project and outlines the most effective pathways to achieve them.”
DigitalSilk
What About The Healthcare Ecosystem?
What used to be a very closed and conservative system is now slowly opening up to innovation and disruption.
Many years ago, people didn’t want to discuss their health on social media.
They preferred to go to the hospital and talk with the doctor or a healthcare professional.
No one was thinking of learning about their health conditions on the internet. The idea was foreign to all of us.
But it’s all changing. You can access more than 70% of various healthcare services right in the comfort of your home or your jacuzzi [if you have one].
All you need to have is a smart device and an internet connection.
There are so many companies and startups that are heavily innovating in the telemedicine/virtual medicine ecosystem.
It’s already a bustling marketplace.
The digital invasion is transforming every known industry, and the healthcare ecosystem is not left behind.
Innovative healthcare brands saw the handwriting on the wall and quickly began to invest in a digital strategy and adjust to accommodate the change that accompanied it.
Those who refused to evolve soon discovered they were sinking in a sea of technological advancements and aggressive competition.
People now depend on the internet to provide more than 85% of information concerning their health.
Digital health has even reduced hospital visits for patients who do not necessarily need to be seen by a general practitioner or healthcare professionals.
We are even reaching the point where you won’t have to visit the hospital to get some common and routine laboratory investigations.
All you need is an easy-to-use home module that analyses blood samples and sends results directly through the cloud to your healthcare provider for interpretation.
There are now portable ultrasound scans that can be used at home, and data generated are sent through secured paths to your healthcare provider for further interpretation.
Smartwatches record vital signs and send the trend directly to the cloud, which intelligent AI algorithms analyse–smart patches, blood pressure monitoring rings, ingestible smart capsules with sensors that can extract physiological data in the gut, and so many other remarkable digital technologies transforming the way we receive healthcare.
It’s The Future
The future is here, and you do not want to be left in the past.
These technological advancements influence how patients and clients receive care and play a significant role in how healthcare organisations and brands interact with their patients, clients and community.
Hospitals, clinics, and healthcare brands interacting directly with patients are now investing in digital strategies to help them reach out to more patients and clients and keep the ones already in their community.
They now have responsive websites, innovative software, social media channels and many other digital tools that help them communicate their brand ideals with the world.
People want to interact with social brands.
Our social taste as a specie has significantly evolved.
In the 1900s, you could tell a patient they had diabetes, and they’d go home with the information you gave them without questioning your judgement because your opinion was all they had access to.
But today, if you tell an average patient that they have diabetes or hypertension, they will question you, check the internet and bombard Google or CHATGPT [as the case may be] with endless questions and search queries.
They have access to information. They are in the digital age. And you, as a healthcare brand, entrepreneur or startup, must leverage this disruption to push your ideas forward.
How do you leverage it?
You simply develop a digital strategy.
Related Reads:
Why Your Healthcare/Healthtech Brand Needs Good Social Representation
Branding, Marketing & Community Building For Healthcare and Healthtech Brands
How To Develop A Solid Digital Strategy In This Digital Age For Your Healthcare Brand
A digital strategy is not all set in gold.
It’s an organic framework that should be flexible enough to change with the realities of the times.
It spells out how your brand intends to achieve its “brand goals” with the resources you currently have.
When planning or designing one, you consider the following:
- Your target audience.
- Competitive landscape.
- Goals.
- Key performance indicators.
- Existing user journey.
Entrepreneurs, founders, and team leaders must thoroughly consider these elements when designing a digital strategy for their brand, businesses or organisation.
They must factor in where they currently are, their resources, team motivation, abilities, overall strengths and weaknesses.
The most important reason to implement a digital strategy is to improve a brand’s online presence with the use of technology. And all other activities like a digital marketing strategy, branding, and community building all fall directly under the digital strategy.
And Suppose you can successfully implement a solid digital strategy as a brand. In that case, you should experience some level of digital transformation in major aspects of your business.
Digital transformation is the organisational and cultural changes your brand experiences when it correctly implements a solid digital strategy.
These are the areas of your business that should undergo certain degrees of digital transformation if your brand consistently follows a solid digital strategy:
- Customer Engagement.
- Customer Experience.
- Logistics and Operations.
- Product or Service.
- Business Model.
What Are The Key Elements Of A Digital Strategy?
These are the key elements of a solid digital strategy
- Smart Goals
- Research
- Target Audience
- User Journeys
- Key Performance Indicators [KPIs]
- Launch Plan
Smart Goals
Your goals must be specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound.
When designing your goals, ensure you take into consideration your available resources.
The “smart goal” tactics provide a set boundary and allow you to stay on track when designing your strategy.
In other words, it sharpens your focus and eliminates possible obstacles that may want to distract you.
Your goals can be to:
- Increase traffic to your website or improve performance within two months.
- Build solid social media pages and increase customer and community engagement by 100% within six months.
- Educate potential clients and your community about a new feature, product or service.
- Increase brand visibility and penetration in six months to a year.
- Start a newsletter and get a thousand subscribers in three months.
- Develop a content framework for your brand within the next three weeks.
There you go.
Your goals must be specific and razor-sharp. And they must be measurable, achievable, result-focused and time-bound.
Research
Research prepares you for what is ahead.
Before jumping into a busy, uncertain, or new market, you need to know what lies ahead. You use research to understand what is around and ahead of you.
- Industry Research: This enables you to understand the latest trends and innovations in your industry deeply. You need to know what is failing and what is in vogue. Re-inventing the wheel is only an option if you are an absolute genius.
- Market Research: Study your target audience and know who they are, what they want and how they interact online. Most healthcare brands ignore this vital aspect when designing their digital strategy. They feel that the healthcare population is “homogenous.” That’s a wrong assumption and will hurt your brand in the long run. Take your time to know your audience. Who are you building for? Your products and services are designed for a particular group of people. Look for them, study them and follow them.
- Competitor Research: Here, you want to know those brands doing what you are doing. Study their strengths and weaknesses. If you discover their strengths, build them into your brand, and if you find out their weaknesses, work to fill that space in your own business.
Target Audience
Your goal is to convert your target audience into your community.
They are the ones who will identify best with your services and products. They regularly interact with your brand.
And you can detect your target audience by:
- Conducting market research into purchasing habits, demographics [age, sex, gender] and psychographics (hobbies, habits and lifestyle).
- Understanding the needs and problems of people that your service or product can solve.
- Create user personas representing your ideal consumers.
User Journeys
Your user journey is a critical spot in your digital strategy.
A well-laid-out user journey will determine if people who find your brand online will become community members and customers [when they convert or become paying members].
One of the most important features of a user journey is the conversion funnel–this is the path the user follows to become part of your community and, afterwards, a paying customer.
Learn more about creating user journeys:
Creating User Journey Maps: A Guide | Coursera
To create quality user personas, you may need to employ the services of a UI/UX expert who will help design smooth experiences and journeys for your potential customers or users.
At Evolvehealth Media, we work with a team of highly experienced and passionate UI/UX experts ready to work with you in creating solid user journeys.
Key Performance Indicators [KPIs]
Measurement is vital. You must know what’s working and what’s not.
When you discover what works, put in more effort and improve. For those strategies that aren’t working, you either tweak them or abandon them altogether.
KPIs may include the following:
- Website engagement & traffic.
- Website conversion rate.
- Qualified leads per month.
- Customer acquisition cost.
- Social media engagement rate.
Read more about KPIs:
45 Digital Transformation KPIs: The Ultimate List | Digital Directions
Launch Plan
How do you want to execute your project using the digital strategy you have developed?
Your launch plan details how you intend to execute your project from the beginning to the end.
Your Digital Strategy Should Evolve
It should be organic and must grow with the tide. It should be able to adapt to the weather and easily slip into the trend. It won’t be able to adjust or adapt if it’s rigid and stiff. Instead, it breaks and hurts the brand or business.
No aspect of your digital strategy should resist change or transformation, particularly in healthcare, where things change dramatically. You should be ready to quickly adjust your digital strategy to fit the changes occurring in your industry or ecosystem.
“Trends and technology that were years away from serious consideration are now at the top of the agenda. Additionally, businesses are all grappling with the same challenges: remote working, new all-digital customers with different buying behaviours, and, added to that, their employees’ and their customers’ well-being.”
Alvaro Del Pozo, VP of international marketing at Adobe
Taking The Giant Leap
At the heart of building a solid digital strategy is your community.
Your community is everything; without them, you have no reason to operate a business or build a brand.
And this is why I firmly believe that when designing your digital strategy, you must consider the people first [people-centred approach].
They are the ones who will interact with your products and services.
They are the ones who will drop the feedback, and they will act like Bees, spreading the pollen of your business to other places.
So, you need to invest in processes, systems and technologies that help nurture your community.
At Evolvehealth Media, we work with experts to help healthcare and health-tech brands build solid digital strategies.
We understand that small and medium healthcare businesses and entrepreneurs are passionate about their brands and are eager and desperate to grow and succeed.
We know what it means to pursue an idea and work hard at bringing it to fruition; this is why we have decided to dedicate our time to helping healthcare and health-tech brands, businesses, and entrepreneurs build solid digital strategies that will transform their brands and position them for greatness.
You can reach out to us now and let us know how we can work with your brand to build a solid organic and innovative digital strategy that will drive brand growth, improve visibility and increase profit.
Please send us an email now: evolvehealthmedia@gmail.com.
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We can’t wait to create with you. Our experts and creators are ready to exceed your expectations on every project.
