Inbound marketing is particularly suited for navigating the complex B2B buyer journey in the healthcare SaaS industry. However, maximizing the outcome requires a solid healthcare marketing strategy, an agile approach, plenty of patience, and a strong understanding of the market’s complexities.
So, what does it take to succeed? Let's explore the nuances of the inbound approach and the essential components of an effective strategy.
According to HubSpot, inbound marketing attracts leads and customers to your business by aligning with your target audience's needs and priorities. It aims to deliver a tailored buying experience that drives customer engagement and growth by sharing valuable and relevant content.
Inbound marketing helps you attract new website visitors, convert them into leads, transform them into customers, and then retain and delight them – turning them into brand evangelists who will refer others to your business.
Now, you may wonder, how do inbound and outbound marketing differ?
Outbound marketing involves proactively reaching out to prospects and “pushing” your message to them. On the other hand, inbound marketing uses valuable and engaging content to “pull” your target market towards your brand.
Outbound marketing uses channels like cold calling and emailing, direct mail, or advertising to get in front of prospects and let them know about your product offerings. Meanwhile, inbound marketing uses blog posts, webinars, social media posts, and video content to drive website traffic.
While some marketers consider inbound vs. outbound marketing a binary choice, the approach doesn’t work well in a complex market like healthcare software. An effective healthcare marketing strategy straddles the full marketing mix to encompass inbound and outbound marketing components.
The inbound methodology is particularly suited for addressing the unique challenges in healthcare SaaS marketing. It helps you navigate the long and non-linear sales cycles where multi-person buying groups often take a year or more to make a purchase decision.
The inbound approach enables you to appeal to multiple decision-makers, including IT leadership, the finance department, hospital administrators, and medical staff, each with unique concerns and priorities. Here are the top benefits of inbound marketing for healthcare SaaS companies:
Inbound marketing builds brand awareness
Sharing relevant and valuable content demonstrates that your company understands the prospects’ interests and challenges. As part of a holistic healthcare marketing strategy, an inbound approach helps you target multiple stakeholders simultaneously to generate interest within a complex buying group.
Inbound marketing is relatively inexpensive
Healthcare software companies have long sales cycles. Keeping fixed costs low and maximizing marketing ROI is essential for long-term success. Unlike outbound channels like PPC ads that require constant investment, inbound marketing relies on organic traffic that keeps on giving once you’ve established momentum.
Inbound marketing aligns with buyer preferences
Gartner found that 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience. They spend a lot of time researching solutions online before contacting sales. Inbound marketing helps you capture these prospects early in the buyer journey by sharing information they seek and continuing the conversation to build trust and brand awareness.
Inbound marketing is no magic bullet. Building a robust online presence, creating a successful blog, finding a readership, and building a mailing list takes time. Most marketing experts estimate it takes six months or longer to see a tangible return on an inbound healthcare marketing strategy.
Additionally, it’s harder to quantify the outcome of an inbound strategy. You’ll need sophisticated analytics tools to understand whether website visitors were attracted by your insightful blog posts, entertaining social media comments, or outbound marketing efforts — and how they work together throughout the customer journey to deliver results.
Unlike outbound marketing, where a “spray and pray” approach might work, implementing an inbound healthcare marketing strategy requires deep knowledge and understanding of your target market. Healthcare content marketing requires a targeted approach that adapts to market shifts quickly while demonstrating your expertise.
So, what does it take to design and implement a winning inbound healthcare marketing strategy for SaaS companies?
1. Develop an in-depth awareness of your target market
Understanding your audience is the foundation for developing effective content and sharing it through the best channels to drive high-quality traffic. First, develop or update your buyer personas — you may interview existing customers to learn why they chose your solution and frame the product strategically to capture new leads.
Additionally, input from your best customers gives you invaluable “voice of the customer” information. The insights help you identify the exact terms, phrases, and examples most likely to appeal to potential buyers.
2. Create a comprehensive omnichannel inbound marketing plan
B2B buyers consume content from multiple channels. Meet them where they are and apply a cohesive and appealing brand voice to maximize the impact of your inbound content.
Incorporate regular, valuable, and shareable blog posts and guest posts on niche industry sites into your content plan. Also, establish a presence on appropriate social media channels (e.g., LinkedIn) and incorporate relevant hashtags to share your blog posts and drive website traffic.
Don’t overlook search engine optimization (SEO), which helps you gain exposure to prospects actively seeking a solution. Include lead capture mechanisms on your website and leverage email marketing to nurture relationships with prospects. Use segmentation techniques to share relevant content as recipients progress down the marketing funnel.
3. Work with an experienced healthcare marketing agency
A healthcare SaaS marketing agency understands the industry’s complexities and knows how to leverage the latest tools to support a holistic healthcare marketing strategy. It also combines inbound and outbound marketing to achieve short-term results and generate momentum while setting the foundation for long-term success.
Choose an agency that goes beyond delivering a menu of services. It should be a partner who takes the time to understand your solution, audience, and vision, leveraging the insights to craft high-quality content. It should also promote the content through multiple channels to position your brand as a trusted resource and attract converting traffic.
Prevounce Health partnered with Spot On to harness our expertise in the healthcare industry and inbound marketing. We helped the company identify the most relevant keywords and built a rich mix of content to rank on the first page of Google search results.
We coupled this robust SEO strategy with customized PR tactics, drawing on our extensive network of well-respected industry publications to increase Prevounce’s brand presence. As a result, Prevounce saw a 1,600% increase in closed deals and massive growth in meetings and demo requests.
Schedule a time to chat and see how we can help you implement a holistic healthcare marketing strategy to reach your goals.
Rebecca Graves co-founded Spot On in 2012. As a partner and leader of client services, she takes immense pride in being in charge of “client happiness.” The role allows her to wield her problem-solving skills while fostering big-picture perspectives and team building. Rebecca’s more than 35 years of experience have equipped her to translate strategic planning expertise for the advancement of tech companies transforming the healthcare, financial, and legal industries.
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