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New healthcare tools and treatments are often based on complex science. When this information is shared with patients as long reports or detailed case studies, it can be confusing or even overwhelming. This is why visuals matter. Conveying complex medical information via video increases patient engagement, awareness, and understanding. This is why marketing to patients using video is such a powerful and effective approach.
Visual storytelling via healthcare video marketing turns complex medical information into something accessible, helping patients make informed decisions. Let’s explore the most effective ways to incorporate video marketing in your healthcare practice.
How Video Works in B2C Healthcare
In addition to simplifying complex information, video builds trust, enhances engagement, and achieves higher information retention among audiences. It’s also more shareable, which instantly improves your reach and exposure. Videos with diagrams, animations, and other visual elements transform complex concepts into immersive, easy-to-understand packages of information and are especially helpful for those with varying levels of health literacy.
What Kinds of Videos Suit a B2C Healthcare Content Strategy?
The common types of educational videos used in B2C healthcare for patient education include explainer videos, doctor Q&As (or expert interviews), testimonials (patient stories), and treatment walkthroughs.
Here’s how that breaks down:
Explainer videos address a health topic’s “what” and “how,” helping people understand why the information they’re being given is important and how it fits into a bigger picture. This approach reduces ambiguity and confusion, ensuring the patient understands exactly which actions will take place and providing them with a valuable sense of agency and control in their decision-making.
To build trust and credibility in a highly regulated sector like healthcare, consider creating Q&A videos featuring a subject expert or doctor. This tactic conveys authority while humanizing your practice and solutions-oriented care.
Testimonials or patient stories are also highly effective in building trust by showing potential patients that not only are they not alone on their journey, but others before them have enjoyed positive outcomes with similar solutions. By featuring a diverse range of real patients, you help viewers see themselves in the experiences being represented.
Treatment walkthroughs (procedure videos) help reduce patient anxiety by showing patients what they can expect. Much like the psychological benefits of decoding the “what” and the “how,” a treatment walkthrough video prepares and reassures the patient for their upcoming experience.
How Video Marketing Reassures on Many Levels
It would be hard to find an adult in America who does not have access to a digital device. In fact, it would be hard to find anyone in America who isn’t actively engaging on social media and other platforms every day. People enjoy consuming information on digital devices. All you need to do is meet them where they are with content they’ll gravitate toward.
Studies reveal 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and is processed 60,000 times faster than text. Video also improves a viewer’s ability to remember concepts and details, with 95% of a message being retained compared to 10% when in text format.
According to estimates cited in educational psychology, around 65% of people are visual learners and are 27 times more likely to click on an online video compared to static copy.
Distribution Channels: A Strategic Approach
Video marketing for healthcare works best as a multi-channel strategy rather than relying on a single platform. Each channel offers its own benefits and should be integrated based on its potential to achieve your goals.
Your own website should serve as a primary home base for patient education videos. Hosting your video in a controlled environment, without competing with ads from other providers, reinforces credibility and brand retention. When embedded on relevant pages, this can also boost your search engine rankings. The only caveat is reach. Users will need to actively seek out your site to consume the video, whereas social media enjoys massive, barrier-free reach.
YouTube extends your reach. As the world’s second-largest search engine, YouTube allows you to engage and inform patients who are actively searching for information on specific conditions, procedures, products, or topics. It can help you enhance your professional reputation and, pro tip, has a high degree of evergreen potential, increasing your ROI.
We can’t forget, however, that YouTube is not peer-reviewed and, due to its popularity, may be cluttered by misleading user-generated content, which can be confusing for audiences.
Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok also have a place in your video marketing strategy. These platforms are excellent for reaching wide and diverse audiences and fostering real-time engagement. With a little creativity and targeted messaging, you can humanize your practice while gaining an impressive following. The key here is simplicity, the genius component that can lead to viral success. In Albert Einstein’s immortal words: “Genius is making complex ideas simple.” Don’t overcomplicate it.
Keep in mind when posting healthcare-related videos to any social channel that you may run up against specific terms and conditions that limit the reach of your content or prevent its publication entirely. Understanding how each platform deals with these types of videos will help you strategize the content you create.
How do you incorporate these platforms effectively? Here’s a general guide:
Core, high-quality educational videos should live on your website and be uploaded to YouTube to leverage search traffic.
Shorter, engaging videos are ideal for TikTok and Instagram (also consider YouTube Shorts for clips). They drive awareness and can persuade a desired action. Use these videos to point audiences toward resources on your website.
Ways of Measuring the Impact of Your Video Marketing
As with all forms of digital marketing, measurement is the cornerstone of success. Tracking metrics across the patient journey, from initial engagement to final appointment or conversion, helps you understand if your efforts are paying off.
Engagement metrics tell you if intended audiences are resonating with your content. These include (but are not limited to):
View Count: the number of times your video was watched.
Watch Time and Audience Engagement: the average duration period, which helps you gauge whether your content is being perceived as valuable.
Play Rate: the percentage of visitors who click the ‘play’ button on the video player.
Website Metrics: tracks session duration, bounce rate, and video engagement on your website.
Patient Inquiries and lead generation metrics track expressions of interest among audiences throughout the patient journey, and appointment conversions directly link your efforts to your goals and ROI.
Partnering With a Video Marketing Agency Optimizes Your Investment
Navigating strict compliance rules on social media platforms, performance tracking, and the ever-evolving SEO/GEO landscape make video marketing a complex and time-consuming process. You don’t have to go it alone.
At GoEpps, we specialize in B2B and B2C healthcare marketing in all its forms. If you’ve decided that video is the best vehicle for educating your patients, but you’re not sure where to start, begin with a discovery call with GoEpps. We can discuss your goals, explain our storyboarding and production process, and show you how to simplify this highly effective form of marketing with clear, compliant, and successful content. Get in touch today.
