Healthcare IT marketing requires experienced, specialized service to precisely and effectively reach your target market. If you are looking to partner with an external organization to run your digital advertising program, you want to find a professional with experience in your niche who can deliver results.
Before partnering with an agency, consider these 5 questions to help inform your decision making.
5 Questions to Ask Before Choosing A Healthcare IT Digital Advertising Agency
1. How much experience does your agency have with healthcare IT clients?
The marketing agency you partner with must understand how to connect with your B2B clients and know how to address their specific needs and pain points. Real-world experience with healthcare IT brands is a game changer when it comes to truly comprehending the complexities and unique challenges of the industry. There are plenty of digital ad agencies available with experience in B2B marketing and sales, but it’s experience in your niche that will make a noticeable difference.
Just because an agency has past success, does not mean their strategies will necessarily work for your brand. We have healthcare IT clients who have worked with large, reputable agencies in the past, and these agencies were still unable to capture the specific voice and messaging these companies were looking for because the agency did not have the necessary experience in healthcare IT marketing.
If you are looking for more information from healthcare clients, you can request referrals from the agency so you can contact them with your own specific questions. If you find that the agency worked in the past with a company similar to your own, it may benefit you to reach out to someone at that company to talk about their experience to see if that partnership is the right fit for you. Seeing the results from this company and discovering any pain points between that company and the agency can uncover where you might have issues with that agency.
2. What results have you delivered for healthcare IT companies in the past?
You can find out a lot about a company from a few internet searches. A trusted and professional agency should have information readily available regarding clients and past experience. Portfolios of work, case studies, and other evidence of delivering success to healthcare IT clients is the first hint to whether or not this agency is a fit for your brand.
Client reviews are one of the most trusted sources for consumers when reviewing brands online. Both positive and negative reviews can clue you in to whether or not this agency may be a good fit.
Once you have sufficient background information, you might decide to speak to someone at the company to answer any remaining questions you have about strategy and results. A responsible agency will not make promises about specific numbers they can deliver your company. Instead, an experienced agency should be able to explain their strategies and processes that consistently deliver results for companies like yours.
To vet the experience of an agency, you can ask questions about their processes and day-to-day activities to understand how they deliver the results they claim. You will want to know ahead of time how they will be monitoring your results, how often you can expect reports, and how the agency will analyze results and make informed changes to your marketing program.
3. Does your agency offer reporting, data analysis, and recommendations?
Reporting is essential for creating a scalable marketing program. Recording and following actionable data is key to building a marketing program that grows with your company. As your company’s goals change, your marketing strategy has to follow to continue delivering the desired results.
Ask about what type of reporting is offered and how data analysis and recommendations are delivered. You want to partner with an agency that is ready to work with an evolving brand; healthcare technology moves quickly, and your marketing strategy needs to keep up.
Basic healthcare IT marketing reporting should include the following:
Website Performance
Comparing metrics like top content pages, time on site, and bounce rates
Ad Performance
Review traffic, clicks, and goal completions from paid ads
SERP
Where your website ranks with various keywords of interest
Target audience
Breakdown of target audiences across platforms, like social media
Social Engagement
Social media metrics like traffic from social, goal conversion, and top pages
4. Is your agency a Google Partner?
Google offers a Partner certification, which can be an important indicator of the agency’s experience with Google advertising. Google Partners have access to training and additional support and resources, so you know they are always up to date on changes and can make sure your ads are optimized.
Google often makes changes to its policies and algorithms which can have huge impacts on healthcare advertising and SEO. Google has a long list of healthcare and medicine ad policies, with some healthcare-related content banned from advertising entirely and some content that can only be advertised if the advertiser is certified with Google.
5. What is the average size of your accounts?
This should not be the make or break factor in choosing an agency, but knowing the average size of the agency’s accounts can clue you in to if they are the right fit for your company. You will also need to know if there is a minimum monthly advertising budget, especially if you are a smaller start-up looking to explore advertising options.
If your company has a much larger budget than the agency’s average account budget, this might be a sign that this agency is not used to working with companies your size; this could be a red flag that they are not experienced enough to effectively use your budget to target your audience. If your budget is much smaller than the agency’s average, then it might be a sign that they would not be looking to work with such a small budget or could give you less attention than other bigger spenders.
Once you know what to look for in a healthcare IT advertising agency, you will be able to better assess the agencies you contact. Having a specific list of questions going into a meeting will help you to keep your top priorities in mind and help you assess the agency’s ability to meet your needs.
Working with an experienced, professional agency is necessary to creating a long-lasting, scalable healthcare IT marketing program.
Thanks for reading,
Crystal
