6 Tips for Marketing to HCPs on LinkedIn

Healthcare professionals – including physicians – have become very active on social media platforms, particularly LinkedIn. Whether is for networking with peers, interacting with patients, or doing research, doctors are making use of LinkedIn extensively, thanks in part to the Covid-19 pandemic.

One report in 2020 found that 46% of physicians participated in social networking for professional purposes, which was up from 34% in 2019. Physicians tend to prefer the profile privacy and group discussion controls LinkedIn offers versus platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

This makes LinkedIn an attractive channel to reach doctors and other healthcare professionals. Let’s look at five tips for marketing to doctors on the professional networking platform.

 

Strategies to Reach HCPs on LinkedIn

1. Post Content in Healthcare Hub

Last year, we discussed LinkedIn’s launch of a new business solutions channel called the LinkedIn Healthcare Hub. Here you can specify audiences, track performance, and create advertising specific to your healthcare audience. It can be used for brand awareness, lead generation, and account-based marketing. The Hub offers advertising best practices, customer stories, and more – with the goal of helping you get the most value from your LinkedIn marketing activities.   

 

2. Join Relevant Groups

LinkedIn Groups offers healthcare marketers a way to connect with group members and participate in relevant discussions that can generate leads. There are many healthcare-specific groups where marketers will find physicians, practice decision-makers, and medical executives from various healthcare organizations. By joining these groups, you can raise awareness (in a respectful way), answer questions, share insights, and engage with your target audience.

Groups include:

• Physician Liaisons, Physicians Relations & Practice Representatives
• Patient Education & The Patient Experience
• Medical Group Management Association (MGMA)
• Healthcare Executives Network (HExN)

Refer to LinkedIn Help Center for more help finding and joining a group.

 

3. Aim for Engagement, Not Messaging

Make engagement your goal on LinkedIn and avoid using the platform as simply a unilateral messaging venue. Physicians work long hours and have limited time to waste. So they often seek to engage with brands that provide value to their daily work lives. Therefore, by providing real value (not simply broadcasting messages), you’ll have a higher chance of getting leads to engage with you.

Physicians can also be a skeptical group. Therefore, when you do get members of your target audience to engage, there is a greater likelihood that they will continue to explore your solutions. So be sure to create value within every communication on LinkedIn and respect how and why doctors use the platform. 

 

4. Promote Customer Testimonials and Reviews 

Leverage LinkedIn to share patient and peer testimonials or reviews of your solutions. Provide positive experiences on your brand’s profile or in medical groups that you belong to. Physicians tend to respect the claims of peers and actual patients, and LinkedIn’s reputation for being a professional network can help add credibility to your messages. If those cohorts are giving good reviews about your healthcare brand and are willing to recommend it to others, doctors are more likely to be influenced and express interest in your healthcare solutions.

 

5. Make Use of Sponsored Ads

Even on the most suitable social network, getting traction among the many campaigns that doctors are exposed to requires an effective advertising strategy. Sponsored ads can be effective when you target your audience as narrowly as possible.

Using sponsored ads, you can reach your most valuable leads and run targeted campaigns by specialty, location, seniority, practice type, and more. LinkedIn allows you to refine your target audience for sponsored ads so your messages reach the inboxes and media feeds of the most relevant audience.

 

6. Use Ads for Top-of-Funnel Only

This tip is more of a caveat related to #5. LinkedIn advertising can be an effective tactic, but costs can add up quickly. LinkedIn ads are more expensive on a cost per acquisition (CPA) basis compared to Facebook or Twitter. So use LinkedIn ads as a means to build awareness and move leads into the top of your marketing funnel. From there look for more engaging ways to communicate directly via messaging or within LI groups to move your physician leads further into your funnel.

 

To learn more about how physicians use social media and other digital channels, check out our market intelligence infographic Physician Use of Online Resources.

 

Article Written by: Alex Brown